Bruce opened his mouth but Edmund raised a hand.
“Give me a second here.” Edmund grinned. “You had your say. If we win this war, the entire system comes back online and all the conditions before the Fall hold. You’ll be able to replicate all your needs again. There won’t be any industry, any more than there was for a thousand years before the Fall. Nor will there be any more visitors, because there aren’t that many people and even with the natural population increase that is going on, there won’t be more than a billion and a half, two billion max, in the next hundred years. There’s also a maximum even past that point; you can only support so many humans on preindustrial agriculture. You forgot nutrient run-off in your litany, by the way.”
“It’s in there,” Bruce said, grimly. “Flora bay was nearly killed by it. And the bay is the nursery for half the ecosystem in this region.”
“But that won’t happen because you cannot transport the fertilizers from where they are to where they are needed,” Edmund snapped. “God knows we’re running into that already in Raven’s Mill. My point is that while the war is going on, the reefs are still out of danger. But you are not.”
“So you’ve said,” Bruce shrugged. “But New Destiny doesn’t have a reason to attack us.”
“I’m not talking about New Destiny,” Edmund replied. They had drifted away from the coral head on the current and were headed in the general direction of town. “Your people are excessively vulnerable. And they are valuable to more than just us and New Destiny. We passed a settlement on the way here in Bimi island. With your underwater abilities, you’re a priceless asset to a group like that. How long until they come to the conclusion that since you’re unwilling to assist them, they should force you to?”
“How are they going to do that?” Bruce said, angrily.
“I don’t know,” Edmund replied with a shrug. “But some of them, maybe not now, but soon, will figure out a way. “Why should they dive for lobster when you can do that for them?”
“We could ally ourselves with them, just as well,” Bruce replied.
“They can’t protect you from New Destiny,” Edmund retorted. “And they have far less to lose than we do. You’d be the cleaner fish to their big fish. Sure, it’s a commensal relationship, but if I had my druthers, I’d be the big fish. The cleaners can’t snap me up.”
“And you wouldn’t be the big fish?”
“We need willing allies,” Edmund said, reasonably. “We need you to scout for us, to fight for us if we can figure out a way. To communicate with the delphinos and the other cetoids. To find the New Destiny ships so that we can destroy them before they destroy us. Before they come to my land and I have to fight them at my damned walls. That’s not big fish to little fish. We can’t force you to do those things. How do we know that you intentionally missed some fleet? It’s a big damned ocean, as I’m coming to understand. But I can damned well tell you that the fishermen will get out their whips if you don’t come back with enough lobster.”
“You create problems that don’t exist,” Bruce said, still angry.
“Maybe, but here’s one that already exists: you’re starving to death.”
“We’re getting by,” Bruce said, defensively.
“Barely, as primitive hunter gatherers, dependent on what you can bring in each day,” Edmund said, warming to his own anger. “Damnit, Bruce, you’re responsible to your people, not just to this reef! I’ve got people under my protection that were members of the Wolf terraforming project. Are they working on it now? No, they’re working on rebuilding civilization; not scavenging for food in the forests. And you’re not even good hunter gatherers. You’re losing body weight; Daneh can prove that. You’ve had people die from nutrient deficiencies. We can help. So you don’t want gill nets, fine, they take too many of the fish you don’t want and damage the reef. Fine. We can provide seine nets instead. You can target your prey that way. There are other things your people have asked for. Lobster pots, long lines—”
“No long lines,” Bruce snapped. “They’re nearly as bad as drift nets!”
“Whatever,” Edmund replied. “Tell me what you want and we’ll provide it. Within reason. You’re not the only group we have to support with arms and materials.”
“What’s within reason?” Bruce replied.
Ah, hah. “That’s to be worked out. We can provide the fighters with some weapons. The bronze is better for your purposes; it can be resharpened easily, unlike the stainless. But it’s hard to make and there are no sources of made material whereas we can get blanks, have blanks, of the stainless in quantity. But that’s hard to work as hell, it takes time which means money. We’ll set up a credit system for support and ensure solid, and honest, trade, under UFS trading laws. We’re not going to strip you of people and with our support there are products that you can trade for luxuries and that way you won’t be entirely dependent upon us. As I said, the details have to be worked out, but they are details. As willing allies in a mutual protection pact we’re not going to let you starve at the very minimum. Your mer-men and -women won’t have to scrabble for every little reef-fish they can catch. And maybe even not have to eat sushi for the rest of their lives.”
Bruce considered this for a pace and then shrugged.
“I come out here to convince you, and you half convince me,” Bruce said.
“The reef will survive, with or without you,” Edmund said. “But, here and now, the crisis is the war against New Destiny. Win the war and the reef will be waiting for you. As you yourself said, Big Greenie survived the worst that man could throw at her. She’s survived natural and unnatural disasters for seven million years. She’ll survive this. Assuming that New Destiny doesn’t throw huge power bolts into her. Another thing that we can prevent.”
Bruce shrugged again and then headed back towards the town. Edmund figured it was as good as he was going to get. For now.
Rachel pawed among the leaves and vines, her fins kicking at, and above, the water’s surface to keep her in place. She was mostly finding hard, unripe fruits among sea plum growth.
“Sea plum’s one of those ‘good-bad’ things,” Elayna said, foraging in slightly deeper water. “It’s more of a pest in the waters around Flora, but it has some really specific growing requirements.”
The bed of vines was anchored near the spring on Whale Point Drop but the vines stretched for meters in every direction.
“It interferes with the sea grasses some,” Antja said, sitting up so her head was out of the shallow water and looking around, then bobbing back down to continue to forage. “The roots have to have fresh water, but the fruits will only mature in salt. So it’s only found where there’s a strong fresh-water flow that meets salt water. That means right around spring runoffs like this one for the most part. And it only grows so far. So it’s not a terrible pest. And it supports most of the species that sea grass does, for that matter.”
“There are all sorts of little fish and… stuff in here,” Rachel said. “But not much in the way of mature plums. Elayna, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” the girl said, her bright blue tail waving out of the water as she rummaged in the vines.
“Where’s the eel?”
“Oh, I only bring Akasha out for special occasions,” Elayna said, “And generally only at night. During the day she hides in her cave. I think this bed has mostly been picked over,” she added with a sigh. “We need to go find something else. Conch? Lobster?”