Ark

7

Once more Edward Kenzie stood up. “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, as authoritative a picture as you’re going to get. Just like New York 2018 all over again, right? Now we get to the crux of the meeting. Since New York, thanks to the incompetence, denial and buck-passing of our governments, we’ve already wasted seven years. The resources the federal government has put into dealing with the worst case, a continued sea level rise, have been minimal compared to what’s been spent on the fanciful plans for recovery and recolonization to which Dr. Jones alluded. Well, I for one am not going to sit around dreaming while the rising sea obliterates my wealth and property and turns my family into drowned rats. Some of us are going to try and do something.”

There was a rumbling of support for that.

Kenzie held up his hands. “I, with the help of Nathan Lammockson and others, have brought here experts in a number of fields. Now’s your chance to talk to them, to start the seeds of your thinking about what you intend to do. What we need to consider is meaningful options for the worst case. I hope that out of this session will come a number of projects-a number of ark designs, if you will-that can proceed more or less independently of each other. That seems the way to maximize our chances of success. This is the inception of a program, not any one single project.

“But we’re going to have to proceed with extreme caution. Think about it. The Earth is drowning. Tell the world you’re building an ark, and every hapless IDP and his brood will be fighting for a place aboard.” He glared around at them, his face pinched and calculating. “I’m hoping we’re going to support each other in years to come. But we must work discreetly. We must keep our secrets- even from each other. We should each know only what we need to know about what the other guy is doing, like terrorist cells. Maybe that doesn’t sound very American. But we suffered enough from those terrorist assholes with their pinprick attacks ever since 2001. We may as well learn a few lessons from the way they operate, right?”

He’d clearly worked all this out. And yet Patrick could see the sense in what he was saying. He’d seen for himself how every attempt made by the federal government to alleviate the crisis was soon overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the unfolding disaster. While it was hardly democratic, secrecy might indeed be the only way forward, to deny the multitude to give a few a chance.

As the session broke up, Patrick had to tap Holle on the shoulder to get her to turn off her Angel. She glanced around, looking for Thandie’s spinning Earth, and was disappointed it had been switched off.

Outside the library, Jerzy Glemp approached Patrick and drew him away from the knots of conversation that were forming. “I saw you nod,” he said, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.

“You did?”

“When Dr. Jones was summarizing. When she said we should seek refuge off the Earth.” He looked up at the sky.

“I guess it struck a chord.”

“Is the logic not inevitable? This Earth is doomed; that much is obvious. In a hundred years it will be a world for fishes. Just as Poland is already gone. The only hope for mankind will be to find some new place to live, out among the planets and the stars.”

“You’re talking about some kind of spaceship?”

“Of course.” He glanced around.“Look at the others. Nathan Lammockson is talking of building mighty oceangoing ships, like Noah. Others dream of submarines and undersea colonies. You and I know, Mr. Groundwater, that space is the only salvation. And you and I, Mr. Groundwater, here and now, in this very conversation, are laying the first foundation stone in the project that will save mankind. I have the qualifications. I studied astronautics in Poznan, before the flooding came. I contributed to European space missions. I have a doctorate in the writings of Tsiolkovsky. With your resources, and my vision-yes, we will build a spaceship, a spacegoing ark.”

Patrick felt railroaded. “I believe you’re manipulating me, Dr. Glemp. You’re so sure I share your dream?”

“I know you do.” Glemp glanced down at Holle. “I asked Nathan about you. Your daughter was born in 2019; she must have been conceived shortly after you heard Dr. Thandie Jones outline the end of the world to the IPCC. She was conceived in hope.”

Patrick felt his face redden. But the odd little man was right. After he and Linda had listened to Thandie, and seen the dispiriting response of her audience-and even after they had been forced to flee the hurricane that had so suddenly struck Manhattan afterward-they had gone back to their home in Newburgh, New Jersey, along with other refugees from New York City, and had shared a meal and a bottle of wine, and thrown out their contraceptives. Holle had indeed been conceived in hope, in defiance of the blackness of the future as it had seemed then. She had even been named for the role he and Linda had imagined she might have to play.

“So come,” Jerzy Glemp said. “We have much to do. It is time for lunch. You may buy me a drink, and we must start to plan how we will save mankind, and spend your money in the process.” He led the way out into the street.

Patrick picked up a sleepy Holle and followed, wondering what the hell he was getting himself into.