Flood

by Stephen Baxter

  “What’s worse is that even in the seas the drawdown mechanisms are failing. The rising temperatures are reducing the efficiency of the phytoplankton. The increasing acidity of the oceans isn’t helping either—carbon dioxide plus water makes carbonic acid. Also you don’t get the cold polar currents descending under the warm low-latitude waters, taking oxygen and nutrients to lower layers. That’s why you get algal blooms following storm systems; you get some mixing-up, temporary, localized.”

  “We know about that,” Lily said. “We feed off it.”

  “We’ve lost all these drawdown mechanisms just at a time when we’ve had a massive one-off injection of carbon dioxide into the air from the fires, and the rotting of the vegetation cover of the drowned land. It’s as if we made a bonfire of everything green on the planet.

  “So things have to change. The Earth is a system of flows of matter and energy, of feedback.”

  Lily whispered, “Gaia.”

  “That’s the idea. The biggest pressure on her has always been a slow heating-up of the sun—the energy the sun pours onto the Earth is up by about a third since life formed. Now, Gaia’s systems adjust, unconsciously, to maintain an even temperature at the surface, a temperature at which life can survive, despite this heating up. In the early days methane was injected into the air, another greenhouse gas, to keep the temperatures up. Some time around two billion years ago the sun’s output was optimal for life on Earth. Since then it’s been getting too hot, Gaia needs to keep cool, and the main way she does this is by drawing down cee-oh-two from the air, and storing it in the rocks, fossil stores like oil, coal.”

  Lily nodded. “The less greenhouse gas there is, the less heat is trapped.”

  “That’s it. But that mechanism is nearing the limit of its capability. The atmosphere’s cee-oh-two tank is, was, pretty much empty. Gaia was already old, even before the flood, and the hot sun is pushing too hard.

  “Some of us think that the glaciation, the Ice Ages, was a kind of experiment with a new stable state. The Ice Ages were tough for humans. But from Gaia’s point of view, if you give up the higher latitudes to ice, you lose a percentage of your productive surface, but you reflect away a hell of a lot of sunlight. Meanwhile life can flourish in the cooled-down mid-latitudes, and indeed on the land surface exposed by the lower sea levels. And the oceans are more fecund when the water is cooler; Gaia likes it cool. So the mechanism worked. But it always looked like a last-gasp effort.

  “And now suddenly Gaia is finding herself water-rich, very hot, with very high carbon dioxide levels. She’s under stress again, a kind of stress possibly unprecedented in her history.”

  “That’s what Thandie says. Stress—”

  “Yes, but we know the Earth likes to settle in stable states, where all its geological, climatic and biological cycles work together. For the last couple of million years it’s flickered between Ice Age and warm interglacial. Now I think Gaia is reaching for a new stasis, a new point of equilibrium, where we’ll see a much higher level of carbon dioxide in the air, and a much higher global temperature. All that heat will generate storms and whip up the sea, promoting life there by stirring up the nutrients, and providing a drawdown mechanism for the carbon dioxide. So you’ll get a stable state, though with a higher cee-oh-two level than before.”

  “I see. I think. No need for land at all?”

  “No. A whole new stable equilibrium, on a hot, stormy, watery Earth. In a sense you could say this is why the deep subsurface reservoirs have opened up now, to release the water to make this new state possible; the old states, the glacial-interglacial, were on the point of failure. You know what? I did some calculations, just blue-sky stuff. I figure that with a configuration like that there could be more total biomass on the Earth than before. The planet will come out of this actually healthier.”

  “But without room for us,” she said.

  “Not necessarily. There’ll be plenty of fish in the sea, if we’ve the wit to catch them. But this whole story has never been about us, has it? It’s always been about the Earth, transforming herself as she has in the past. Even if we gave her the kick in the ass that induced her to start the process.”

  Lily looked at the children playing in the sea. “Our civilization is gone. Everything we built. But look at those kids swimming. They don’t care that the Smithsonian is drowned, or that we’re all offline forever.”

  Gary murmured, “Yes. And even if we pass away, you know, it’s a happy ending of a kind. ‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the Earth abideth for ever.’ Ecclesiastes 1:4.” He grinned. “It was Thandie got me looking up the Bible, but don’t tell her that either.”

  “So what about you? When North America drowns, will you come with us?”

  “I guess not,” he said, as boyishly as if he was refusing nothing more than a second cup of water. “I think I’m done with traveling. And there are people back there I care about.”

  Lily smiled. “You always were a people person, in the end. If not for you, Grace couldn’t have survived. But I can’t see you quitting. You’re only fifty-six. I’ll give you some of Nathan’s raft-seaweed to grow.”

  “Thanks.” He seemed concerned. “But, Lily, look, the seaweed by itself isn’t enough. Eventually you’ll run out of other stuff. The plastic, nylon fishing lines, everything else.”

  “Oh, we know the rafts don’t last forever. Every so often we get hit by a storm we can’t avoid, and a few more are lost. And there are still pirates out there. It’s a steady attrition.”

  “And doesn’t that worry you?”

  She shrugged. “What can we do about it?”

  “It’s a tragedy, you know,” Gary said. “We just ran out of time.” He looked up at the huge sky. “Another fifty years and we’d have had power stations in orbit, and mines on the asteroids and the moon, and we wouldn’t need the damn continents. Well.”

  “Yes.”

  They stood, helping each other up. Arm in arm, they walked to the edge of the raft, where Gary’s friend was waiting beside their rowboat. He was playing coin tricks for a shoal of children, some of them in the water, some out of it. They looked enchanted.

  Gary said to Lily, “I know where you’re heading next.”

  “You do, do you?”

  “There’s only one place to be, in the end, isn’t there, one last sight to see? You’ve got time, a few years left yet.” He hugged her once more, and clambered down into his boat. They pulled on their oars and the boat slid away. “You just know she’s going to be there.”

  “Who?”

  He had to call back from the boat. “The disaster tourist’s disaster tourist. Thandie Jones! Give her my love when you see her.”

  The boat receded, heading back toward the near-submerged Rockies. The raft children splashed and played in its wake, begging for coins. Lily heard Ana’s thin voice calling for little Boris to come in.

  96

  May 2052

  Boris was six years old now. And he wasn’t much interested in some lump of rock that stuck out of the ocean. You saw lumps like that all over, just sticking out. He’d never actually been on one. Why would you want to? It wasn’t a raft, it didn’t go anywhere, you couldn’t eat it, what use was it? The only unusual thing about this one was the flag on its pole on the summit, bright red, with a cute little gold design in the corner. But even that wasn’t very interesting.

  But he had to show an interest, he was told by his father Manco, for Grannie Lily was interested in it. And, his father pointed, look, there were other people interested too. Other rafts had come to sail around the rock, a gathering on the sea, all of them strangers, approaching this place. If they were all coming here there must be something worth seeing, mustn’t there?

  Lily sat in her chair, under her blanket, seventy-six years old, an age she called “impossible.” Mostly she slept. When she was awake she watched the rock approach, a dot of stern darkness against the sparkling ocean, and Boris listened d
utifully as Grannie Lily told him about the strange days when the world had been all rock and hardly any sea, and nobody swam or ate fish, not unless they wanted to. In those days, she said, this particular rock had had various names, old ones like Chu-mu-lang-ma, and young names like Everest. And it was special because this would soon be the only rock left sticking out of the ocean, anywhere in the world.

  That impressed Boris, just a flicker, but so what? Even when the rock was underwater you could always swim down to see it if you really wanted to. However he put up with being cuddled and patted and told he was a good boy in the hope of getting a treat, a bit of dried fish or a coin. And he liked old Lily too, he really did, and not just for the treats she gave him.

  After a time she would fall asleep again, mumbling, drooling a bit, and Boris would stay with her, occasionally wiping the spittle from her mouth.

  Another raft approached, bigger than theirs, buoyed up by fat black tires, a ragged sail fluttering.

  The people on this raft were dressed in the same faded blue coveralls Grannie Lily always wore. But Boris was a lot more interested in the kids he saw playing on the other raft. They had a tire hung up on a rope; you could climb on this thing, and swing on it, or even climb through it and sort of swim in the air.

  Some of the people hopped over from the other raft and came up to Lily. They bent over her, and smiled.

  Lily stirred, and flinched from the circle of faces. “¿Como se llama usted? ¿Me puede ayudar, por favor? Me llamo—”

  “Lily. Lily, it’s OK. It’s me.”

  Lily opened her eyes, squinting. “Thandie? Thandie Jones . . . And Elena, it’s lovely to see you. I was always so glad you two found each other. Never easy to find somebody in this world of ours, I know. You come from that submarine?”

  “The New Jersey? No, ma’am. We were evicted when factions from the federal government took it over, in the final evacuation. Congress-men with their wives, children and mistresses. Now we’re rafting, as you are. And what became of the New Jersey I’ve no idea.”

  Thandie and Elena bent down to inspect Boris. Thandie was dark and tall, Elena shorter, blond. They were both old, though not so old as Lily, not so old they couldn’t walk around anymore. Thandie ruffled his hair. “And you must be Boris. Ain’t you the cutest button?”

  Lily said, “He’s half Russian, a quarter English, and a quarter Quechua—if you believe what Ollantay said about himself.”

  “I bet he’d be proud to see his grandson whatever he was.”

  “Have you any coins?” Boris asked. “Do you do tricks?”

  “Don’t pester, Boris,” Lily said.

  A man stepped forward. “Hello, Lily Brooke.”

  “Jang—Jang Bahadur, it’s you, isn’t it? Well, you could knock me down. Still a handsome devil, aren’t you?”

  “And you are the light of my eye, Lily Brooke.”

  “Liar.”

  “He’s been working for us, Lily,” Thandie said. “Him and his son, anyhow.”

  “As a sherpa? Never went back to the law, eh?”

  “Nobody needs lawyers.” He gestured at the rock. “But look at that! Just my luck, there goes the last mountain and nobody needs sherpas either. I am out of a job again.”

  “You’ll survive, if you survived the stalag that Tibet became. I always knew you would. That’s gone now, hasn’t it? Gone with all the rest and good riddance. And you survived to see this, the waters covering the very roof of the world.”

  “I am blessed—”

  Lily went white, and clutched her chest. Thandie looked concerned. Boris’s mother Ana came to stand by Lily, as she did at such times, and stroked her gray hair.

  “So many questions,” Lily said, whispering.

  “I know, Lily,” Thandie said, kneeling before her and facing her. “Maybe you should try to rest.”

  A gong sounded somewhere, off on another raft, the sound pealing over the water. “It’s time,” people called, from raft to raft. “It’s time!” Everybody on all the rafts turned to the rock in the ocean.

  Boris looked too. He saw that the water had risen, even while Thandie had been talking to Grannie Lily. Already there really wasn’t much left of the rock, just a few outcroppings with the sea lapping around them. It was just a rock, Boris thought, exasperated. But his mother held firmly on to his hand. He wished it would just go ahead and drown and get it over so he could swim.

  “Questions,” Lily said, her voice a gasp. She beckoned to Thandie. “Listen. I saw Gary. We met. This is years ago. He said I’d find you here today. He sent his love.”

  Thandie kissed her cheek. “Thanks.”

  “He has this theory. About life on an ocean world. Storms and stuff. A new equilibrium.”

  Thandie snorted. “Gary’s full of shit. He hasn’t done any real science for thirty years. I love him dearly.”

  “But do you think, you know, it might be possible? Is that the future? Is that what it’s all been about? Earth finding a new way to sustain life?”

  “I don’t know,” Thandie said. “None of us knows.”

  That great gong rang again, and even Boris turned to watch the rock.

  “And,” Lily said, plucking at Thandie’s sleeve, “and this, this is a good one. It keeps me awake at night. Well, lots of things keep me awake at night. Thandie, I sailed on Ark Three, myself. And I saw Ark One fly off, or I believe I did. But—”

  A gust of wind brought the waves crashing over the rock, and for an instant it was covered entirely by the water. Even the flag got a soaking. The wave washed away, and the rock rose in the air again, but it was wet now and it obviously wasn’t going to show for much longer.

  Another wave broke. The rock didn’t reappear. A kind of ragged cheer broke out across the rafts.

  The moment was over. The little band of rafts began to break up. Everybody started talking about real things like fishing, and if it would rain today, turning their backs on the rock. Boris gazed at that tire swing, longing to try it out. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

  Grannie Lily still plucked at Thandie’s sleeve. “But,” she whispered, “but, Thandie—what is Ark Two?”

  Afterword

  As noted in Chapter 34, the literature of global floods goes back to Noah and beyond, and has continued to the present, including such examples as H.G. Wells’s All Aboard for Ararat (1940) and Garrett P. Serviss’s The Second Deluge (1912). The flood is an ur-myth of our culture.

  But there have been suggestions that humans really may have witnessed enormous floods in the past. For instance, when the ice caps receded twenty thousand years ago the rising ocean broke through a natural dam in the Bosporus Strait to fill the present Black Sea in just a few years (see Noah’s Flood by William Ryan and Walter Pitman, Simon and Schuster, 1998). Perhaps our flood legends are relics of real traumas in the past.

  Meanwhile there is some evidence that the mantle, the deep rock layers of Earth’s structure, may indeed contain lodes of water that would dwarf the existing oceans (see A.B. Thompson, “Water in the Earth’s Upper Mantle,” Nature vol. 358, pp. 295-302, 1992). Recently two American scientists have claimed from the evidence of seismic waves to have discovered an ocean locked in the porous rocks deep beneath Beijing (New Scientist, 10 March 2007), while scientists from Tokyo have observed the dragging-down of water at subduction zones (Science, 8 June 2007). New theories showing how worlds even close to their parent stars could form with immense lodes of water were reported at the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in Texas in March 2006.

  James Lovelock, in his Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (OUP, 1979), put forward the idea that the Earth is best understood as a self-regulating system with physical, chemical and biological components, a system with several stable states. A new stable state of a hot stormy flooded world (chapter 95) is my speculation, however, though it is extrapolated from conditions on Earth at times when the planet was dominated by a single supercontinent and a world ocean (see Supercontine
nt by Ted Nield, Granta, 2007).

  The vulnerability of the UK to flooding events has been explored in a report by the Foresight program, run by the government’s Office of Science and Technology (Future Flooding, 2004, www.foresight.gov.uk). The depiction of the flooding of London given here is extrapolated very loosely from the events of January-February 1953, which led eventually to the construction of the Thames Barrier. The most recent “London Flood Response Strategic Plan” was issued by the London Resilience Partnership task force in March 2007 (www.londonprepared.gov.uk/downloads/flood_response_plan.pdf).

  I’m very grateful to Malcolm Burke of Sharperton Systems (www.sharpertonsystems.com) for assistance with research, and with the basis of the maps included in this volume.

  The biblical quotations are from the King James Bible.

  Any errors or inaccuracies are my sole responsibility.

  Stephen Baxter

  Northumberland

  January 2008