Stephen Baxter - Flood

When the ship was still, Lily heard some kind of loudhailer, an amplified voice bellowing out: “… orderly process. I repeat, you, the newcomers, the big fancy cruise ship and the rafts, pay attention please. Do not attempt to trawl the plastic, to scoop it up or upload it or extract it in any way. The plastic is the property of the commons. You may negotiate to purchase processed material from the trawling consortiums. Any attempt to primarily extract plastic without authorization will be met by lethal force. Please respect our laws and customs, and follow our orderly process. I repeat-”

A huge blast of feedback heralded the Ark’s reply. “This is Nathan Lammockson of AxysCorp aboard Ark Three. May I politely ask, who the hell are you, who appointed you, and who do you speak for? And by the way you split an infinitive.”

The answer came drifting back, uncowed. “You can call me the boss, Mr. Lammockson. My name doesn’t matter. I work for the licensed trawlers in this Gyre. They appointed me, in order that I and my police forces can keep order for the common good.”

“ ‘Keep order.’ We’re all on a garbage tip, and you’re the boss of the rats, right? Listen, pal, there’s a million tons of plastic washing around out there. Why the hell should I pay you?”

“You’re paying for the service of extraction, sorting, baling and loading, Mr. Lammockson. If you don’t like our service you’re welcome to go elsewhere.”

Nathan fell silent. Lily could almost hear his anger in the empty air. The boss resumed his peroration about his orderly process. After a time his voice was joined by parallel calls in other languages, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Malay, Japanese.

The Ark’s engines didn’t start up again. For all Nathan’s blustering he wasn’t going anywhere.

The only effective legitimate power left on the global ocean was the US Navy, always overwhelmingly more powerful than the rest of the world’s forces. But those surface ships that were still operational hung around the shoreline of the reduced continental United States, acting as offshore bases, assisting with evacuations, guarding the shore from unwelcome emigrants. Only the nuclear subs still roamed the global ocean, and even they rarely intervened in disputes that didn’t directly affect the interests of the US. In the resulting vacuum, the only authority was local, bosses like the self-appointed controllers of this Sargasso of plastic waste. Nathan wasn’t in a position to challenge them.

And, like any bum, he needed the garbage. Already small craft were pushing out of the deeper mass of the encrusted sea, rafts and trawlers and factory ships, sailing to the Ark to hawk their wares. Some of the rafts were quite extensive, Lily saw, with slabs of bright green on their backs, floating farms around which birds fluttered. The Ark crew let down rope ladders, and the lifeboat hawsers lowered launches into the litter-strewn sea. Soon the trading would begin.

A small hand tugged at Lily’s leg. “Aunt Lily! Mum says I can go swim in the sea.”

Lily looked down. It was Manco, now seven years old and cute as a button. He had turned out blond, astonishingly, further proof that his father Ollantay had been rather less than a true-blood Quechua. But like most of the children growing up on the ship he had been burned nutmeg-brown by the sun. And, barefoot, dressed in ragged shorts and an ancient replica football shirt, he was full of restless energy.

Every time the ship dropped anchor, so long as the seas were reasonably safe, the kids were allowed to go swimming. Now that the last of the onboard pools had been turned into an electrolysis tank there was no opportunity to swim otherwise. But this was a crowded, messy sea.

“I’m not sure, Manco. Did Mum really say it was OK?”

He thrust out his lip; he had his father’s stubbornness, and his grandmother’s. “Well, I wouldn’t lie. Mum says if you take me I’ll be all right.”

Lily sighed.“She did, did she?” This was typical of Kristie, who wasn’t above using Manco in this way to win another cheap victory over her aunt. Now Lily had a choice of either disappointing her great-nephew, or spending hours in a rubber suit bobbing around on a shit-covered sea.

Piers raised an eyebrow, looking amused. “Oh, you’ll be fine, Lily. Look, the divers are clearing the water.”

Lily glanced down. A squad of the Ark’s divers had dropped into the water, and were pushing back a rope perimeter, supported by orange floats, scraping a cylindrical volume of the sea free of garbage. More divers plunged into the depths, armed with harpoons to keep off any predators, human or non-human.

“I’ll wear my rubber suit,” Manco promised. “And my nose filters! Oh, please, Lily. Mum says I can’t go unless you take me.”

“Here.” Piers tossed her a radio phone. “I’ll keep in touch.”

“Thanks.” Lily sighed. “Oh, what the heck. Come on.”

Manco scampered across the deck, heading for the stairs down to the robing room. Lily followed, trying not to give Piers any satisfaction by looking too reluctant about it.

Lily got herself and Manco into off-the-shelf rubber suits, and despite Manco’s protests spent long minutes checking the suits over. The wetsuits were one item that were wearing out fast, and it paid to be careful. And she made Manco put on an orange flotation belt, even though he insisted they were for “babies.”

Then they went back out and clambered down a rope ladder that dangled into the water from the deck beside the foremast. Manco let himself drop the last half-dozen rungs into the water, where he splashed around with the other children already there, squealing.

Lily descended more cautiously, and stepped into the small dinghy a diver held steady for her, drifting in the garbage just outside the float cordon. Once in the dinghy Lily blipped its electric motor to move a few meters away from the cordon. The little boat’s prow pushed aside soda bottles and plastic bags and cling film. None of this debris could have been much younger than twenty years old; most of it looked as fresh as if it had come out of the factory yesterday. Now she was down and dirty in the vast scum, she found it didn’t smell of anything but the briny seaweed tangled up in it.

She let the boat drift. She found the rhythmic rise and fall of the swell, the lapping of the water, almost comforting. She watched the kids playing beneath the vast gray wall of the ship. Some of them had a ball, and were belting it back and forth, yelling, arguing over the rules of some game or other. But others, including Manco, just swam, ducking under the water for long intervals-dives that would have been longer if not for the buoyancy of the flotation belts. It was a common observation that the new generation of kids, the very youngest of whom had never set foot on dry land, were drawn to the sea, the endless mysteries of the depths that always surrounded them. Nathan fretted about the work ethic among these dreamy oceanic kids, who might have to become the Ark’s next crew once the present complement grew too old to serve.

Lily glanced further down the length of the Ark’s hull. It was like drifting beside a sheer cliff. All along the ship’s length, hatches had been opened, rope ladders let down and small cranes deployed, as the scavengers nosed cautiously in to trade. It was like a movie scene, Lily thought fancifully, like South Sea islanders come to offer shells to a Navy ship.

But there was nothing cute about the trade going on here. It was a question of survival, on both sides. The Ark needed the produce of this Texas-sized rubbish island. She hadn’t been allowed into any port since Nepal; she had had to rely solely on her internal resources, and the produce of the sea. Nathan’s sea concrete and magnesium plants still worked, just. Slabs of the concrete patched faults in the hull, and were being used for partitions within the ship itself. But there was no replacement for plastic or various metals, for aluminum or steel or iron. So here was the magnificent Ark reduced to trading fresh water or sea concrete or spectacle lenses or a visit to the ship’s dentists for reclaimed plastic fishing net and sacks of polystyrene fragments.