Writers of the Future Volume 28: The Best New Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year

by L. Ron Hubbard

  “You are losing control. You may be a wise man, but you have no experience with violence. You . . .”

  “When I came here, I killed the men who were living on these islands and the first three that came afterward.”

  In the long pause that followed she wondered if she had miscalculated. Her hand drifted to her pack where her revolver was stowed, but she sensed no threat from him.

  “Why?”

  “They would have taken my boat. All they wanted was to escape this place, and they would have done anything to that end.”

  “Escape? Are we your prisoners?”

  “Of course not. Anyone may leave, but not with my boat.”

  “Still, I don’t believe you understand Chinese tongs.”

  “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  “In the Chinese view, there are three tongs on this island: the Kumas, led by Madam Woo, the Shen, led by Lu Ping and the ‘Others,’ led by you.”

  “Go on.”

  “No two tongs are equal. They will always fight until a hierarchy is established. You are on top now, but you are outnumbered. The Kumas will overwhelm you, and Madam Woo will take what she wants, and she wants the chips.”

  “She’s smart enough to know that if she kills me, she could probably not get the chips.”

  “Is this boat seaworthy?”

  “It was. Although I don’t know if it can break out, now.”

  “Why don’t you try? Why don’t you leave this hellish place and take those of the Others who want to go with you? This is not the only spot in the world to hide, although it’s got to be the most uncomfortable.”

  Crab’s face broke into a smile. “You are the only person who’s tried to reason me into leaving in a long time. And for your consideration, I owe you an answer.”

  He broke his position, got to his hands and knees and then stood. “Come, I want to show you something.”

  He walked to the door at the back of the room, a door that Liyang had barely noticed before, but now realized was the only other exit from the room and, presumably, the only entrance to the rest of the ship. He took a key from a small pack at his waist and unlocked the door. Beyond, in the small room, Liyang saw, to her surprise, a stairway leading up.

  They climbed the spiral staircase to a long narrow room with a number of monitors, apparently computers, and other machines that she did not recognize. A few ancient office chairs sat in front of the monitors. The windows were covered with the usual plastic debris, and a fan came on for ventilation. She assumed they were still entombed in plastic. Crab punched a few buttons, and the monitors came to life.

  “Where do you get the power for these?”

  “Batteries. Argon batteries.”

  “But you have to charge them.”

  “Static electricity. It’s a charger of my own invention. Not particularly original, but no one else would need to avail themselves of such a meager power source. Static electricity is one of the few natural resources of this place.”

  Crab stood proudly as if he had cast off the skin of the humble yogi. The central monitor at his side displayed a grid speckled with dots and columns of numbers beneath. “Surely, you’ve heard of the buoys that created these islands.”

  “Adam said that they had malfunctioned, and the plastic didn’t sink like it was supposed to.”

  He motioned to the monitor. “These are the buoys, or rather displays from the buoys. Two hundred and forty still operational, but over a hundred down. I’m fairly frantic.”

  “I thought they were malfunctioning in the first place. Wouldn’t it be good that they all stopped?”

  “It’s true; we didn’t expect the polymeyers to bind. I wasn’t in charge of the project then, but it killed Dr. Stroud, who was. I had come on a reconnaissance mission in this very boat to observe the phenomenon, to investigate how we might reverse the process. I was returning home when the Cal-Alaska war broke out. After I was declared a public enemy—it’s a long story—I decided to abscond with the boat and hide in the Patch.”

  “That’s been a long time ago. You could probably return to California at this point.”

  “There I’m afraid you are misinformed. The Alaska coalition is not forgiving, and they have a long memory. One of my colleagues was executed only last year. I’m still very much on the wanted list. And so I continue my labors here. So far, I’m able to keep the majority of the buoys running.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand. Why keep them running at all? The experiment failed. Let them go.”

  Crab looked weary. “Do you realize what would happen if the buoys stopped broadcasting? These bergs would begin to disintegrate again. Eventually all the plastic would be released back into the Pacific. You see, this is one of the most spectacular failures from which the earth has ever benefited.”

  Liyang looked at the windows of the little room as if she could see beyond the plastic to the ocean. “I’m beginning to get the picture. These bergs are like giant magnets, gathering up the garbage from the gyre.”

  “Precisely.” His eyes flashed for the first time. “It would be better that there were no pollution at all, but, given that there is, it’s a vast, vast improvement for it to be gathered together into inert masses like these.”

  Liyang put her hand on one of the monitors and watched the display. “Then what you are doing here . . . is saving the ocean.”

  He sighed. “How sweet your praise. I’ve received little enough of it. But now . . . now I’m afraid my equipment deteriorates. The buoys have broadcast far beyond their life expectancy. Components fail. One by one, the buoys fall silent from the want of parts.”

  Liyang studied him for a moment. “My chips.”

  “I’m afraid so. Not only would they keep the buoys going, the preprocessor would increase their efficiency by a hundredfold.”

  The morning sun did not reach into the gullies and fractured valleys of the plastic wasteland where three figures trudged, single file.

  “If I can just repair the buoys along the fault line,” said Crab, in the lead, “I can keep the island together.”

  “Liyang, ” Adam gestured with his free hand, “I can’t believe that you’ve come along and in just a few months found out more about Crab than I’ve learned in the past three years.”

  “She is resourceful,” said Crab.

  “I had something he wanted.” Liyang carried the ropes and climbing equipment. “And let me clarify again, this is a reciprocal agreement. For his five chips we get a boat and enough petrol to reach Okinawa City as soon as it’s in range.”

  “I couldn’t have thought of a better plan, myself,” said Adam.

  “Don’t go pinning a medal on me,” said Liyang, carefully stepping where Crab had just placed his feet. “I’m a selfish woman who knows what she wants. The other 195 chips are coming with me when we sail away into the sunset.”

  “I’m not complaining,” said Adam. “It’s a wonderful arrangement for Liyang and me except, what are you going to do, Crab, after we’re gone? How are you going to manage the Woo contingency?”

  “I’ll make do. Perhaps Lu Ping and the Shen will help me. Madam Woo, of course, will be furious that you’ve gotten away with the chips but my ship is fairly impregnable if she tries an all-out assault. The more difficult thing will be managing the buoys. Unfortunately, I can no longer service them on my own. That’s why I took Stephen into my confidence, because he was strong.”

  “It’s strange that he died.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought of that, but I could find no signs of foul play.” After a long pause in which the only sound was the crunch of their footfalls, Adam spoke again.

  “There are a few other things I am curious about, Crab, or perhaps I should call you Dr. Rajkrab, now. What about this whole Indian guru thing? Was it for real?”

  “If you mean, am I a gur
u? The answer is no. I am Indian, but I was born in Santa Monica. My goal, in adopting the guru posture, was to keep from having to kill. You see, at first, I shared all my knowledge and resources with the people who were already here, and they very nearly killed me for my boat. It was the same with the few people that came afterward. There seemed to be only two strategies that made any sense, killing everyone on sight who arrived here or befriending them and helping them survive, physically, emotionally, and at the same time, hiding my resources and my true purpose. Obviously, I preferred the second. Stephen was the only one I felt I could trust, before Liyang and you.”

  Adam stopped. “I say, is it my imagination or is the plastic softer here?” They tracked the wastes north of Crab’s boat. No paths had been trampled, and the surface was rough and irregular. The peaks were small, and some of the debris was actually loose and lay on top of the other pieces.

  “It’s not your imagination. This is the area around the buoy that’s been down the longest. The plastic that bonded here is becoming undone.”

  “I’m wondering if we shouldn’t be roped together in case one of us falls through,” said Liyang.

  “No need. We’re here,” said Crab, looking at his locator screen. “The hatch cover should be right about here.”

  They found a domed lid camouflaged with various pieces of plastic waste attached. “This stuff is stuck on to make the lid look natural,” said Crab. He tried to lift the lid. After several grunts, he jerked it up with a cracking sound.

  “Ah! I’ve broken it. I’ll have to glue this back together while Liyang is replacing the chip. We can’t risk the access tube filling up.”

  Adam shined his light directly into the hole. It extended at a steep angle down into the plastic. “I can see the end.”

  “It’s about twenty-five, thirty feet. Stephen was able to lower me to the service panel with no problem and pull me back.”

  “Then let’s get on it,” said Liyang as she dropped her backpack and began taking off her snowshoes.

  “You’re sure this is safe,” said Adam.

  “You can’t be sure of anything here, but I made it fine the two times I went.”

  Crab looped the rope around both Liyang’s legs.

  “I wish there were some other way,” said Adam. “Hanging upside down in that pipe, she could black out.”

  “There’s no room to turn around at the bottom. Believe me, I tried it.”

  “Let’s get this over with.” She strapped the light onto her forehead.

  “The tool bag has only the things you’ll need. I don’t want to weigh you down,” said Crab. “If you need anything else, you can shout up and we’ll slide it down to you.”

  She crouched on her knees before the hole and then crawled inside. The slant was sharper than forty-five degrees, and she would have slid down but for Adam holding her feet. At least it wasn’t straight up and down, she thought. She turned on the light on her forehead to reveal a round, cream-colored tunnel that gradually narrowed to a dark point below.

  “Let’s go,” she cried, more cheerful than she felt. It was, she thought, like being lowered into a claustrophobic nightmare, but she shook her head and blinked it away.

  The pipe was smooth and the joints well fitted except that in the middle she encountered a rupture, a long, jagged crack that she had to get across.

  “Hold up,” she shouted. “Let me pull. I’ve got to crawl over a crack.”

  The crack was sharp and almost a third of the length of the pipe. She could easily cut her hands on it or rip her P-suit, though, once past it, the pipe was smooth again to the bottom. The top of the buoy was more than a meter wide and round. It reminded her of the old-fashioned mines placed in harbors in earlier years.

  Debris, probably from the crack, covered most of the small hatch door, but she was able to scrape it back and stuff it around the edges. The buoy seemed to be firmly embedded in the plastic.

  She heard water surging below her and gasped. The image of the tube filling up with icy water gave her chills, and it was all she could do to keep from crying out for them to raise her back to the surface. Gritting her teeth, she inserted the key into the cover slot.

  With several strong twists, the watertight cover lifted off. She was able to get it out of the way by wedging it above her.

  The air was beginning to get stale, and she was anxious to be finished and pulled back to the surface. The port for the chip was vacant, as Crab said it would be.

  She had to take off her gloves for this part. Removing the case from her pack, she opened the cover and lifted out the tiny chip. It sparked as she fitted it into place. It seated. Then she removed a round, flat battery and inserted it into the battery port. A tiny pilot light blinked.

  She pulled the buoy cover down and turned it into place, patting it for luck. It made a hollow sound.

  “Okay. Done!” she shouted up the hole.

  “Okay,” came the faint return. She was zipping up the tool bag when she heard something that she didn’t understand: a pop.

  She wrinkled her brow. Then she heard it again, a shot. Her pulse jumped from fright. What’s happening up there? Voices. Instinctively, she turned off the light on her head. Plunged into total darkness, she tried to force her ears to the surface, listening, hardly daring to breathe.

  A clunk as something was thrown into the pipe. She heard it slide down and braced herself, not knowing what it was. Then she heard it catch at the break and stop. She had to get out of there. She hoped Adam and Crab could hold off their attackers, but she had a bad feeling about that. Perhaps, she thought, she could pull herself up with the rope.

  A loud shot rang in the pipe, and she jumped. The bullet barely missed her, crashing into the buoy below and bouncing into the plastic. She was too frightened to scream. They were shooting down the pipe at her. No, she wailed in her mind. Not to die like this! Shot upside down in the dark in a damn pipe. She clinched her fists. Buddha help me! she cried in her mind.

  More voices, but no more shots. She strained with all her might to hear. Then she heard something else thrown into the pipe and felt a coil begin at her feet above her. They had thrown the rope into the pipe. No. It was all she could think. This could not be happening. And then the sound she dreaded above all others: the grating of the hatch cover as it was replaced on the pipe.

  The blackness was filled with the sound of her breathing. They were leaving her to die upside down in the pipe. Her eyes wide, seeing nothing, she pressed with her arms against the walls that held her as if she could spread them apart. Her mind churned. She had to resist panic. Think. There must be a way out.

  She turned the light on her forehead back on. The close surroundings seemed to leap into her face. What did she have with her? Nothing but the tools. With a rotosaw she could cut handholds to push herself up, but she had only screwdrivers, chip tools, a spare battery, the bag and the rope. She felt back for the plastic length coiled at her feet and pulled some of it to the front of her. Something else lay on her leg. It was the other object that had been thrown into the pipe, dragged down, now, by the rope. She felt back behind her for it. Not a tool. It was soft and mushy. She brought it to the front of her. No, not a tool. A tube of old-fashioned Super Glue.

  The meeting chamber on Crab’s boat was partly filled. The “Others,” as the non-Chinese had begun to be known, sat despondently on the floor and were guarded by the Shen, under Lu Ping, with guns drawn. One by one the members of the Kumas tong entered the room with their prizes, first Adam, disheveled and with a swelling, black eye, then Crab, carried by two of the Chinese. They propped him up where he stood, mostly on one leg, the other bleeding from the thigh.

  “Now, Crab,” Madam Woo said. “I’ll have the chips.”’

  “No,” he said.

  One of his guards raised a hand to strike him, but Madam Woo stopped him with a gesture.

&nb
sp; “I do not know what games you play with your little experiments, but are they worth your life?”

  “If you kill me you will never find the key to that door, and, believe me, you won’t open it without the key or a bomb.”

  “On the contrary, I’ll open it with a single bullet or, perhaps, three or four. Is it worth it, Crab, to see all your friends die, one at a time? I will bring each one before you and explain to them that you could save them, merely by producing a small key. Then I’ll put a bullet in their head and bring the next one before you—until you produce the key and the chips.”

  “For God’s sake, give her what she wants,” said one of the Indonesians. “What can be so important that we all die?”

  “You see, your friends understand the wisdom of my position.”

  “No, they don’t,” said Crab.

  “Oh, I think they understand all they need to. They will die because of your stubbornness.”

  “The chips are not his to hand over,” a loud, ragged voice said from the doorway.

  “Liyang!” cried Adam.

  All eyes turned to her. She held her revolver extended in front of her with both hands, which were skinned and bleeding. Her hood was missing, and her hair was wild. Her P-suit was torn. She panted for breath.

  “Move out of the way, Crab,” said Liyang.

  “I’ll kill him,” said Madam Woo, pressing her pistol against the back of Crab’s head.

  “I am an expert marksman,” said Liyang, her voice trembling with emotion. “I am so angry, I could kill you no matter what happens in this room. You left me to die like a rat in that pipe.”

  “But look around you. All our guns, against yours.”

  One of the Kumas turned his gun on her, but Liyang’s shot rang so quickly that it seemed her gun never left Madam Woo.

  The man fell, a bullet in his head, and everyone seemed to hold their breath.

  “Shen tong! Guns on the Kumas!” It was Lu Ping, and almost half the Chinese turned their guns on the members of the Kuma tong. The Kumas wavered, not seeming to know where to point their guns.