Undersea (27 page)

“Will you join us at the table?” Jills said to him. He obliged, uncomfortably sliding into one of the high-backed chairs. Awbee stood at the end of the table nearest the door.

“Proctor Jills,” Thom said. “If I could just have a moment to...”

Jills waved him off.

“Later. Awbee, if you would please brief Commander Vargas.”

“You realize this is the second time this coward has left my daughter behind. And you promote him for that?”

“Awbee, having gotten to know your daughter well in the years she’s spent on and around the Council, I find it hard to believe anyone would be able to leave her anywhere she didn’t want to be left. Now, if you would bring Thom up to speed. The sooner we get moving, the better.”

Annoyed, and with one final cutting glance at Thom, Awbee tapped the table angrily with her finger. In all the times Thom had been in the Council room, the tabletop had appeared to be a reflective black glass. It was in fact a display, a fancier version of the one in the Command bunker. Before him was a generated image of their blue world as seen from space. The image zoomed in on the n-pole, though Thom realized that it could have been the s-pole or any other edge of the planet. There was no frame of reference.

“Do you remember what I told you the last time I was here?”

“I... what do you mean?”

Awbee sighed and took a moment to gather her thoughts or calm her annoyance.

“I’ll start again. Our world is healing itself. From the timeline of the universe, it’s happening with extreme rapidity. From the timeline of us, perhaps not as much.” She looked at Jills, who nodded for her to continue. “Did my daughter mention to you, or have you noticed, the state of this ship?”

“Yes. She told me she’d tried to get something in the
Daily
about the ship falling apart. She had mentioned it a few times.”

“My daughter is a little too observant sometimes, though in this case she didn’t know how right she was. There were and are strict orders not to discuss it outside of the Council, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrakas had pushed her on, or even started her on the path. It doesn’t matter. The ship is, as my daughter discovered, falling apart. The
Uni
and
Population
were thrown together with the speed and build quality only the imminent end of the world could bring. Our elders survived, as do we, but these boats were never meant to last this long. We can keep patching and repairing, but when it comes down to it, the Council and I don’t feel the ship can last another 30 years. We would have been able to convert the ship to a more permanent version of what we have now, as in a seabed base. But as you can imagine, that would never work with our current state of war with the
Population
. As it is, we thought our domes would give us a more permanent solution. Unfortunately, we can’t build them fast enough or large enough to house our entire population. And as you know, they haven’t been as secure against discovery as we’d hoped.”

“You’ve come up with a way to speed up the recovery,” Thom interrupted, just figuring it out.

For the first time, Awbee seemed impressed with him.

“We think so.” She tapped the table and the image zoomed in again, showing a few icebergs floating on the endless sea. “The problem is multi-fold. As you can see, the water is cold enough near the pole that ice does form. Since we’ve been making records, we’ve seen a steady increase in the volume of ice formed, and the quantity of icebergs. The problem is, without anything to tether them, they float off with the current.”

She paused and reached over for a glass one of the Councilmen had left on the table. There was a small amount of water in the bottom. Holding the glass by the top, Awbee moved it in a small circle. “With no land mass, the water covering the world acts like the water swirling in this glass. The currents are fastest at the equator, and decrease in speed slightly as you move north or south. At the very pole, the water moves very little, but any ice that forms quickly gets spun down and away from the pole into warmer water and promptly melts. Without ice, there is nowhere for the water to go. No ice, no land.”

Thom nodded. “So, you want to tether them or something? Like fishing, with a net maybe?”

“Sort of. We’re going to grow them,” Awbee answered, with obvious pride.

“Sorry?”

“We need to accelerate the process. Over time there will be enough ice that it will lump together on its own and hopefully form its own ice cap. We can’t wait that long, so we’re going to grow our own ice cap.” She tapped the table once again, and the image zoomed in closer, eventually dropping below the surface, revealing the craggy undersea landscape. As they watched, a circle formed just above the sea floor. The circle filled in towards its center, tapering upwards until it formed what looked like an upside-down funnel with a gray and black lattice pattern. The center of the funnel then grew rapidly upwards towards the surface. The camera followed, breaking out into the rendered sunlight, showing the top of the cylinder surrounded by a small iceberg. Water surged from the top of the tube, spraying out into a mist, which fell on the top of the berg. Thom looked up, eyebrows raised.

“Keep watching,” Awbee said, motioning back towards the table. His eyes returned to see time speed up. The iceberg grew quickly. The tube grew vertically as additional pieces appeared at its top. The camera zoomed out, revealing the growing ice cap. It pulled back further, showing the entire planet. Dots of brown started to appear on the surface. The dots grew, forming islands. The islands grew and touched. Delicate tendrils of brown reached for each other, becoming continents. Soon it resembled the world he recognized from posters on the school walls as a child. He looked up in awe.

“How long would this take?”

“What you just saw? Decades, if not centuries. There are too many variables to be sure.”

“And all that from just the one tower?”

“Oh, no. No no no. One tower wouldn’t affect anything. No, we’re talking about one tower to start the process. As we are able to create more of the material the towers are built of, we’ll build more. We’ll need thousands to affect any real change, but this one,” she said tapping the image. “This first one is the most important. This is the seed. The others don’t have to be as strong or as large. This one is the focal point of the entire process. Everything grows from here. We’re calling it the Fountain. It has to be placed at a very specific spot, where the currents are the weakest. After that, we just need time.”

“How much time?”

“Months if we’re lucky. Years if we’re not.”

Thom rubbed the back of his right hand absently as he thought it over. He could feel the mood in the room had markedly changed. Seeing the possibilities laid out before them, the glimmer of hope, it had softened them all.

“What about the radiation?”

“Good question. Once the iceberg gets large enough, we go up significantly on the tower. Way up. Instead of spraying super cold water on the snow, we’re going to spray it much higher into the atmosphere. Some will land on the iceberg, some the sea, but some of the moisture will stay in the atmosphere and come down elsewhere as rain. By that point we’ll have other, smaller towers doing most of the growing work. The spray from the Fountain will hopefully accelerate the natural dilution that is already occurring.”

“Do we really have enough metal to make something that tall?”

“It’s not metal. You know those suits you took to fail to rescue my daughter?” And like that, her edge had returned. “That’s the material we’re making the tower out of. That’s what we developed it for. The suits were what some of the techs did with the scraps. We make it here.”

“Make it?”

Awbee deferred to Jills, who shook his head. Thom accepted being left in the dark.

“So what is it you want me to do? Guard this tower?”

“Not exactly.” Jills replied. “Let me stress, this is the most important endeavor for the future of our species since this ship was built. I can’t oversell this. Even without the nuisance of the
Pop
, this ship won’t survive long enough for any of us to see the world heal itself. Without this ship, it’s likely our species won’t survive. It has taken us seven years to create enough material for the Fountain. We can keep making more for the extensions and the satellite fountains, but the amount needed is a fraction of what the main unit needs. If we lose it, that’s it. We won’t have time to make another.”

Thom nodded somberly. Self-doubt started to work its way past the hope-filled haze, poking at his consciousness.

“Your mission, Commander Vargas, is to take the cruiser you appropriated, along with several vessels of our budding fleet, and razz the enemy. Attack their installations. Steal their supplies. Capture their transports. Anything and everything. But
away
from the n-pole. We need you to keep their attention as far from us as you can. If we’re discovered and they attack us again, we’ll do our best to hold them off. But worst case here, if they take us out and the Fountain, that’s it for our entire species.”

The self-doubt dispersed across the surface of his mind like oil on water. “Sir, I’m not sure...”

Jills raised his palm, cutting Thom off in mid sentence.

“Thank you, Doctor. Mr. Larr, would you and Awbee please give us the room?” The room emptied and Jills walked to the balcony overlooking the Yard. After a moment, Thom joined him. The air circulating the space was fresh and smelled strongly of vegetation. “I can see it on your face. You don’t understand why I’ve picked you.”

“Honestly, no, sir.”

“Honesty is good. Keep answering me honestly. Because if you lie to me again like you did before your last mission, I’ll lock you in the brig till you rot. Now, honestly, who do you feel is the most famous living person on this ship?”

Thom searched the Proctor’s face for signs of a trick.

“This isn’t vanity Thom, answer the question.”

“Mrakas Gattley.”

“Of course. Even more so than the Captain, as he would also admit. OK, and who do you think is the most devious. Harder, I know, as you haven’t spent too much time here.”

“Councilman Larr?”

“Very astute.”

“I thought he was your friend.”

“As much as anyone is, I suppose,” Jills replied absently. “OK, who’s in charge of every armed warrior on this vessel?”

“You?”

“Sure, eventually, but before that?”

“Captain Sarras.”

“Right. Now answer me this. Why aren’t the most famous and beloved person, the most devious and cunning person, nor the most well-armed person running this ship?”

“Ummm...”

“Thom, look, I am very good at what I do. I’m not that smart, certainly not half as smart as Doctor Gattley. I’m not well loved, not very devious, and I certainly don’t have my own army. OK, well, I do, but they’re following the position, not me. My skill is seeing talent and using that talent. I don’t mean in a deceitful, manipulative way. It’s knowing how to get everyone who works for me to do what they do best, at their best. So when I ask you to take command of our pirate fleet, know that I see you as the best man for the job
because
you’ll be good at it. I know it. That’s what I do.”

“That is kind of you, sir, but...”

“I knew your father, Thom,” Jills continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “In my days before the Council I was a rep for the Mechanists Union. I got to know a lot of the mechanics on my beat. Many of them helped get me elected the first time, putting up posters, going cabin to cabin talking to people. Can I tell you something, Thom? Your father was a drunk. A drunk and a screw up and if he was half as smart as he thought he was, he would have put down the drink long before he lost your mother, before he watched his career evaporate, and before he poisoned himself to death.”

Thom seethed and tensed, clenching his fists.

“Hit me if you want, but what I’m telling you is the truth. And I’m telling you so you can see our world as it is, not as he forced you to see it. In your mind you’re still the fisherman that gets drunk with his buddies. Guess what? You’re not. Haven’t been in a long time. The moment you chose to rescue Ralla the first time, that was it. You started on a path that has led you here. And in case you don’t realize it, you are now one of the most powerful men on this ship, Commander. You are in charge of your own fleet and report directly to and have the ear of the Proctor of the Council. So if you still think that there is no advancement in this life, I hate to break it to you, son, but you’re wrong.”

Thom turned and gripped the railing, the force of what Jills said causing his head to spin. For a moment, he couldn’t catch his breath. The truth washed over him. They stood there in silence while voices from the floor far below drifted up, the words unintelligible. The artificial breeze rustled the green vines on the walls near the balcony. Thom turned back to face Jills, his eyes moist.

“Thom, I wish I could give you some time to think it over and find your place in all of this. But that is something I can’t give you. The one thing I can give you is time to go do the thing you should be dreading the most: Telling Mrakas that he won’t get to see his daughter before he dies.”

Jills put his hand on Thom’s shoulder and motioned towards the door.

“I was a really good fisherman.”

“You’ll be a better Commander.”

III

Oppai tapped the pistol absentmindedly against the door frame, making a metallic clink with no apparent rhythm.

“How sure are your scientists that this will work?” he asked.

“Very sure. Please believe me. We won’t need to fight for resources much longer. We’ll have
land
. We’ll be able to grow things, live outside. Don’t you see, we can start all over.” Ralla didn’t bother to mask the pleading in her voice.

“I do see. It’s all very interesting. Unlimited land, for everyone.”

“Well, maybe not at first, but over the years I don’t see why not. As the ice caps are rebuilt, more and more land will become available.”