The Wandering Island Factory

by TR Nowry

  Chapter 19

  Moonlight under a clear winter sky was spectacular. The northern lights that nearly extended to the equator only added to the magic of the moment. He leaned back in the lawn chair set up on the roof of the metal box. Winter should have been unbearable, but 'global warming' had its advantages too. The bitter cold nights reached down to a frigid sixty-one degrees. Hardly worth dressing up for.

  The radio played in the control room just loud enough to be heard over the gentle waves and the swishing of hydraulic fluid in the tidal generator.

  They were in the long pause of commercials, but didn't seem to mind. Gina looked at him, smiled, then returned her gaze up at the glowing green sky. "The end of the world comes with one hell of a light show."

  "Not the end," Jason said while the ad for personal windmills ran. '. . . with a crippled grid and failing infrastructure, waiting on the government to restore power is like waiting for the moon to make more cheese. Get your own personal windmill, powerful enough to run most common 120-volt appliances. Have it assembled on your site within 60 days of ordering. We accept most trades.'

  "Have you noticed they keep leaving the price of things out of the ads?"

  "Yeah. That doesn't bode well for the grand I had left in cash when I closed out my accounts. Maybe it isn't worth anything anymore. Trade. Sounds like we should keep fishing for junk to me."

  She reached over from her lounge chair and held his hand. "Isn't it ironing that we keep catching fishing nets in the fishing net, and caught two dozen fishing poles last week, but no fish?"

  He did find it ironic, but not alarming. "The fish seem to be able to avoid the net, for some reason. Like the currents aren't right to keep them entangled anymore. Maybe we're not using it right, who knows. But it isn't like we've been going without food. You and Ava still catch one or two a day on a pole. You checked the back recently? We've got enough kelp to last a few years, and enough dried fish to last at least as long."

  "I'm getting a little excited about making a run for land. Current dropped another five knots in the last week. I just hope that we have some favorable winds."

  "It's been months since we even tried to open the parasail. You know, with the strong tide, we could always drift fast enough to inflate it and get it high enough to get traction. If it stays calm, like it is now, we may never get it off the ground."

  She sat up, adjusted the towel she was using as a comforter, then leaned back again. "It's a long way to try to row. You know, the little generator on the stern is just a modified trolling motor. We could modify it back and just use the tidal to recharge the batteries. It may be good for five or ten knots a day, as long as it doesn't have to fight the current. I haven't checked, but sailboats this size usually have a few trolling motors for positioning in and out of docks."

  She was surprisingly smart. He had forgotten all about them. They were tiny thrusting, electric motors, designed for maneuvering in close, where the sail was for the open sea. "I forgot all about that. I must be getting dumber the longer you know me."

  "Batteries won't last long with them. This is way more boat than they were designed for, but, if we can't get the sail up, then we're still not out of luck."

  The theme music for the show started again, and they listened to more stories of the strange. Several psychics were scheduled, and two witches were earmarked for the last hour to close out the show.

  By February, winter in the metal box had completely lost its charm. Daytime temperatures hovered around the fifties, and the metal box was unheated. Living in Hawaii had left them without any winter clothes, even heavy blankets or a simple quilt were nonexistent. The best they had were layers of clothes, bed sheets, and some emergency thermal blankets. The emergency blankets looked like the same Mylar that helium balloons used, and were reflective like aluminum, but as noisy as a cat playing with a plastic bag. Everyone was miserable and nobody was getting much sleep.

  Jason checked the equipment and noted the wind speed before sneezing into his hand, then wiping his hand on his jeans. It was the strongest gusts they had had in months. He pulled up the anchor and allowed the boat to drift in the current while he struggled to manually ready the sail.

  The fabric whipped as it slapped the sides of the rigging, a cross breeze slammed it like a glove across the cabin as the tips dipped into the ocean before the craft righted itself. The sail filled like a magician pulling an elephant out of a hat, then leapt like a lion a hundred feet up, spun, then nose-dived for the ocean. Jason flipped the electric power assist back on and managed to avert disaster by steering it back into the sky. The first few minutes were always the worst, and twilight didn't make it any easier.

  He let the spools reel out as the parasail soared two, three, then four hundred feet into the air, before he started locking them in. He turned off the power assist, then turned the lights on dim again as he practiced his figure eights.

  Nathan stuck his head into the tiny room, "We good?"

  "Yeah, it's up, the tension on the lines reads good," Jason said, struggling with the manual controls. He was badly out of shape.

  "Want me to finish bringing up the anchor?"

  "Yeah, but, the—" he fought off another near crash, "the steering seems sluggish. Like it's dragging something other than just the anchor."

  Nathan paused. "That tidal crap is still in the water. That stuff probably isn't helping any. Like some kid dangling an oar in the water while you're trying to row."

  "Yeah, that feels about right. Any chance you can pull it out of the water without destroying it? "

  He laughed, "Not a chance." Nathan leaned against the door, "It's bolted and tied ten ways to Sunday."

  "Guess I'm just going to have to adapt, huh."

  Nathan slapped him on the shoulder, then left to wrestle the anchor the rest of the way up.

  After a few minutes, Gina stuck her head into the tiny room. "Where you headed now?"

  "I didn't really have a plan. The winds came up, so I took a chance. It paid off, and I just didn't think it any further than that."

  She checked the compass, the GPS, then the open map. "North, and drift a little west. If we can make it about sixty knots, there's what should be. . . Well, there used to be some swanky mansions built up into the hills. And a little cove, see there? That should give you more protection from the currents, and we might even be able to put it in somewhere around there.

  Can't aim for an old port, they're all built up with industrial centers, toxic waste, and flooded buildings and such. We have to aim for the snooty Richie Riches that liked seclusion and large swaths of land all to themselves." She tapped an area shaded in green. "The kind that push to have the land around them declared national parks so the government pays to keep everyone else out."

  The GPS was iffy this far from land. "We should go past it to the north, then drift back into it, right?"

  "Worth a try. Just, uh, keep the lights down low so we don't attract the coastguard again." Gina said, finding a spot inside the cabin to get comfortable.

  "I think they have radar and stuff."

  "Well, leave the lights down low anyway. Just enough to keep from crashing it."

  He flipped the lights off, completely. "The angles on the guidelines give me a good enough warning to keep it out of the water. I, uh, had way too much time to practice one night. You really get a good feel for it, after a while." The boat felt like a car with two flat tires on the passenger side. It required more over-steering than he would have preferred, but just like riding on rims, it was manageable. "The crosscurrent reads as low as ten knots. Still swift, but if we have good visibility and get the angles right, I should be able to park this thing somewhere."

  Gina stayed in the cold little cabin. "Might not need to. We have a canoe now, and a very long rope."

  It was cold in the tiny room, but somehow warmer with her in it. Besides, she was his relief if he needed a break. She might as well stay up there and be on hand. He never minded her company.<
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  She fiddled with the radio. They were three hours away from their late night voice in the dark, but after the sun went down was when reception really picked up. On the same frequency, at about this time of day, was an angry host who talked politics, which made the station easy to find, but hard to stomach.

  She found his angry, impatient voice, then turned the volume down as she checked the compass, then the GPS again. "More west, if you can."

  "I'm trying, but it drifts east because of the—"

  She put her arm around him, "I know." Then adjusted the dry towel like it was a throw blanket.

  "You know, if we put ashore, we can't just go south to get warm again. We have to try to keep warm some other way."

  "Well, according to the radio, they don't expect freezing weather in the lower forty-eight. It might not be pleasant, but it'll be—"

  "The experts also said global warming was from CO2. Destroyed the economies of several countries fighting it. Knowing my luck, we'll put ashore just in time to have a George Washington winter where it gets cold enough to freeze over the Delaware."

  "I don't know," she hugged him again. "You're luck doesn't seem all that bad to me. Got this boat. This, ugly, ugly, squared off pile or recycled junk for a car and some cash, right when the price was at their lowest because nobody wanted them. Talked us into leaving the islands just in time, whether we knew it then or not. We survived a category one without a problem." She kissed him on the cheek, "Not so bad, as far as bad luck goes."