Perihelion Summer

by Greg Egan

  He told Thiru, “I need to find out what’s happening here. Maybe half an hour?”

  “No problem.”

  Selena and two of the passengers came with him. They hadn’t got far from the water’s edge before they saw the hospital ahead, clearly rationing its power but not blacked out entirely.

  The four of them approached the entrance together. There were no security guards, and the doors slid open automatically.

  But it was all that they could do to squeeze far enough into the lobby for the doors to shut behind them. Beyond the zone that people were keeping clear for the sake of maintaining that seal, the place was packed like a Tokyo subway carriage.

  Selena spoke to a woman beside them. “Is there anyone in charge here? Is there help coming?”

  The woman frowned slightly; she seemed as bemused as if she’d just been asked when the next royal visit was expected. “The water’s still running. The toilets still work. If we keep the doors closed, it doesn’t get too hot.”

  They walked back to the harbor in silence. Matt stayed on the jetty while the two scouts explained what they’d seen to their fellow passengers, and Selena gave her own report to her mother. After a few minutes, people began clambering off the boat and walking away, but he only counted five departures.

  Matt got back on deck and addressed everyone who remained: twenty-two strangers—including two families with small children—plus Thiru, Selena and his mother.

  “This is our last stop,” he said. “If you think you can get to safety from here, if you think there’s someone you can reach, who can shelter you, now’s the time to go and find them.”

  No one moved.

  Matt rubbed his eyes, unsure what he’d expected. They were not doing this lightly; they knew what was waiting for them here, far better than he did. All the dark houses that the trawler had glided past, all the pitch-black suburbs he’d glimpsed in the distance, would soon be full of corpses. Even in the hospitals and other sanctuaries, the fuel for the generators would run out eventually, or some overburdened part would fail.

  He said, “Okay. Then we’re heading for Antarctica, and you’re welcome to come. We don’t have a lot of food on board, and it’s going to be a rough ride, but in a couple of days we’ll meet up with our friends, and things should be much better then.”

  13

  “Eduardo’s calling,” Thiru said. “He needs to talk to you.”

  Matt was surprised; he hadn’t been expecting any contact with the flotilla for another half day at least.

  Thiru’s expression was stony as Matt followed him back to the helm. He gestured at the radio, and Matt took the microphone.

  “Eduardo, this is Matt. What’s happening? Over.”

  “Remember the security code for the armaments safe on the rig?” His voice was faint but clear, as if he’d intentionally turned down the power on his transmitter. “Don’t say it aloud, just answer yes or no. Over.”

  “Yes, I remember it. Over.”

  “Add it after the decimal points on these coordinates, then meet up there.” Matt grabbed a pen and wrote down the numbers.

  “Got it. Over.”

  Eduardo said, “Radio silence. Over and out.”

  Thiru was not happy. “What kind of trouble is this?”

  Matt shook his head. “I don’t know. But it sounds like he came looking for us, to keep us from walking into something.” He glanced out onto the deck. “We’d better not say anything to the passengers until we have some idea what this is about.”

  He computed the true coordinates, and Thiru adjusted their course accordingly. Within twenty minutes, Matt spotted the Sereia, Eduardo’s boat, approaching from the south. The sea was as rough as Matt had seen it, so the idea of attempting a face-to-face meeting seemed ill-advised, but when the two vessels were about thirty meters apart his phone beeped: Eduardo was making a mesh call.

  Matt was too anxious now for pleasantries. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “We’ve got four armed men on the Mandjet.”

  “Have they hurt anyone?”

  “Not as far as we know. No one’s talking to us, but Aaron got off after they boarded and he says they were locking people in their cabins.”

  “Got off how?”

  “He dived into the water and swam to the Sereia. When we hauled him out he was bleeding, but it was from banging the hull, not anything they did to him.”

  Matt was stunned into silence for a moment; he’d never imagined Aaron had it in him.

  “So we don’t know what they want?”

  “No. But if they’re not asking for anything, they must have it already: they want the Mandjet, and they’re just trying to decide what to do with the people.”

  Matt felt acid rise into his throat. He glanced toward Thiru, who’d only heard half the conversation. Every one of his friends and family had been on the Mandjet when they’d left.

  “Then we need to convince them to agree to some kind of orderly transfer.” Surely they wanted the Mandjet empty, once the crew had shown them the ropes. Thiru’s trawler couldn’t safely take more than a fraction of its original passengers back until the current occupants had been shifted, but across the whole flotilla there ought to be room for everyone.

  Eduardo said, “The Golfinho has a leak below the waterline. I’ve tried to repair it three times now, but we might have to abandon it.”

  Matt couldn’t accept this; maybe Eduardo just needed to be clear what was at stake. “I’ve got twenty-four extra people here!”

  “I know, I can see them.”

  “Then what the fuck do we do?”

  “Is Thiru with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s mostly his people on the Mandjet. He’s got to have a say in this.”

  Matt put the phone down and began haltingly explaining what he’d learned about the situation. Thiru stared back at him with an expression of increasing anger and impatience, then finally picked up the phone himself and started questioning Eduardo directly.

  Matt listened in silence. They had to decide if they were willing to give up the Mandjet, with all the food and water it provided, and find places for all its passengers on the remaining vessels. But he did not believe that Thiru’s trawler would be safe in the Southern Ocean with more than thirty people, and most of the Timorese ships were close to their own limits. If everyone from the Golfinho had to be relocated too, it would only be a matter of time before one of the overcrowded boats capsized.

  Thiru spoke emphatically: “I can’t tell you that until I’ve seen what’s happening for myself.” He was quiet for a while, then he said, “You’d better, no, listen to me, then you’d better send someone over here who can run this boat. No he can’t, he needs to come too.”

  After some more discussion, he passed the phone to Matt.

  Eduardo said, “Two of my cousins are going to board the trawler, so you and Thiru can join us and go back to the flotilla. Are you okay with that?”

  Matt knew he had to be a part of this, and it would be better if he could keep his family as far away as possible. “Yes.”

  They sorted out the details, then Matt stepped out onto the deck to explain what was happening, wondering if there was any way he could make light of it to the passengers hunched beneath their shade cloths. He’d already used up his quota of “This is your copilot” jokes on the oceanic equivalent of turbulence.

  “There’s been a small change of plans,” he began. “The aquaculture rig I mentioned before seems to have acquired some persistent squatters who are making a nuisance of themselves. Thiru and I are going to try to resolve that, and in the meantime, two excellent sailors from Timor-Leste named Fernando and Francisco will be taking over the navigational duties here. We’ll also be bringing more food and water on board, so . . . no complimentary booze, but those of you who’ve got past the seasickness might enjoy some Timorese cooking.”

  His audience stared back at him with expressions ranging from bemusement to disma
y, but the promise of food seemed to mollify them a little. Selena did not look happy, though, and after a moment she got to her feet and approached him.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Matt took her into the wheelhouse. “There are a few people on the Mandjet we didn’t actually invite,” he said. “‘Squatters’ might not be quite the right word for them; maybe I should have said ‘gate crashers.’”

  “You mean pirates?”

  “I don’t think we should start flinging labels around.”

  “But they’ve got weapons?”

  Matt said, “I haven’t seen anything myself yet. Thiru and I are going to take a closer look.”

  Selena looked to Thiru as if he might offer her more details, but he just held up his hands. “Excuse me, I need to prepare for the new crew.”

  He walked out, and she turned back to Matt. “Are we in danger?”

  Matt shook his head vehemently. “Not at all. It’s one small group, and they don’t even know this boat exists. They’re only interested in the Mandjet.”

  “Then give it to them!”

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of extra berths.”

  Selena understood, but she didn’t seem to want to accept what it implied. “You can’t bring us out here, and then just . . .”

  “Just what? I brought you here, and now I’m going to do my best to make sure that wasn’t a mistake.”

  “We need you with us.”

  Matt laughed. “Okay. I’ll try not to go far.”

  “It’s not a fucking joke!” Selena seemed to be on the verge of tears now.

  Matt reached out and embraced her tightly, then said, “I get to play bouncer with our gate crashers, but you get the hardest job: trying to keep Mum from spinning out of control.”

  Selena didn’t find that funny either. “I’m the one she blames for Dad’s heart attack.”

  Matt grimaced in disbelief. “That’s just shock. This is all too much for her. It’s too much for everyone.” He thought of the dark, sweltering suburbs, and the secrets that now lay rotting in the houses. But they were here in the cool water now, dodging fragments of icebergs; he wasn’t going to let anyone rob them of that reprieve.

  “Do you think I should talk to her before I go?” he asked. “She seems angry with me too, but I don’t know what for.”

  Selena said, “She blames you for Taraxippus, because you’d never shut up about it. She blames you for bringing the sun so close.”

  * * *

  The crew of the Sereia lowered one of their lifeboats into the ocean on ropes, with Fernando on board and some provisions for the Australian refugees. Matt watched the fifteen-meter waves sweep the boat away to the east before Thiru chased after it; getting the trawler’s own ropes to Fernando was like trying to hook a prize in some rigged arcade game, but once he had them tied in place, the powered winch made it easy to raise him, and the derrick was long enough to keep the lifeboat from bumping the side of the hull.

  Fernando clambered out, grim-faced and unsteady on his feet at first, but he soon recovered his composure. Matt introduced him to Selena, and pointed to his mother who sat scowling on the deck. “Everyone be safe,” Fernando promised him, then embraced him like a comrade heading off to war.

  Matt helped unload the cargo, then strapped himself into the lifeboat and tried to prepare for the same journey in reverse. Swinging above the heaving deck felt less like anything he’d done on the rigs, and more like some demented franchise ride in a Gold Coast theme park he’d visited as a child. Pirates of the Antarctic: Fury Road.

  When he hit the ocean he rushed to untie the ropes; with the trawler out of phase with the lifeboat, staying hitched too long could only lead to a tangled mess or a capsizing. Freed, he found himself careering down a valley of slate-green water, so deep it hid everything around him. The wind was deafening, masking the sound of the engines nearby. With no motor of his own, he was just flotsam; if the Sereia didn’t catch him, he could circle the Southern Ocean ten times before he washed up on any beach.

  The valley everted itself into a mountain, and he gazed down at the Sereia struggling toward him. The lifeboat was half-full of water already; it was only the inflated hull that was keeping it buoyant, and only the straps that were keeping him in the boat at all. It had probably only been a couple of minutes since he’d set himself loose, but the Sereia seemed to be approaching with an agonizing sluggishness, as if every wave that rolled in was carrying it back just as far as it had managed to come between onslaughts. Matt felt his teeth chattering, though the water wasn’t cold. He put his head down between his knees for a few seconds, trying to clear his mind and focus on the task to come. Eduardo wouldn’t fuck this up, let alone abandon him. But how smoothly the next part went would be entirely in his own hands.

  The Sereia came beside him, and Francisco threw the rope down. Matt caught it and held on tight, struggling to maintain his grip as the tension rose and Francisco threw more over the side, then fighting to control the thrashing as a part of it fell slackly into the churning water. But he got it hitched and secured, and then he gestured with outstretched hands back to Francisco, who grinned and obliged him. The lifeboat bumped against the hull and rebounded, sending the rope into the water; Matt was beginning to wonder why the theme park safety rules didn’t stretch to a crash helmet. Francisco reeled the rope back in, then tried again.

  Once he had three ropes secured, the crew of the Sereia winched him up with muscle power and the magic of a block and tackle, continuing the mismatched bumping game between the two boats until he was clear of the hull. When he felt the deck touch the bottom of the lifeboat, he unstrapped himself and rolled out, afraid that if he didn’t move quickly his legs would turn to water.

  When Francisco saw Matt’s face, he seemed to quail a little himself, but his friends gathered around him, clasping his shoulders and shouting things that were probably encouraging. As he climbed into the lifeboat, Matt turned to the nearest crew member and asked if he could help, but the man shook his head and gestured toward the wheelhouse.

  Matt didn’t want to disturb Eduardo in the middle of all these delicate maneuvers, so he just stepped back and watched as the third crossing got underway. Then he spotted Aaron, looking on from the other side of the deck, and approached him.

  “What was Perth like?” Aaron asked.

  “Grim. But I got my mother and sister out.”

  “That’s great.” A long cut ran down the side of Aaron’s face, half covered by a patchwork of Band-Aids, but it looked like it really needed stitches.

  “So everyone was okay when you left the Mandjet?” Matt asked. “Rosa, Hélia . . . ?”

  Aaron nodded. “They didn’t hurt anyone. They pointed the guns at people to get them into their cabins, but then they put bolts on the doors and walked away. They’d actually brought bolts with them, and power tools, like that was the plan all along.”

  “How the fuck did they even get on board?”

  “They said they had a sick kid, so someone waved them through for Rosa to see. It must have been a doll wrapped in rags.”

  Matt had a lot more questions, but he decided to hold off until Thiru arrived to deliver his own grilling. “Yuki and the others will be fine,” he said. “We all agreed a long time ago that if the Mandjet was ever hijacked, we wouldn’t put up a fight. We’d tell them everything they needed to know about the way it worked, and then walk away.”

  Aaron said, “So that was when you all had homes to go to?”

  Matt floundered. “I just meant—”

  Aaron cut him off. “I know. They won’t do anything crazy.”

  Matt felt the Sereia speed up; Eduardo was chasing Thiru in the lifeboat now. He sat down on the deck and put his face in his hands. In the darkness of his skull he saw the empty streets again, and the flash-lit bodies of the girl and her dog. At least his father had lived to the age of sixty-seven, and died with his wife and daughter beside
him. Across the city, thousands of people must have succumbed to the heat by now, alone and afraid, with no help or comfort.

  When he looked up, Thiru was striding across the deck, straight toward Aaron. Matt listened to the debriefing, contributing no questions of his own.

  “Exactly four men, no more?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yes. I saw them all come on board.”

  “And the guns? They all had?”

  “Yes. Each of them had their own.”

  “What kind?”

  Aaron held his hands apart with his elbows bent: shoulder width plus a bit more. “Semiautomatic; the magazines were about twenty centimeters long. They must have been lying in the bottom of the boat, hidden under other things. But by the time they came up from the docking pen, they all had them raised. I was on the other side of the Mandjet, so I’m not sure if they even saw me. I ducked down and watched what they were doing; I tried to phone Yuki to warn her, but she didn’t pick up before they got to her.”

  “So they came in a small boat that could fit into the dock. Where’s the big boat?”

  “No one’s seen it. It must be hanging back somewhere.”

  “Anyone join them on the Mandjet after that?”

  Aaron said, “I don’t think so. Someone’s always been keeping watch, ever since I raised the alarm.”

  Matt supposed there’d be women and children on the larger boat, but there might be any number of potential reinforcements as well. Four might have simply been the number they thought they’d need to take the Mandjet, not the size of the largest force they could muster without leaving their mothership undefended.

  Thiru went to speak with Eduardo.

  Matt said, “That was quite a swim you did.”

  Aaron didn’t take this as a compliment. “Do you think I should have stayed?”

  “No! Everything you’re saying is a thousand times more useful than if you’d been locked up with the others.”

  “Yeah? What exactly is it useful for?”

  Matt didn’t reply. In the end, it would be Thiru who’d decide if the hostages would face more danger from an attempt to retake the Mandjet than they would from shortages and overcrowded boats if they all rejoined the flotilla. But for his own part, he was yet to imagine a plan with the slightest chance of success; if the hijackers kept even a couple of armed lookouts, anyone approaching would simply be mowed down.