Flood

82

May 2038

The prow of the Ark plowed into the crust that covered the sea.

Lily stood with Piers on the foredeck, watching. It was as if they stood on an icebreaker pushing its way through the pack ice of the Arctic. But the crust on this ocean was not ice but garbage. Lily had small binoculars, and through them the surface scum resolved into a mess of plastic netting, soda bottles, six-pack rings, bin liners, supermarket bags, bits of polystyrene packaging. In the watery sunlight the colors were bright, red and orange and electric blue, artificial colors characteristic of a vanished world. Lily thought she could smell it, a stink of rot and mold and decay, but that was probably her imagination; this far from land not much would have survived the hungry jaws of the sea but indestructible, biologically useless plastic.

Lifted gently on the ocean’s swells, the rubbish stretched all the way to the horizon, where a small, ragged fleet of boats prowled. And beyond that was a band of dark cloud, ominous.

The sun was high, the sea warm. The Ark was in the Pacific, between Hawaii and California. This was the middle of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a huge swirl of ocean currents that ran so deep that even the drowning of the land hadn’t made much difference to them. And this was the place where all the trash that got swept down all the drains into all the rivers into all the seas finally ended up.

“The world’s rubbish bin, two thousand kilometers across,” Lily said.

“Yep,” Piers said. He looked out, his prominent nose peeling from sunburn, his much-patched AxysCorp coverall shabby and faded.“What we see isn’t the sum total of the waste, actually, not even a fraction of it. Plastic itself is indestructible, but a plastic bag can be reduced, shredded, chewed and eroded, ripped to bits. It ends up as a cloud of particles in the water, all but invisible, passing through the stomachs of fishes and out again but never reduced or absorbed. Almost all the world’s plastic produced since the 1950s, a billion tons of it, is still in existence somewhere in the world.”

“Amazing. Well, it’s outlasted the civilization that produced it.”

“Oh, easily. It will outlast mankind, no doubt. A million years, maybe, until some bug evolves the capacity to eat it. What a contribution to the biosphere!”

“And here we are sailing into the middle of it.”

“Needs must, my dear,” Piers said. “Needs must.”

She glanced around. The Ark was accompanied by other craft, a small flotilla of sailing ships, solar-cell power boats, and rafts cobbled together from detritus, old tires and bits of corrugated iron, sailing under tattered blankets and sheets. Some of these vessels were so ramshackle they were barely distinguishable from the garbage through which they sailed, as if they had accreted out of it. “We could do without our escort. Following us like sea gulls after a whale. Kind of embarrassing.”

“Well, it’s not us they’re following but the typhoon.” Piers pointed to that black smudge on the horizon.

He was right. As the water warmed the ocean became less productive, the yield of fish and plankton diminishing, the surface waters becoming lifeless. But a typhoon stirred up the water across which it prowled, dragging up nutrient-rich colder layers from below, and in its wake there could be a brief bloom of life. So boats and rafts and ships, even the mighty Ark, were forced to dog the steps of the storms for the shoals they stimulated.

But it was a risky business. The warmer sea fed more powerful storms, and the loss of so much land surface gave the typhoons more room to play. A typhoon was an angry and unreliable provider.

Piers took the binoculars from Lily, and scanned the horizon.

“So what are you looking for?” she asked.“A Barbie doll to complete your collection?”

“I’m looking for the New Jersey, if you must know.” One of the nuclear subs operated by the rump US government in Denver, still patrolling the global ocean. “We got a ping earlier; we tried a sonar hail but there was no reply. There’s so much activity here in the Gyre you’d expect the government to take some notice.”

“They’ll probably start taxing us for the garbage we collect,” Lily said.

“Nathan might have something to say about that,” Piers murmured, the glasses pressed against his eyes.

The Ark neared the little group of craft at the heart of the garbage continent. The deck’s deep vibration dwindled as the turbines were throttled back. Lily heard a rattling of chains as the sea anchors were dropped, and felt a faint tug of deceleration as the ship slowed, shedding her huge inertia.

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.