Christopher Priest - The Islanders

Evacuation presented a serious logistical problem, as any activity at all attracted the attention of the thrymes. The GP vehicle, kept sealed up close to the main building, was secure enough, but transferring to it and loading it up was fraught with dangers. While the team prepared, a boat was despatched from Tumo to pick them up.

Aubrac’s last message to the university summed up what he clearly felt at the time was the only significant discovery they had made: ‘This island group is uninhabitable,’ he wrote. ‘No one has ever lived here, no normal human being ever will.’

They went ahead with the evacuation but it was almost a total disaster. Fran Herkker was attacked by two thrymes while trying to enter the GP — in spite of the protection she was wearing she died almost instantly. The team felt they had no alternative but to abandon her body on the ground just outside the base buildings. In the stress and anxiety of making their escape, they had no facilities for burying or cremating her body. Less than an hour later, while the GP was still heading towards the coast, Aubrac himself was attacked by a thryme, which had somehow managed to get inside the vehicle. He died traumatically and with horrifying swiftness. Although the remaining three felt that in the interests of science they should at least attempt to take his body back for post-mortem examination, they quickly decided the danger was too great. Aubrac’s body too was abandoned.

Dake Lei, Yuterdal Trellin and Antalya Benger survived the journey to the coast and were safely picked up by the ship sent to save them. A few months later, Yuterdal Trellin died suddenly, and his body was found to be infested with parasitic grubs.

Thus the background story of the Aubrac Chain. Fifty years after the premature end of the expedition, the entire group of thirty-five islands was named after Aubrac, as was the largest island: Aubrac Grande. Other individual islands were named Lei, Benger, Trellin and Herkker. The Archipelago authorities declared the group a nature and wildlife reserve, and entry to the islands was prohibited on an absolute basis.

That is how the Aubrac Chain might have remained until the present day, if it were not for two unforeseen events.

The first was the discovery of several colonies of thrymes on some of the more southerly islands in the Serques. Until this, it was believed that the insects were found only in the Aubracs and would be contained there by natural processes. How some of the insects had emigrated, or crossed the sea, no one knew, but it raised the horrific spectre of the insect starting to disseminate throughout the Archipelago, with an all too easily imaginable impact on the lives of millions of people.

The Serque colonies were eradicated, although thrymes are still encountered on some of the more remote islands. As for wider dissemination, since the Serque discovery colonies of thrymes have been found on other islands and the insect is now habituated throughout most of the tropical zone. By rigorous culls and other precautions, thryme colonies have been effectively contained and controlled. Some islands have succeeded in eradicating the insect altogether, but in most places it has survived at a minimal level.

In general the thryme is feared more than it is encountered. It is true to say that most people are phobic because of its appearance and speed, its darting gait, the movement of its long legs. Practical fear of the consequences of an attack is of course another matter entirely. The insect is easily identified and people stay well away from it when it is discovered.

Local Seigniory departments have set up eradication squads, and most public buildings are routinely sanitized. Property sold on the open market is obliged by law to possess anti-thryme certification. Effective antidotes to the poison now exist, if applied quickly enough.

The Aubrac Chain is the insect’s natural habitat. While the islands remained unused by human settlers the thryme was presumably dominant, as it had been before and during Aubrac’s few months of scientific work. But the population of the Dream Archipelago was increasing rapidly and the need for living and working space was mounting. The availability of a huge expanse of undeveloped island territory, lushly vegetated and quite likely rich in mineral deposits, was too great a temptation.

Corporations from the new technologies identified Aubrac as the ideal location for a gateway hub, made the necessary arrangements with Seigniory departments, and started construction and re-zoning work.

From the outset, the environment of the Aubrac chain was planned on a non-enviropollutant basis, which is to say that every existing aspect of the natural habitat would be systematized and supplanted. All danger from the thrymes would be removed along with everything else. Natural rainforest would be converted to woodland parks, deserts would be irrigated and made arable, rocky shores and open plains would be turned into leisure and sports complexes. Wildlife would be introduced to game parks, if no natural wildlife was already present. New cities would be built. New industries would leap into existence. Prosperity would be guaranteed.

In the modern age, the developed Aubrac has become the dynamic heart of the Archipelago’s booming silicon economy. The various huge IT corporations which now administer the islands are the engine-house of this prosperity, dominated by the creators and inventors of operating and networking systems. From the forest of gleaming towers, campuses and development facilities, all wrapped in landscaped parkland, the hidden infrastructure of today’s world is reliably routed through a system of hi-def optical cables and digital links.

From Aubrac arise all IT service and support facilities, unified communications setups, telepresence opportunities, content delivery facilitators, troubleshooting guerrilla squads, web exchange activists, borderless optical networking, application management, corporate partnership consultancies, vid-conferencing suites, prestige data centre availabilities, immersive operability and anti-operability, gaming interfaces, collaboration experiences and implementative facedowns.

Many of the thirty-five Aubracian islands have been ecologically systematized and industrially managed as planned by the IT companies, but a few of the smaller islands were parcelled up into smaller tracts to be developed by private enterprise as dwellings. The corporate standards of infrastructure remain on these residence islands, with total commute accessibility to the hubs, digital holism and full leisure gateways.

One of the largest Aubracian islands, Trellin, has been redesigned as a tourist and visitor attraction, based on its large sweeps of natural rainforest (fully managed, but reconfigured as a wilderness activity interface area), and the spectacular cliffs overlooking the Midway Sea. There are no zoning controls or plans on Trellin, because of the input of many entrepreneurs from the distant island of Prachous. These powerful Prachoit families are the principal interests behind the booming economy of the Aubrac Chain. Their luxurious homes are of course not accessible to visitors, but some of them may be glimpsed from afar.

For the intending visitor, certain preparations are necessary.

Firstly, a minimum amount of convertible currency must be imported to the Aubrac Chain and spent while there. The local currency is of course the Aubracian talent. There is no official exchange rate with the Archipelagian simoleon, so currency should be bought before leaving home.

Full travel and medical insurance is obligatory, and this must include provision for funeral and crematorium expenses, and repatriation costs for relatives and other travelling companions. Every traveller, no matter what age, must be insured in this way. There are strict shelterate laws, and unless a work permit has been obtained in advance, no one is admitted to the Aubrac Chain without a recognized round-trip or return voyage certificate. Anti-importunation regulations are the strictest in the Archipelago. Erotomanes must be licensed in advance, but not all local values are acceptable on Aubrac — visitors should check with their home Seigniory before setting out.