Stephen Baxter: Flood

Thandie waylaid Lily before they went in.“Listen, Lily. I’ve had some luck.”

“With what?”

“With finding out about Ark One.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s something to do with Pikes Peak-the USAF base there. And there’s some kind of operational center in the town of Alma, Colorado, which happens to be the highest city in the continental US. I got a few hints because some of my buddies at NOAA are involved. It’s evidently a major operation.”

“So what is it, another ship, a submarine, a refuge?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s speaking. But the leaks are coming because they’re recruiting a crew. Tough selection for skills; sounds like you have to have two doctorates just to make the short list. And single people only, no families, no kids. But they are taking pregnant women, early term anyhow.”

“Why?”

“Genetic diversity, I guess. As large a variation as possible given the size of the crew. If I’m pregnant I’m carrying the father’s genes along for the ride.”

“So how do I get Grace onto this program?”

“I’ve no idea. Tell you who I’d ask, however.”

“Who?”

“Nathan Lammockson. If anybody can pull the strings to swing something like this it’s going to be Nathan, right?”

Maybe, Lily thought. But there was also Hammond in the equation, Nathan’s own son. Wouldn’t Nathan put him ahead of Grace in the queue for this miraculous sanctuary? Thinking quickly, she said, “Can you get me through to Ark Three? I’ll try to speak to Grace direct. And I need to get back to the Ark myself.”

Thandie pursed her lips. “That depends on the captain and ship’s orders. Might be months away.”

“I know. Whenever you can.”

Bill called from the observation room. “Show’s starting, you guys.”

The observation room was crowded. The captain, his XO and other senior officers had come to witness this robotic jaunt live. When the door was closed, and the dim red glow was the only light, Lily felt vaguely oppressed by the unseen bodies around her. Manco’s small hand crept into hers.

“Oh, shit,” Bill said. “Here it is.” He sang the Big Ben melody. “Ding dong ding dong…”

Everyone peered into the screens.

It was as if the ROV were flying along the bed of the Thames, heading downstream. Many of the bridges still stood, but the river bed itself was empty, the river vanished-or rather it was as if the river had risen up to drown the whole world. Boats littered the bed, sunken and abandoned. On the banks, Lily thought she saw rows of hummocks that must be cars, immobile and silt-covered. Everything was draped in a murky ooze that blanked out color and softened every profile, obscuring detail.

To the left the ROV’s powerful lights picked out spiky ruins, a splintered tower like a tremendous stalagmite. This was the Palace of Westminster, home to the British parliament for centuries. The ROV swept away from the river and roamed over the north bank. It followed Whitehall, the government buildings outcroppings of encrusted sandstone amid the ubiquitous slime, and came to the open space of Trafalgar Square. Nelson still stood proud on his column, which was draped with sponges and weed. The ROV descended to the pavement of the square. The ooze was thick here, and there was a surprising density of life.

Thandie spoke enthusiastically. “Remember there’s no plant life down here, only animals and bugs. So the ‘forest’ you see is actually animals, sea anemones, corals, tubeworms. And the ‘browsers’ are sea cucumbers and sea urchins.”

Lily remembered standing in the square with Piers and the others just after the storm that flooded London. Now the living things of the deep sea, entirely alien to Lily, struggled and squirmed in the slime.

The ROV rose like a helicopter, returned to the river and nosed forward, heading downstream. At Tower Bridge Thandie had the crew pause the ROV and douse the floodlights. After a few minutes the familiar profile of the bridge became visible, illuminated by bioluminescent creatures that clung to its stonework or swam through its broken windows. You could even see how the bridge’s carriageway had been left raised when it was abandoned, like a salute. It was a strange, magical scene, Lily thought, as if the bridge had been draped with Christmas tree lights.

The ROV passed on downstream, over Wapping and Bermondsey, heading for Greenwich. To the left its lights glinted from the smashed glass of towering City buildings. Then the ROV rose up and panned, returning a panoramic view. As far as the lights penetrated the great reef of London spread away, its low hills covered by hummocks that were houses and churches and shops and schools, the work of centuries dissolving in the ooze. Every few minutes one of the other ROVs would drift through the field of view, probing, inquisitive, like an alien explorer.

“Hey, there’s the Dome,” Thandie said.

Lily peered to see. The Dome itself was long imploded, its fragile fabric structure crushed and decayed away. But the circular profile of its site was still clear, like a lunar crater, and you could see the remnants of the structures within, the concert halls and the outer band of shops and restaurants. Lily considered telling Manco that this strange place was where Lily had gone to retrieve his mother, uncle and grandmother, sweeping in on a chopper that had flown far below the present height of the New Jersey. But she couldn’t find the words.

In the plaza just outside the Dome, near the entrance to the North Greenwich tube station, there was activity, a blur of motion raising a cloud of colorless murk. Bill tapped the screen. “Look at those guys feed!”

Thandie said,“You get this sort of thing around a whale carcass. The deeps are basically starved of nutrition; a good fat corpse can feed whole biotas for centuries.”

Lily asked uneasily, “But that’s no whale, is it?”

“Not likely,” Bill said. “I’ve seen this in the cities before. Probably something like a subway station cracked open. All those packed-in bodies, you know? Preserved for years. The sharks and hagfish come first, for the decomposing flesh and the bone. Then you get the snails and worms and crustaceans, and then the clams and mussels that like the sulphides you get from decay. A big tomb can last for months. Feeding frenzy!”

Lily held Manco close, covering his ears with her hands.

July-August 2039

From Kristie Caistor’s scrapbook:

The New Jersey rendezvoused with the Ark in July 2039, a bit more than a year after rescuing Lily and Manco from the pirate raid. Kristie had a heart-wrenching reunion with her son.

After that, Kristie’s relationship with Lily became even more tangled. She had to be grateful to Lily for saving Manco from drowning in the first place, and looking after him on the sub. But Kristie was jealous. Lily had had Manco to herself for a whole year of his young life. He came back older, a bit calmer, taller, more experienced, changed. And Kristie hadn’t shared those changes with him. She showed him recordings she’d made on her handheld in the months he’d been away, but he showed no interest.

Nathan persuaded the New Jersey captain to stick around for a few weeks. He allowed the sub crew on board the Ark for rest and recreation, and threw some celebratory events in gratitude for the sub’s assistance, and to mark the fourth anniversary of the Ark’s launch. On the last night of the Jersey ’s visit, Nathan threw a party in the restaurant, for senior officers and special guests only. The submarine crew looked spick and span in their whites, and Nathan’s crew did him proud in their best surviving uniforms, tuxedos or ball gowns.