Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

He jabbed the button to increase the power from the wind farm. Christ, thought Drake, as the rotors went into overdrive and things started to shake and quake around him.

‘Let there be light!’ Ralph screamed above the din.

With a sudden, bright flare the mirrors sparked into action, solenoid panels shaking. The landscape dissolved into whiteness as the melting began.

And Drake remembered a day when he was helping Hemi and Phyllis to take the cows back to their underground silos and his grandfather was with them.

Huppapuppa looked up in the sky. ‘That storm we’ve been warned about, it’s coming.’ The herd, sensing the oncoming danger, set up a loud bellowing and lowing. They couldn’t wait to get safely inside. Drake was closing the gates when there was a blinding flare, followed by a withdrawal of air, as if it was being sucked up. The birds, what few there were, were circling madly, trying to find a way, it seemed, away from and out of the sky. Some of them managed to flutter into the silo before it was sealed.

‘That came on fast,’ Huppapuppa said. ‘Are you all okay?’ He had Drake’s face in his hands, looking into the boy’s eyes to see if his retinas had been burnt. ‘Better take the boy home,’ he said to Hemi and Phyllis, ‘and batten down the hatches.’

They’d made their way back to the farmhouse, and by the time they arrived, the temperature had already climbed 20 degrees. Quickly, they went into the underground shelter.

‘Thank God,’ Huppapuppa said, ‘we still live in New Zealand, and in the world’s good lung.’

‘What do you mean?’ Drake asked him.

‘Well, New Zealand, Antarctica, Australia and the Pacific, we’re in the part of the world that’s still okay after the Big Burn. The rest of the world, that’s the bad lung,’ he said, as the extraordinary heat storm burst around them. ‘We should be thankful we don’t live there because they get these storms all the time.’

Huppapuppa had explained that for most of the world’s peoples, global warming was a death sentence, bringing flood and drought, crop failure and mass starvation. ‘At first world governments tried to save everyone, but as more and more people needed food, and there were more cataclysmic natural disasters, it all became too much. By the middle of the millennium, it was too late. Continuing greenhouse gas emissions completely destroyed the ozone layer and, without it, solar destruction began. One year After the Burn, wars began in India, the Eastern Archipelago and Central America. But those who survived concentrated on their own survival, and you couldn’t blame them. Let’s face it, it was easier now that most of the poor had been incinerated. And water became the new oil, especially the top grade stuff from Antarctica, which only the very rich could afford.’

Icebergs: the pure, crystalline essence, a million years in the making.

The purity of ice.

Suddenly the klaxons started to wail.

At first, Drake thought the fiord was under attack. The industry was so lucrative that rival consortiums were not above warring with each other — on land or sea. Just three months ago, an unknown party had tried an air strike on the consortium’s operation; and two weeks ago security forces had been under fire from snipers coming overland. Each ocean operation required armed protection too: all vessels of the fleet — choppers included — were armed. That didn’t completely stop the poachers, who weren’t averse to attempting to snipe at a berg while it was under tow or trying to unhook it from the tow and claim it for themselves. With so much money riding on a berg, an easy capture was preferable to the difficult task of hooking one yourself. Some of the most desperate battles occurred underwater, as rivals tried to ‘skin’ the berg, puncturing its amniotic sac and siphoning it from below.

No, the klaxon was for something else. ‘I’d better see what the trouble is,’ Drake said to Kuia.

She restrained him for a moment. ‘Be careful out there, e hoa,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a bad feeling all day.’

He winked. ‘You know me, the least bit of trouble and I’m coming straight home to Mama.’

As he was descending in the elevator he saw a remote drone whiz up to him. It was Sally again, scolding him. ‘So there you are, Drake, you naughty boy! Where have you been?’

‘Talking to Kuia,’ Drake answered. ‘What’s up?’

‘Ah well,’ Sally sighed, ‘stood up by yet another woman.’ Then her voice became businesslike. ‘All pilots are to report to the helipad. You’re to lift off as soon as you can.’

No sooner had Drake arrived at the helipad than Bazza was onto him. ‘Rangi has revealed that there’s an almighty storm coming out of nowhere. It could last for days. We want the entire squadron up and at ’em, flagging what bergs are out there before the storm hits and closes us down. Bring them home. It’s going to be a free-for-all as rival companies are scrambling too.’

‘Round-up time,’ Drake told everyone.

‘Wa-hey,’ Drake’s men chorused in the traditional bonding cry.

‘Wa-ho,’ Queequeeg’s men responded.

Kelly, their service mechanic, had already got the Pequod warmed up and waiting for them. She was relishing her ten per cent cut of whatever Drake and Colby made from their catch.

Drake was buckling up and doing a systems check when Bazza rushed up to him.

‘I forgot to tell you,’ he coughed, ‘Rangi has shown up an anomaly. A ghost image. One minute there, in the middle of the calving, next minute gone.’

A ghost image? Drake’s mouth dried.

Bazza paused, then spoke softly. ‘It could be Moby Dick.’

Drake’s heart was pumping with dread.

Next time, e hoa.

Drake’s squadron was first off the helipad. He lifted the Pequod and circled the fiord. Behind him, all five rattling rust buckets made it: Starbuck, Flask, Samurai Sam, Czar and Hari were chasing after him. Drake waited for Queequeeg in Daedalus to get his squadron into the air: still puffing a black plume of smoke, Queequeeg led Johnno, Slava, Oscar Bravo, Gayhead and Jenkins along the fiord and over the gates. Silas was waving: Good hunting.

Drake sent a quick prayer to whichever gods were listening, asking that no one should plunge into the deep. And then, ‘Let’s go,’ he called through his com. Out of the fiord the Pequod roared, the two squadrons following him and, immediately, they were battling wild, conflicting winds. ‘Time to climb,’ he said to Colby, adjusting the rotors.

The Pequod leant into the wind, Drake and Colby like two people sheltering behind an umbrella as they pushed into the squall. For a long while the chopper had a grim time of it but, miraculously, it didn’t break apart. And, checking behind him, Drake saw the rest of the choppers playing follow the leader and, thank God, Queequeeg had managed to shut down his smoke trail.

‘Hey, Drake,’ Colby said, when the worst was over, ‘how long have we known each other?’

‘Almost two years now,’ Drake answered, calculating from the first time they’d slept together. Actually, he’d slept with most of the women at the base. Everyone knew the score and tried not to get attached. They were all fuck buddies. And Colby had no illusions.

Eyes fixed firmly ahead, Colby took a deep breath. ‘You asked me earlier if I was married … Yes, his name was Jake and, after South Africa, he was called to China to do relief work with the poor. Well, you know what that job’s like: shepherding people from one shadow spot in the mountains to the next, from one cavern community to another, before the owners throw you out. And one day, he had around five hundred refugees in his convoy and they stayed out too long … and, well, a sun storm hit them … and they …’