The Ministry for the Future

19

We had been at sea for something like eight years. They said they would pay us when we landed but everyone knew they wouldn’t. Wouldn’t pay us, wouldn’t land us. We were slaves. If we didn’t work they locked us in our cabins and didn’t feed us. We went back to work.

The food was trash, including fishheads and guts from the take, but it was that or starve, so we ate it. And we worked, we had to. Set the lines, ran the reels, tried to keep our fingers and arms out of the way. That didn’t always happen. The southern Atlantic is rough, the Antarctic Ocean even worse. Accidents were common. Often guys just stepped over the rail into the water. One guy waved goodbye to us before the whitecaps rolled him under. We knew why he did it. It was probably the best option, but it took courage. You could always imagine something would happen to change things.

Then one day it did. A ship came over the horizon, this wasn’t unusual, it happened all the time. Not only fishing boats like ours, either slave ships or not, there was no way to tell, but the transport ships that came out to transfer our catch into their holds and resupply us so we didn’t have to land. That was the way they did it. We didn’t even know what countries they came from.

So it looked like a transport ship, and it approached us, and it was clear the captain and his mates thought the same. The people on this ship must have known the signs and fooled them. Then after it came beside us and we had grappled it, men jumped over the side holding guns pointed at us. We put our hands in the air just like in the movies, but it would have been a funny movie, because most of us were grinning and it was all I could do to keep from cheering.

We were herded into the cabins and locked in. When the newcomers came into our cabin and asked us questions we answered eagerly. Maybe they were just pirates who would put us back to work for someone else, or even kill us, but even so we told them our stories, and who the captain and every single one of his men were. They left us in there and came back later. Get on our ship, they told us. We did what they said, not knowing what it would mean. All the slaves climbed a ladder onto the bigger ship, that was eight of us. All the captain’s men and the captain were left on board our boat. That was five of them. They said some stuff but the men with the guns ignored them.

When we were about a hundred meters away I saw that some of the men on this new boat were filming our old one. Then the bow of our old boat blew up, just above the waterline. The boom wasn’t very loud, but the bow shattered. There was a bit of flame but water poured in and doused it. In about fifteen minutes the boat tilted and started going down. Then another explosion in the stern finished the deal. It went down fast. The captain and his men climbed on the roof of the cabin and yelled at us. No one on our savior ship said anything. Everyone just watched it happen.

You’re killing them? we asked the sailor nearest us.

He said, They’ve got life rafts, right?

We don’t know, we said. Inflatables, you mean?

Yeah.

I guess so.

So, they’ll either get those inflated and over the side or they won’t. If they don’t, they’ll get what’s coming to them. We’ll post film of it on sites that other fishermen will see. If they get off in a life raft, they can try to make it to land. If they manage that, they can tell the story of what happened to whoever will listen. Either way, the point will be made.

So that meant these people were probably not police. That was not a good thing, but it wasn’t as if we could choose who saved us.

What’s the point? we asked.

No more fishing.

Good, we said.