by Liz Grzyb
“Christ! Enough with the game talk already! This is bigger than that.”
Further out to sea, Kara can make out the long, black shapes and occasional cooking fires of dozens upon dozens of wooden skiffs and houseboats: people from the surrounding islands attracted to the farming taking place on Mabul, the maturing produce. It is the most there have ever been. An electric thrill of worry runs through her.
The bull rides in again. And out.
Silas’ brows knit. She knows what he is thinking. Bigger than four million in prize money?
Naoko, the mariculturalist, runs up from the water line, accompanied by Tomaso whose pant-legs are scrolled to his thighs and who has no doubt been manning the support boat. Naoko’s wetsuit is shiny with water and her black hair hangs in long, drizzling strands where it has escaped the seal of her hood. A torch bangs at her hip. “The bloom is thickening, but the clams are still alive. If we shift them out to deeper water, they might still be salvageable.”
Silas looks visibly relieved.
“But how trustworthy?” Kara asks. As team botanist, Kara has been responsible for the salt-tolerant land crops and the restoration of the mangroves. But she knows enough about marine vegetation to know that algal bloom can turn marine life deadly without actually killing it.
Naoko takes the point. “I certainly wouldn’t eat them.”
There are already two cameras buzzing and tracking their faces. Soon, a third glides over. Hasty midnight pow-wows are invariably drama: television gold.
Silas is frowning. “No?”
“Not without stringent water testing. Depending on the bloom, we could be looking at paralytic shellfish poisoning, diarrheal disease, liver toxicity: all sorts of toxins that could persist in the live clams.”
“See, Silas?” Kara interjects. “We are talking major environmental contamination here. Contamination of waters that local peoples fish from.” She thinks of all the kids she has seen diving for wild bivalves from their dugout canoes. “This is not about the game anymore. We have a responsibility to the region—”
Silas ignores her. “Will it affect Rebuild’s fish the same way?”
Arsehole!
Naoko’s head tilts at that, but she is too professional to retort, much less punch a man in the mouth. “Uh, we would need results to know anything. Speculation is time-wasting.”
Silas nods. “Righto. I’ll come up with a solution for that. But just in case whatever it is is dose dependent, we’d better move the cages. We’re going to need all hands. Tomaso, run and see if the other teams will come and help us!”
Tomaso scrutinises Silas’ narrow, tanned face, suspicious of disrespect for his expertise, of being sent on an errand because he is the youngest. Silas sighs. “I need to get on the Logue for an ASAP delivery of algal testing gear. Naoko needs to find a safe spot to relocate the cages and Kara . . . Kara punches people.”
Naoko takes her leave, her slender wetsuited form returning to the runabout. Silas throws Kara a withering don’t-embarrass-us-all look and heads for the Logue Room. Tomaso grins and belts away, his bare toes making fading doof doof doof sounds as he recedes across the deep, dry sand toward Advance, his heels kicking up white gouts in his wake. The cameras disperse, one following Naoko and the other, Tomaso.
Kara looks up at the camera tracking her. “Please stop the game,” she says, “on the grounds of Tenets Four, Five, Eight and Nine. The contest is not worth the risk we pose the environment and the locals who will be fishing here long after we are gone.”
There is no reply—this is not the Logue Room—though Kara has no doubt her words will have gone back to someone.
She is pissed that it is she who must take responsibility for the damage; that Sustain and Advance, who have made little environmental impact, must be deprived of reward in order to mitigate Rebuild’s destruction. But there is no other way besides stopping the contest. This is a social experiment as much as a battle of innovation and Curtis has already shown he is not made of the stuff that will see him take the blame. Or even change his processes.
His expression, smirking and dismissive, when Kara had told him only hours ago that the superphosphate leaching from his portion of Mabul was causing the bloom floats through her mind. Kara is a botanist; she knows about eutrophication. To Curtis, she is merely that most annoying brand of woman: an educated harpy.
“You Sustains are just jealous,” his voice echoes in her head, “because we are already shipping product to Indonesia.”
Kara’s sun-cracked lips had drawn back, baring her teeth. She wonders how rabid she will seem on television replay when they are all back together for the end-of-contest special in rented suits and dresses, their hair sculpted and make-up perfect. Will she and Curtis get on then? Call it bygones and say it was all part of the game? She doesn’t think so.
“So, your production has been the highest. At what cost?” she had demanded. “Your processes are not sustainable or self-contained and it is poisoning the water. This contest is graded on far more than getting a crop off the ground.”
Island Green is, in fact, graded on twelve tenets or scoring criteria:
one—Product output in tonnes per acre of land or volume of water
two—Value of product per acre of land or volume of water
three—Cost of production (profitability)
four—Environmental impact
five—Sustainability
six—Carbon footprint
seven—Ease of implementation and ease of replication by other rehabilitation projects
eight—Cultural sensitivity
nine—Social responsibility
ten—Security risk and susceptibility of the project to destruction
eleven—Employability and job opportunities
twelve—Ability to adapt raw products to other ends as foundation for regional industry
Kara had pointed out the ones Curtis was failing in. At the mention of Nine, Curtis had scoffed, “Social responsibility? What is that, in practical terms? Share your liberal enlightenment, Kara, because it sounds like emotional wankery to me.”
“It’s operating a business morally, with a view to benefiting, or at the very least not harming, society.”
“Morally!” Curtis had laughed at that. “Tell me, how do you put a value on morals? And whose morals, exactly, form this baseline of perfection? Yours? I sure hope not. How does the stock market even begin to tally such a thing?” Kara had begun to explain that loads of investors sink their money into companies that reflect their values, when Curtis had flicked his hand like she was a fly and said, “Look, you play the game your way, we’ll play it ours. If productivity costs a couple of fucking sea-turtles, so be it.” And then he had sneered at her, his wide, pug-dog lips twisting on the diagonal, and pretended to touch an imaginary hat brim. “Ma’am.”
Kara had heard kettles shriek through the fabric of the universe. Her fist had been on those lips before her brain had even registered the movement of her shoulder.
She flexes her hand. Her knuckles still sting. It’s a good pain.
Tomaso returns with the four members of Advance: Scott, Kendra, Lilian and Olek. “Curtis wouldn’t come. He wouldn’t let the others either.”
“That guy is a total arsehole,” Scott says. The leader of Team Advance is tall and rangy and ill-fitting inside his olive shirt in that skinny way they all are after subsisting so long on the island. The corners of his green eyes are pinched in solidarity as he says, “I’m sorry they messed things up for you guys. What do you need us to do?”
Kara outlines the task and everyone heads to their tents for wetsuits and water torches. They reconvene at the Sustain shoreline where the surf is rolling in and out through gaps in the mangroves, sparking soft, blue lights from the depths. Naoko calls to them from the runabout, the metal bow of the dinghy under-lit like something magical that might, at the end of the night, be borne away into the sky.
“Wow,” Kendra breathes, the planes of her
jaw and the eaves of her brows taking on a pearlescent sheen. “It’s so beautiful.”
The blonde and badly peeling Olek gives her a small frown of disapproval. Scott turns a commiserating eye to Kara: “Some slack, if you will. She’s an engineer. Not a biologist. Knows her glass panels, but not so up on her tidelines of death.”
Kara can’t help smiling. “Come on. Let’s do this.”
They wade into water that is still warm from the day and swim out through the mangroves to the first of the yellow buoys, vortexes of neon spiralling in their wakes. At the marker, they activate their torches, suck in air and dive.
For a brief space, all distance and direction disappears. The torch beams struggle through the thickly swirling bloom and Kara wonders how it is that something can be called a Red Tide, when it is pond-scum green in the light and white-blue in its absence.
The first cage comes into view, hanging with weed like the Titanic. From her runabout, Naoko is spearing a white beam down through the water ahead, showing them where she wants it. They arrange themselves along the rectangle of cage—four on the corners and two on the sides—and, like pall-bearers, walk the clams through the knee-high, waving seagrass. Their incursion disturbs dark shapes that glide away across the seafloor. Only the puffer fish are confident—as poisonous things often are—swirling in and out of the torch beams. Their miniscule, vibrating fins flare yellow-gold in the light.
Then the cage is in place and they are gasping at the surface, faces speckled with green flecks and under-lit like they are engaged in ghost stories.
“One,” Tomaso pants. His curly black hair is plastered to his cheeks and only makes him look younger.
“How many are there?” Olek puffs.
Kara, panting hard, sees Tomaso open his mouth to answer. She beats him to the punch, kicking him under the water. He’s a good henchman; he doesn’t even flinch. “Only about twenty.”
They breaststroke back for the second buoy.
Scott glides beside her. “Since you kicked me in warning just then, how many are there really?”
Kara feels her cheeks heat, but Scott is smiling, his big blocky brows drawn together in wicked amusement. He has crooked bottom teeth. “More like thirty. And that was one of the smaller ones.”
He gives a low whistle. “All-nighter then.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Not your fault. I’ll be taking the calories back from Curtis.”
They reach the second buoy and repeat the process. This time, Kara takes the corner next to Scott. The third buoy comes with a sea snake; they vote to leave it for last. By the sixth buoy, none of them are talking. At the seventh, Silas joins them. They will have a water assay by lunchtime.
“Good job,” Kara says. It is all the words she has energy for.
They continue on through the wee hours. Cage after cage, their progress slower by the hour.
They lose Tomaso at cage eighteen, to cold. He returns to shore, promising to get soup heating and blankets ready.
It is dawn by the time the cages are all in place. The team are so exhausted, Naoko has to tow them back to shore in pairs.
Scott and Kara are the last to go. They hang side by side from one of the seagrape lines, the rubbery, bulbous leaves brushing against their bellies and down past their legs. Scott is shivering so badly, his arms jolt the line like a hooked fish. Kara is little better, waves of violent shudders running down her body, stealing all thought and speech away.
Scott throws an arm about her and pulls her close. But he has no warmth to share and nor does she. They are cold on cold, like two frogs. “You ‘k-kay?”
She spasms a nod. “Jus’ . . . b-boat.”
There are whole words missing. But he gets the drift. “It’ll c-come.” He looks wearily at the camera hovering above. The cameras have been with them all night, a soft buzzing every time they surface. “Fuh off,” he mutters.
It would be a pretty morning if Kara could see straight. The surface of the water is quicksilver in the predawn light. Above, clouds high enough to catch the sun before it turns the corner of the world glow gold against the paling purple of morning. Sea birds cross the firmament on switchblade wings.
Pressed against Kara, Scott jerks and quakes. His eyes are closed, brows drawn in. His face is porcelain white. He has a nice nose, Kara thinks.
Naoko arrives with a burble of engines, courtesy of Tomaso’s biodiesel side-project. “Sorry to take so long, guys,” Naoko says. “Lilian was not in a good way.”
Kara frowns up. “She ‘k-kay?”
“Just cold.”
Scott opens his eyes. “Huh? Lilian?”
“She’s okay.” Kara helps Scott purchase the side of the boat and Naoko guides the craft slowly back to land. They stagger past the scruffy mangroves and up the beach just as the sun breaks across the ocean, bathing everything in soft, lemony light. Out at sea, the fishing boats are rousing, people moving about the decks.
The rest of Teams Sustain and Advance are stretched out on the cool, dry sand like sea-lions. Scott drops to the beach at the end of the row, falling asleep almost immediately. Kara lies down beside him, grunting a “thank you” to Tomaso as he lays a warmed blanket over each of them.
Several hours later, Scott, Kara and Tomaso are over at Team Rebuild.
“You didn’t even help move the cages, Curtis,” Scott is saying. “That’s pretty dishonourable.”
Curtis fronts up to him and it’s like a pug fronting up to some tall, aquiline hound. A staghound, Kara decides. With a strong nose and piercing eyes.
“We’re playing for a million a head,” Curtis says. “Honour doesn’t factor at this level.” He doesn’t seem at all uncomfortable that a camera hovers above, judging his every word.
“You need to stop the runoff and you need to compensate Team Sustain if the tests return toxic.” Like Curtis and Silas, Scott is missing the point—Kara hasn’t told him of her Logue request to end the game—but she appreciates his support.
They are testing the water now, Silas and Naoko. Kara can just make out the runabout, flashing in and out of view as the breeze sways her mangroves. Beyond them, the dugouts, houseboats and skiffs of the island people are hives of activity. Kara sees young men and children deep-diving from their crafts and prays the bloom has not extended beyond Island Green waters, that the wild cockles and clams they are taking back to their communities are still safe for human consumption.
“I don’t need to do shit, Kara.” Curtis’ black eyes are on her, blaming her for Scott. “If we choose to exchange water quality for high yield lupins, that’s our business. It is within the rules. Just like you choose to let those boaties have some of your seaweed, which I imagine rates pretty negatively on Tenets One and Two.”
Scott looks over at Kara, brows enquiring.
Kara shrugs. “They help us tend the sea lines and we let them take cuttings home to eat. Agar-agar and seagrapes are culinary mainstays of the region.” She sneers at Curtis. “You secure your perimeter with guns and boats; we choose security through generosity and employment.”
Scott gives an approving nod and turns back to Curtis. “You’re right that the rules let you pollute your own water, but you polluted our water as well. That’s interference.”
“No, it’s Tenet Ten: susceptibility of the project to destruction. It seems that Sustain in particular is liable to waterborne pollutants. You guys should be shoring up your defences instead of bending my ear—”
“Bastard!” Tomaso cries.
“Oh, two can play at that game, buddy,” Kara growls.
She storms away, hearing Curtis holler after her as she carves a path through his crop instead of taking the footway around it. It shames her as a botanist how much she enjoys the crack of long, healthy wheat stems simply because they are his. Plants crash behind her as Tomaso jogs to catch up. “Whatever it is, I’m in,” he says. “You are planning to sabotage them, right?”
Kara isn’t sure what she plans, isn’t sure sh
e isn’t doing that right now with every misplaced step. She hears Scott and Curtis exchange insults and then Scott is by her side, wading through the greenery, his long legs making it look effortless. “Hey? You okay?”
“We’re going to sabotage them,” Tomaso declares vehemently. “Quid. Pro. Quo.”
“Don’t be a child,” Scott tells him. “You’re what . . . some engineering whiz from Yale?”
“Renewable energies. Harvard.”
“Good. Act like it.” Scott gives Tomaso a firm, but not unaffectionate shove in the direction of Sustain. “Go make power or something.”
“It makes its own power, dickhead. Like, all the time. I don’t fucking pedal it.”
“Go help Silas and Naoko then. Go . . . get a tan.”
Tomaso gets the message and leaves. Kara feels Scott’s fingers slide into her hand, drawing her to a gentle stop in the middle of the wheat. She realises she is trembling.
“Don’t do anything dumb,” he says gently. “For all we know, environmental damage is worth far more negative points than a lost clam crop. Besides, I daresay it’s in the fine print that you are not allowed to slash their fish nets.”
“Curtis wears fishnets? No wonder he’s angry. Those things ch-chafe.” Kara tries to smile up at him but her eyes well. Everything distorts.
“Hey!” Scott’s green eyes bore into hers, wobbly through the tears. “It’s okay.” He holds his arms out. “May I?” When she nods, he envelops her in his warmth, hugging her close.
“It’s just so shitty, Scott. And he doesn’t even care. Naoko spent ages cultivating those juvenile clam seeds. She had to ejaculate a clam. Did you even know you can do that?”
“No. That sounds a bit . . . ”
“If you say ‘fishy’, we can’t be friends.” But her face cracks anyway and suddenly she’s gulping tears and sobbing with laughter right into his shirt. He doesn’t comment or make a joke. His jaw remains a gentle weight on the crown of her head and his arms stay around her until she subsides. “God, I’m sore from all that lifting.”
