He knew he hadn’t pronounced it right. Schultheiss looked puzzled for a moment and then nodded vigorously. “Ah! Do you mean nodules’1. Manganese nodules? My young friend, you are even braver than I thought!”
From that brief look of respect Crat derived some satisfaction. But then the old man smiled indulgently. He patted Crat’s shoulder. “And Sea State needs such heroes to take wealth from the deep, so we can take our place among the nations. If you would be such a man, I’m proud to know you.”
He doesn’t believe me, Crat realized. Once, that would have sent him into a sputtering rage. But he had changed… if only because nowadays he was generally too tired for anger. Crat shrugged instead. Maybe I don’t believe it myself.
The main winch was out again, of course. That meant Congo’s section of the great seine net would have to be hauled aboard by hand.
Now Crat remembered where he’d seen the old Helvetian before. Peter Schultheiss was a member of the engineering team that kept the old tub and her sister vessels, Jutland and Hindustan, sailing despite age and decrepitude. Right now Schultheiss was immersed headfirst in a tangle of black gears, reaching out for tools provided by quick, attentive assistants.
Nearby, the forward wing-sail towered like a tapered chimney. No longer angled into the wind to provide trim, it had been feathered and would remain so unless old Peter succeeded. Apparently it wasn’t just the winch this time, but the entire foredeck power chain that depended on the fellow’s miracle work.
Now that’s a skill, Crat admitted, watching Schultheiss during a brief pause in the hauling. You don’t learn that kind of stuff on the gor-sucking Data Net.
“Again!” the portside bosun shouted. The barrel-chested Afrikaaner had long ago tanned as dark as any man on his watch. “Ready on the count, ver-dumpit! One-and, two-and, three-and… heave!”
Crat groaned as he pulled with the others, marching slowly amidships, dragging the sopping line and its string of float buoys over the side. Scampering net makers busied themselves caring for the damaged seine as fast as it came aboard. It was a well-practiced cadence, one with a long tradition on the high seas.
When next they paused to walk forward again — Crat massaging his throbbing left arm — he sniffed left and right, perplexed by a sour, sooty odor. The sharp sweat tang of unbathed men, which had nearly overwhelmed him weeks ago, now was mere background to other smells, drifting in on the breeze.
At last he found the source over on the horizon, a twisted funnel far beyond the Sea State picket boats, rising to stain the shredded, striated clouds. Crat nudged one of his neighbors, an unsmiling refugee from flooded Libya.
“What’s that?” he asked.
The wiry fellow readjusted his bandanna as he peered. “Incinerator ship, I think. No allowed go upwind anybody… UNEPA rule, y’know? But we not anybody. So upwind us jus’ fine okay.” He spat on the deck for effect, then again onto his hands as the bosun ordered them to take up the hawser for another round.
Glancing at the smokey plume, Crat knew what Remi would have said. “Hey, you got priorities, I got priorities. All the world’s got priorities.” Getting rid of land-stored toxic wastes rated higher to most than worrying about one more carbon source. Protecting onshore water supplies outweighed a few trace molecules escaping the incinerators’ searing flames, especially when those molecules wouldn’t waft over populated areas.
Hey, Crat thought as he heaved in time with the others. Ain’t I population? Soon, however, he hadn’t a thought to spare except on doing his job… on keeping jibes about clumsy dumb-ass Yankees to a minimum, and keeping the others from trampling him.
Because Crat was concentrating so hard, he never noticed the captain come out on deck to test the brush of the wind, his brow furrowed in concern. Poor as it was, Sea State owed its very existence to computers and to other nations’ weather satellites. Regular forecasts meant life or death, enabling rusty fleets and floating towns to seek safety well in advance of approaching storms.
Still, weather models could not predict the smaller vagaries… mists and pinprick squalls, microbursts and sudden shifts in the wind. While Crat strained on the line, wearily aware they were still only half done, the captain’s eyes narrowed, noticing subtle cues. He turned to call his comm officer.
While his back was turned a pocket cyclone of clear air turbulence descended on the little fleet. The micropressure zone gave few warnings. Two hundred meters to the east, it flattened the sea to a brief, glassy perfection. Men’s ears popped aboard the Dacca, and blond seamen on the Pikeman’s starboard quarter briefly had to turn away, blinking from a needle spray of salt foam.
The zone’s tangent happened to brush against Congo then, sending the wind gauge whining. Gusts struck the feathered wing-sail, catching the vertical airfoil and slewing it sharply. The brakeman, who had been picking his teeth, leapt for his lever too late as the sail swung hard into the gang of straining laborers, knocking several down and cutting the taut cable like a slanting knife.
Tension released in a snapping jolt, hurling sailors over the railing amid a tangle of fibrous webbing. One moment Crat was leaning back, struggling to do his job despite his aching blisters. The next instant, he was flying through the air! His quivering muscles spasmed at the sudden recoil, and yet for a moment it seemed almost pleasant to soar bemusedly above the water like a gull. His forebrain, always the last to know, took some time to fathom why all the other men were screaming. Then he hit the sea.
Abruptly, all the shrill tones were deadened. Low-pitched sounds seemed to resonate from all directions… the thrashing of struggling creatures, the glub of air from panicked, convulsing lungs, the pings and moans of Congo’s joints as she slowly aged toward oblivion. A destination that loomed much more rapidly for Crat himself, apparently. His legs and arms were caught in the writhing net, and while the float buoys were gradually asserting themselves, that wouldn’t help men who were snared like him, only a meter below.
Strange, he pondered. He’d always had dreams about water… one reason why, when all other emigration states had spurned his applications, he finally decided to go to sea. Still, until now the possibility of drowning had never occurred to him. Wasn’t it supposed to be a good way to go, anyway? So long as you didn’t let panic ruin it? judging from the sounds the others were making, they were going to have the experience thoroughly spoilt for them.
Something about the quality of the sound felt terribly familiar. Maybe he was remembering the womb…
Sluggishly, with a glacial slowness, he started working on escape. Not that he had any illusions. It was just something to do. Guess I’ll be seein’ you guys soon, after all, he told Remi and Roland silently.
His left arm was free by the time one of the thrashing forms nearby went limp and still. He didn’t spare the time or energy to look then. Nor even when a gray figure flicked by, beyond the other side of the net. But as he worked calmly, methodically, on the complex task of freeing his other arm, a face suddenly appeared, right in front of him. A large eye blinked.
No… winked at him. The eye was set above a long, narrow grin featuring white, pointy teeth. The bottle jaw and high, curved forehead turned to aim at him, and Crat abruptly felt his inner ears go crazy in a crackling of penetrating static. With a start, he realized the thing was scanning him… inspecting him with its own sophisticated sonar. Checking out this curiosity of a man caught in a net designed to snare creatures of the sea.