Ark

by Stephen Baxter

  ′That′s so, sweets. One mile up, right here.′

  A gruff voice broke in. ′Well, a mile less six hundred feet or so. They ought to make that plaque dynamic. Hey, George, we should get AxysCorp to pitch for the business …′ A burly man, short, aged maybe mid-fifties, was coming down the steps towards them. His grey-flecked hair was shaved short to the scalp, and his fleshy nose and double chin were bright with sweat. His accent was British, London or Essex maybe. He was trailed by a couple of other men, one tall, composed, black, the other shorter, agitated. ′Patrick Groundwater, you old dog. Good to see you again.′ He stuck out a hand. ′Nathan Lammockson.′

  5

  Holle stood in the middle of the circle of the four men, peering up.

  Nathan introduced his companions. ′George Camden, one of my senior guys in AxysCorp.′ Camden, black, was slim, confident, apparently competent; he returned Patrick′s gaze. He wore a coverall in AxysCorp blue, with the corporation′s famous logo, the Earth cradled in a cupped hand, emblazoned on his chest. Like Patrick′s own Alice, he stayed silent and stood back, watchful.

  ′And Jerzy Glemp.′

  Glemp, tubby, his greasy black hair speckled with grey, and with heavy old-fashioned spectacles perched on a thin nose, was nervous, intense, his palm damp. He wore a stuffy-looking suit. ′Mr Groundwater. I am pleased to meet you.′ His accent was heavy, east European or Russian. When he smiled his jowls crumpled, stubbly. ′I learned your name through Nathan. How you were one of those who expressed concern at the reaction of the 2018 IPCC in New York.′

  2018, when maverick oceanographer Thandie Jones had presented her conclusions on the state of the world to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to be met by what struck Patrick as unjustified scepticism by the scientists, and then denial and evasion by their political masters in the months and years that followed. ′Yes, I was there - that′s where we first met, right, Nathan?′

  Nathan grinned and clapped Patrick′s shoulder. ′After the session I made sure I got him locked into LaRei there and then. Hell, I could see right off that here was a man with resources and vision - the kind of man who sees through the bullshit and false hope and thinks about the long term, and deals with it. And I was right, wasn′t I, Patrick? It was after that meeting that you started buying up all that land on the Plains, and what a smart move that was. And that′s what I intend to come out of today - what we all intend. A fresh new direction.′

  ′So you′re based in Peru now?′

  ′Yeah. You′d think I′d be used to the sun.′ He wiped sweat from his fleshy brow. ′I should have glopped up. Some days you almost miss the rain. But it rains like Manchester even up in the Andes.′

  Jerzy Glemp said, ′Mr Groundwater, you′re originally Scottish, aren′t you?′

  ′Is my accent still so strong?′ But Glemp would know all about him from Nathan′s files. ′Born and bred in Orkney, from an old family there. We took Holle there once. Let her crawl around in the Ring of Brodgar, just so she could say she′s been where her ancestors grew up. She was only six months old. But now the place is drowned, every last island. So we′re rootless.′

  Glemp said, ′As are so many of us. And your wife—′

  ′A local girl,′ Patrick said. ′Lost her a year ago, to cancer.′ They looked uncomfortable. ′It′s OK. Holle knows all about it.′

  Holle stared up at Glemp. ′Where′s he from?′

  Glemp laughed. ′We′ve been ignoring you, haven′t we? She has your colour,′ he said to Patrick. ′And your charming accent. I myself am from Poland.′

  ′Where′s that?′

  Patrick began to try to explain, but Glemp cut him off. ′It is nowhere now. Under the sea. A place for the fishes to play.′

  ′You′re funny.′

  ′Well, thank you. Today, you know, we are going to try to make sure that when you are grown up, your children will have a place to play.′

  ′Instead of the fishes?′

  ′Instead of the fishes. Quite so.′

  ′You′re funny.′

  Nathan said to Patrick, ′He works for Eschatology, Inc. He′s always like this. Got to love him. Well, let′s hope he′s right.′

  The public library was a collision of eras, a sandstone and glass block from the 1950s cemented to a red-brick block from the 90s: another ageing structure that hadn′t been refurbished for a decade or more. They had to get through another layer of security to enter, this one operated by LaRei and a lot tougher than the police and military cordons elsewhere.

  An open area on the ground floor of the library had been set out for a conference, just rows of fold-out chairs set up before a podium. It was a homely setting, Patrick thought, as if they were here for a town meeting to discuss planning applications. But shadowy figures sat at the back of the block of chairs, like Alice and Camden, guards and minders. And maybe twenty of the fifty or so chairs were already occupied, by men and women many of whose faces Patrick immediately recognised from news media and conferencing and some face-to-face contact. There were people in this room who could have bought and sold Patrick and even Nathan Lammockson a dozen times over.

  This was LaRei, a secretive and exclusive society, established in the years before the flooding as a source of contacts for good schools and exclusive vacation resorts and fabulously expensive merchandise like watches and jewellery, now become a kind of survivalist network of the super-rich. LaRei, where a net worth of a billion bucks wouldn′t even get you in the door; without Nathan′s sponsorship Patrick wouldn′t be here.

  And at the front of the room, by the podium, stood a slim black woman of about forty, wearing a battered coverall that might once have been AxysCorp blue. She was setting up a crystal ball, a big three-dimensional projection system that showed an image of the turning Earth. Patrick recognised Thandie Jones.

  Holle was distracted by the pretty Earth globe, whose blue light cast highlights from the library′s polished wood panels and the rows of books on the shelves. But she quickly grew bored, as Patrick had expected. He let her wriggle to the floor and explore the contents of his shoulder bag, pulling out books. When she got her Angel started up, before she got the gadget settled, a few bars of music wafted through Patrick′s own head. Right now Paul Simon′s ′Graceland′ was her favourite. Nobody was making new music now, but that made no difference to Holle; she was developing her own tastes, and was working her way through Patrick′s own collection, all of it as fresh to her as if it had been written yesterday.

  Then she became aware of another child, a blond little girl of about her age, sitting on the other side of the room. They stared at each other as if the adults around them were as remote and irrelevant as clouds.

  6

  A portly man, white, maybe sixty, his head hairless, his face round and pale, stood up before Thandie. ′You′re ready to go, Dr Jones?′ He turned to face the audience. ′You all know me, I think. I′m Edward Kenzie, chair of LaRei.′ His accent was a harsh Chicagoan. He spoke without amplification, but so small was the group, so quiet the empty library, Patrick had no trouble hearing him. ′You may not know my little girl, Kelly.′ He pointed to the kid who was playing with Holle. ′But in a sense she′s the reason we are here today.′ His fingers were fat and soft, Patrick noticed, and the tips were stained yellow with nicotine, a strange, atavistic sight.

  Kenzie went on, ′Many of us heard Dr Jones speak to the IPCC seven years ago. Well, as a fellow Chicagoan I′ve followed her career since then, and the reports and papers she′s been filing, and I can tell you that every prediction she made then has come true, near as damn it, and every prediction many of us made about the inaction of our governments has dismayingly come true also. Now we′ve asked her to speak to us again, to give us an update on her IPCC talk, so to speak. And then I want to suggest a way forward for us, as we move on from this point. Dr Jones.′ And he sat down with arms folded, his expression intent.

  Thandie glanced around the room. She looked hardy, weather-b
eaten, a field scientist. ′Thanks. I′m Thandie Jones. My specialisms are oceanography and climatology. Formally I′m attached to the NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which fortuitously has an office in Boulder, Colorado, so still above the rising sea. I was present at one of the initial high-profile flooding events, London 2016, and since then I′ve witnessed a few more of the dramatic events that have followed - many of them hydrological catastrophes without precedent in historical times …′

  She spoke of a worldwide community of climatologists and other specialists observing the rapidly evolving events. There was still formal publication, of a sort, still seminars, still something resembling the scientific process going on. But mostly all they could do was log the Earth′s huge convulsion as it happened, and try to guess what would come next.

  ′What I′m paid to do is produce predictive models of the ocean and the climate, to assist the Denver government in its planning for the future. What I′m notorious for, as I guess you know, is my speculation as to the cause of the global flooding event, and its eventual outcome.′

  She turned to her spinning crystal ball, the turning, three-dimensional Earth, a fool-the-eye illusion wrought by spinning screens, lenses and mirrors, and multiple projectors. Patrick remembered she had used a similar display back in 2018, and he wondered if this was the very same piece of equipment. Quite likely it was. ′Here′s the Earth as we knew it before the inception of the flooding, back in 2012.′ It was an image of a cloudless world, with the familiar shapes of the continents brown-grey against a blue ocean. ′And here′s where we live now.′ She pressed a control.

  The seas glimmered and rose, and the land melted away. The water erased swathes of China, and washed across northern Europe deep into Russia, and in South America took a bite into Amazonia. Patrick′s eye was drawn to Britain, from which much of southern England had been lost, and the rest of the country reduced to an archipelago of highlands.

  In North America the relentless sea had deleted Florida, and had swept inland to cover the east coast states as far as Maine, and the Gulf states as far north as Kentucky. In the west the ocean had pushed deep into the valleys of California. Great cities had been lost, abandoned: New York, Boston, New Orleans, even Washington DC. And with so much lost of the old United States east of the Ozarks there had been a massive population displacement. America was so terribly young, Patrick thought. It wasn′t much more than two centuries since the continent had been first crossed by the European settlers, and not much less since the great western migrations in search of land and gold. Now another vast flight to the west was under way.

  Thandie went on, ′I don′t need to detail for this group the economic dislocation that has unfolded, nor the tremendous human tragedy. A few months back I myself visited a huge refugee camp outside Amarillo, Texas. But I do want to point out how all this illustrates the accuracy of my modelling. When I spoke to the IPCC in 2018 the flooding had reached a mere thirteen metres above the old sea level datum, on average. At that time the scientific consensus was that the flooding couldn′t exceed eighty metres or so, because that was the upper bound from ice-cap melting. Well, just as my models predicted then, we have now reached a rise of around two hundred metres. The incremental rise is currently around thirty metres a year, and is following an exponential curve upwards. It seems clear the worst is yet to come, despite the denials of the scientific community and the governments. Regarding the source of the rise we have continued to gather data, and again every new piece of data has confirmed my tentative 2018 modelling.′

  Thandie had established that the sea level rise was fuelled not by melting ice but by ejections from subterranean seas, from lodes of water stored within the Earth. She produced images taken from undersea explorations of vast, turbulent, underwater fountains, places where hot, mineral-laden water was forcing its way out of the substrate, up from the depths of the rocky Earth itself.

  Nobody knew why it should be just now that the deep reservoirs broke open. There had been dramatic and abrupt changes in Earth′s climatic state in the past. Maybe this was just another of those dramatic but natural transitions. Or maybe it was humanity′s fault.

  ′But in a real sense the cause doesn′t matter,′ Thandie said, ′and it′s futile to assign blame. Whatever the cause, we have to deal with the consequences. And from this point on those consequences are unknown. Up to now we have had some precedents to guide us. In the Cretaceous era, for instance, when the dinosaurs were still kicking around, Earth was warmer and wetter, and sea levels were much higher. Now we′re passing such precedents. We′ll soon be in an era when seas will be higher than at any time since the formation of the continents over two billion years ago.

  ′I′m aware that the federal government and other agencies continue to plan on the basis of the flood receding, of the possibility of recovery. Various departments are working on plans for the orderly recolonisation of formerly drowned regions, for instance. I have to say I see no reason why the flooding should stop any time soon. Indeed we′re finding it hard to put an outer limit on the ultimate sea level rise. My best guess is that if the subsurface chambers we′ve discovered release all their water, we′ll end up with oceans five times the volume they had in 2010. All Earth′s land area will be lost long before that limit is reached, of course.′ She let silence linger after that blunt statement.

  Edward Kenzie nodded. ′So, Dr Jones, what do you think we should do?′

  She shrugged. ′You′ve three choices, as I see it. You plan for a life on the sea. Or under it. Or away from the Earth entirely.′ Patrick found himself nodding at that last. ′Oh,′ Thandie said, ′and you′ve around fifteen years to choose which, and implement your plan.′

  ′Why fifteen years?′

  ′Because in fifteen years Denver will be flooding.′ She glanced around at the old library, the dusty calm, the sunlit air. ′The water will be here. I guess whatever you′re going to do, you need to start now. Any more questions?′

  After fifteen minutes of reasonably informed questions from the LaRei members, the presentation was over, and Thandie began to pack away her gear.

  ′One more question,′ Patrick said. ′What are your own future plans, Dr Jones?′

  She smiled. ′To continue to observe. Events are unfolding which nobody has ever seen before, nor ever will again. I can′t have children. I have no stake in the future. But the present is rich enough for me.′

  7

  Once more Edward Kenzie stood up. ′There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, as authoritative a picture as you′re going to get. Just like New York 2018 all over again, right? Now we get to the crux of the meeting. Since New York, thanks to the incompetence, denial and buck-passing of our governments, we′ve already wasted seven years. The resources the federal government has put into dealing with the worst case, a continued sea level rise, have been minimal compared to what′s been spent on the fanciful plans for recovery and recolonisation to which Dr Jones alluded. Well, I for one am not going to sit around dreaming while the rising sea obliterates my wealth and property and turns my family into drowned rats. Some of us are going to try and do something.′

  There was a rumbling of support for that.

  Kenzie held up his hands. ′I, with the help of Nathan Lammockson and others, have brought here experts in a number of fields. Now′s your chance to talk to them, to start the seeds of your thinking about what you intend to do. What we need to consider is meaningful options for the worst case. I hope that out of this session will come a number of projects - a number of ark designs, if you will - that can proceed more or less independently of each other. That seems the way to maximise our chances of success. This is the inception of a programme, not any one single project.

  ′But we′re going to have to proceed with extreme caution. Think about it. The Earth is drowning. Tell the world you′re building an ark, and every hapless IDP and his brood will be fighting for a place aboard.′ He glared around at them, his face pinc
hed and calculating. ′I′m hoping we′re going to support each other in years to come. But we must work discreetly. We must keep our secrets - even from each other. We should each know only what we need to know about what the other guy is doing, like terrorist cells. Maybe that doesn′t sound very American. But we suffered enough from those terrorist assholes with their pinprick attacks ever since 2001. We may as well learn a few lessons from the way they operate, right?′

  He′d clearly worked all this out. And yet Patrick could see the sense in what he was saying. He′d seen for himself how every attempt made by the federal government to alleviate the crisis was soon overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the unfolding disaster. While it was hardly democratic, secrecy might indeed be the only way forward, to deny the multitude to give a few a chance.

  As the session broke up, Patrick had to tap Holle on the shoulder to get her to turn off her Angel. She glanced around, looking for Thandie′s spinning Earth, and was disappointed it had been switched off.

  Outside the library, Jerzy Glemp approached Patrick and drew him away from the knots of conversation that were forming. ′I saw you nod,′ he said, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.

  ′You did?′

  ′When Dr Jones was summarising. When she said we should seek refuge off the Earth.′ He looked up at the sky.

  ′I guess it struck a chord.′

  ′Is the logic not inevitable? This Earth is doomed; that much is obvious. In a hundred years it will be a world for fishes. Just as Poland is already gone. The only hope for mankind will be to find some new place to live, out among the planets and the stars.′

  ′You′re talking about some kind of spaceship?′

  ′Of course.′ He glanced around. ′Look at the others. Nathan Lammockson is talking of building mighty ocean-going ships, like Noah. Others dream of submarines and undersea colonies. You and I know, Mr Groundwater, that space is the only salvation. And you and I, Mr Groundwater, here and now, in this very conversation, are laying the first foundation stone in the project that will save mankind. I have the qualifications. I studied astronautics in Poznan, before the flooding came. I contributed to European space missions. I have a doctorate in the writings of Tsiolkovsky. With your resources, and my vision - yes, we will build a spaceship, a spacegoing ark.′