Everyone's Island

by Kris Schnee

  Jarvik said, "Maybe."

  Noah said, "Come to think of it, you should do something crazy for the theme, not a style that you could see in any mom-and-pop place. Lights. An upside-down world. Magic castles. Something... something that'd make people think, I need this place."

  * * *

  It was Christmas Eve. The station had red and green lights on the topdeck, and a palm tree with soaked cotton around it. Something was weird about the crowd that was gathering, braving the wind. Noah picked out Martin, some Pilgrims, those new scientists, and strangers. He stood on the black suncloth, thinking of what the difference was.

  There were kids here!

  High up, far from safe shores. Noah marched over to the pair of families who were herding four boys and girls and a baby between them. He felt half angry, half confused. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "This place isn't safe."

  A mom held her son's hand, getting tugged around. "It's a present for them. We wanted to be here for the first Christmas in this place."

  "The first?" said Noah.

  She smiled. "First of many, I hope."

  Noah walked away, beaming. Man, he'd have to do a good job if people were going to be bringing kids onto the station.

  Then he got caught in a rush of people coming up, Leda and Garrett and everyone, so that the deck was packed. There was a cordon up to make it less likely someone would get pushed off, but still no guarantee. There really ought to have been more of a sturdy fence. People seemed to expect entertainment tonight, though nothing had been scheduled. The wind sounds had grown to a murmur of over a hundred people talking.

  Leda led them, singing in a clear, strong voice: "Silent Night..."

  Dozens of voices took the song up at once: "Holy Night..."

  Then it seemed that the ocean was full of music. Instrumentals got piped in from somewhere and people went through one song after another, with strange forays into "Dixie" and tunes he didn't recognize. Castor didn't feel like such a dangerous place after all, like they were pushing the wilderness away. They could do this; they could hang out and have a good time together.

  When they were all exhausted, they wandered off and the sounds of wind and waves faded back in. God's background music. Noah was there watching the stars when Leda returned.

  She offered him a box wrapped in newspaper, and he was ashamed. "I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm poor. I didn't buy you anything."

  "It's okay. You've worked to make this place livable."

  Leda still held out the box, so he opened it to find a grey wool coat. She said, "I'd be honored if you joined us."

  Noah ran his hand over the warm fabric. "It's nice, Leda, but -- I mean, this stuff about dead generals..." He didn't want to say he thought it was disrespecting God; that would hurt her.

  Leda looked around at the near-empty platform. "People need to believe in something, don't they? They're still with God, worshiping in a different way."

  Noah shook his head. "I don't get it. What do you really believe in?"

  "Us!" she said. "Castor, I mean. We have this place and I don't want to lose it. Whatever we feel when we're here together, singing, we can call that God, even if we don't all mean the same thing."

  Noah thought back to the singing. It had been nice, but not like being in church, not as focused. They'd been having a good time. Back when he'd first seen Castor, that wasn't God either, at least not directly. It was him seeing something that had a meaning, a purpose.

  Leda said, "This Pilgrim thing is something that can bring us together. Because it's new and small we can shape it, make it something that gives people strength and, well, hope. We can be the ones who decide what Castor is."

  She was flustered and pretty in the night air, trying to explain things he'd never put into words. Maybe it didn't matter exactly how you did your worship as long as you meant it, and wanted to serve people. That was what life was about, right? Some silliness about Bobby Lee was a small sacrifice to put up with for the sake of helping people, of being part of the team.

  He tried the coat on.

  5. Garrett

  Wow. The parents had demanded a Santa Claus, and Martin had refused (the jerk), so Garrett had to throw an outfit together for himself. An improvised red jacket, a white beard, the hat, and for his own amusement a costume fox-tail. The way to approach kids while in costume was to kneel with open arms and let them come to you. They mostly did, sometimes almost tackling him. He didn't care that he was getting stared at; there was a kind of anonymity behind the outfit, so that he may as well have actually been Santa for the duration. Surrounded by gratuitous affection and enthusiasm, the focus of some kid's dreams. Nice.

  Santa time had to end eventually. He'd hardly pulled off the beard when the new chief scientist tapped his shoulder, outside Garrett's office. "Santa, can you bring me some electricity?" The man wore a long black overcoat like a Victorian gentleman, and shivered though he hadn't been outside for long.

  "Doctor Jenner!" said Garrett. "Where are you from, anyway?" He'd not had much time to research exactly who was coming, although the credentials being tossed around were interesting. Heavy on advanced practical genetics rather than theory.

  "Atlanta," said Jenner. "I worked with the killer flu strain of '25."

  Now Garrett shivered. "Thank you."

  Jenner looked at his boots. "Well. So. Electricity. My team is eager to set up, and liquid nitrogen only lasts so long." There would be supplies that needed refrigeration.

  Garrett had to get his brain in gear, from fantasy back to facts and figures. "Right. Our electric supply system is getting hammered from all the people here, and the decorations. But we can expand our power grid right now if you're up for it." He smiled and added, "My Christmas present has arrived. Are you ready for a swim?"

  "In this weather? Sorry, Captain, but I'd rather keep to my test tubes. Brr! Besides, I don't know anything about your branch of engineering."

  "I don't know much about yours yet, but I'd like to learn." By making the diving offer, Garrett had been trying to tweak Jenner a little to see if he was a decent guy, but it seemed like a mistake to leave things at that. Besides, there was something that needed discussion. "Seriously, it'd be good for you to have your group work on this. You should get a feel for the bigger picture of how Castor works. And the water's not that cold."

  "We're biologists, though."

  "Around here you have to do a little of everything. It's not safe to ignore all the distractions from your work. The water's warm enough, and afterwards I'll treat your team to hot cider courtesy of your rent money."

  Jenner looked indecisive. "What exactly do you want help with?"

  "A big pile of sheet."

  * * *

  Getting the engineers into the water took promises of cider, good times, electricity, and cake. Motivating smart people with snack food -- ah, it was like being a grad student again! "Here's the sheet," he said, opening a crate in Dockside. Because of all the foot traffic, he'd built a few more interior walls down here, separating the hangout of Phillip's Place from the cargo area. The setup was awkward but workable.

  In the box was a whole lot of SeaSheet material. They'd gotten orders from people wanting to play with mech-birds and -dolphins, and could sell power to the bio-lab, hotel and restaurant. Even as he unfolded a panel of the stuff it was creating a trickle of charge for its built-in battery.

  So they donned wetsuits, he bandaged his leg, he loaned them some knives, and they went to start paneling the ocean. The dark material looked translucent, absorbing sun and waves. Garrett made himself pay attention to the crew instead of calculating the added wattage.

  Doctor Jenner was first among equals in the research group. A couple of them were grad students, used to living cheaply; or young, ambitious researchers. They were all American or Canadian. A decent bunch, picking up quickly on how to duck beneath floating rods or slip over them. Soon they were handling the sheets, unfurling them for the growing power array.

&nbs
p; Jenner said, "I understand your station is already involved with some biotech research."

  "You're swimming with it. The plant and animal selective breeding is an ongoing project." If only Alexis were around to appreciate how far her work had come, how they'd expanded the farm to something that justified a farming crew! He should name something after her, meaningless as the gesture would be.

  Jenner said, "And the MMI studies? We've been put in charge of the rats you ordered."

  Garrett bobbed in the water, wondering what the connection was to cybernetic interfaces. "Rats?"

  One of the grad students piped up. "I didn't know anyone but DARPA was working on bioshells these days."

  Oh. Martin's latest attempt to go behind my back. Zephyr was the only one around that Garrett could trust these days. Well, there was also Noah, and maybe Leda and the Pierponts. Maybe he wasn't too alone after all. Garrett said, "I wasn't fully informed. Sorry. I'm trying to get a better hold on things, but there's a lot to think about. Remind me: what exactly will you be doing?"

  "Everything!" said a young grad, a Wilbur Chen from Tennessee. He steadied himself on a floating walkway and said, "We're free here to do all the experiments you're not allowed to do back home!"

  Garrett had been keeping quiet about the Jenner group's role. Eaton had made vague promises of a prestigious tenant that Garrett need not worry about. This time Garrett wasn't that oblivious. Instead he wondered if Martin or even Eaton knew the scientists' specific research plans. He said, "How unethical do you think you'll get?"

  They all fell quiet.

  "I get the idea," Garrett said. "Why else come here, and how would you get funding for your business, unless you were planning to push some stateside legal boundaries? You said as much."

  Jenner stammered, "I -- I thought you were all in favor of individual rights."

  "I'm on your side. I love cool techie projects. But I do have to pay attention to other things, and I've got people to protect. If you guys abuse the legal environment here to do sloppy or blatantly evil work, I'll be first against the wall. And you, second."

  Jenner, Chen and the others stumbled over themselves trying to answer. Jenner managed to say, "Captain, we'll earn your trust. I don't know where you stand on human embryos --"

  "I say that no working brain means it's not a person, but some of my colleagues disagree and will call you Nazis."

  "Damn it, no!" said Chen. "We eventually want to try certain experiments on brainless balls of cells or willing, informed patients, but we're trying to help people, not kill them!" The others murmured assent.

  Garrett looked them over. "I didn't say you were."

  Chen said, "You called us unethical."

  "No, I asked if you were."

  Jenner got between them. "Let me finish. Yes, we know all about the bio-ethical problems we face. We've been lectured at great and angry length about how it's evil to invent better crops or gengineer diseases out of human embryos or do frivolous things like changing people's hair color. Each of us gave up jobs elsewhere because we believe we can do important, worthwhile and profitable work and put some ethical standards in place while we're doing it. If we're not the ones 'playing God', I assure you that certain other people will do it first, and you won't like their idea of how it's used. If America hadn't researched nuclear physics, who would've had it first?"

  Garrett appraised the gang swimming with him. They'd been willing to come down to the water and try something outside of lab work, to be part of this place and participate in its ongoing balance of interests and needs. He trusted this group more than he would a giant government lab a thousand miles away. He said, "So you understand you'll be facing criticism, and you're prepared to deal with it?"

  "We're used to it," said Jenner. "We know that screwing this opportunity up with irresponsible behavior could hamstring the kind of research we want to do, for everyone."

  He nodded. "I'll be keeping tabs on what you're doing. Partly out of sheer curiosity."

  "Of course. If you'll sign a non-disclosure form."

  The researchers and Garrett looked each other over warily. Garrett shook their hands and said, "Show me what you've got."

  * * *

  "Hey, what's this?" Garrett was hobbling along the west walkway to check out the hotel construction site when he noticed a piece of artificial land that hadn't been there before. A couple of cheap catamarans had anchored out here as they'd announced, bringing people to gamble and get laid. But now people were working in the water between them, dumping trash -- no, it was building materials. There was wood and plastic, and a huge mesh bag of soda bottles bobbing on the waves. Dirt-cheap flotation. Some guys were climbing on the mess with tools.

  He pulled out his headset. "Zephyr, check this out."

  "Low-tech," thought Zephyr. "Refugees?"

  Garrett made for the rafters' site. "Let Security know." Aloud he called out to the people working there. One man hopped down and approached him on the walkway. In the distance a set of silver windvanes turned, part of the hotel site. "Ay, Captain! Good to see ya!"

  Garrett shook hands, puzzled. "What are you working on?"

  "We scrounged some materials and we're setting us up a house."

  "You didn't tell us you were planning that. You've got, what, coke bottles and wood there?"

  The builder beamed. "Old tricks. A couple of us once sailed from Cuba to Florida on a styrofoam raft."

  "Marsh Arabs?" said Zephyr. "There's some kind of swamp-dwelling Free Iraqi group looking to come here, says the Net. Hmm, it's not these guys though."

  "You can't do that," said Garrett, winging it. "We're happy to consider applications from people who want to live here, but you just showed up." A mech-gull wheeled overhead and perched on a nearby mast to watch them.

  "So?" said the builder.

  "So! I mean, you didn't ask permission."

  The man crossed his arms. "Okay then, how much of the ocean do you own? I can park a ways out."

  "Security here," said a Pilgrim man over the radio.

  "Come to my position." Garrett wasn't sure whether he or Zephyr had said it. "I don't own the ocean, but I do own this station."

  "How about right where we're standing? This walkway? Or the water right over there?"

  "Not the water, but --"

  "Aha!" said the man. "Then we claim the patch of water we're using."

  Garrett didn't know what to say to that. "I need to confer with my people about this." He walked away, troubled, and met the Security guy on the way. They stood with the main platform towering over them. Garrett wondered, What exactly is Castor? Where's the real boundary? "Never mind," he said to the Pilgrim. "But keep an eye on the group building over there by the hotel."

  "Yes, sir."

  * * *

  Garrett, Martin, Zephyr, Leda, and Noah waited for Eaton to arrive. They'd talked over the situation and decided to bring him in.

  Eaton came bundled in a coat, and shut the office door behind him. "Things are getting out of hand."

  "It's not a problem," said Martin. "This was bound to happen eventually."

  Leda frowned. "We're still trying to help the Cuban workers settle in, and that was a structured group that arrived with fair warning. These people are strangers."

  Eaton took a seat. "Where do you stand on this, Captain?"

  Garrett sighed, wishing the problem had never come up. "I'm operating under a fig-leaf license as a business, with the non-farm people being my tenants. The Pierponts' hotel is paying rent for using rooms in this platform, and for food and so on. But the Pierponts will say, why should they pay rent on their new building? They're providing the materials and capital. Having that one little rafter group out there screws up my whole financial model."

  Martin laughed. "What do you think people outside Castor are saying about us? Anyway, this only affects the rent, not the rest of our income. There are other ways to stay afloat."

  The rafters were a thorn in Garrett's side, but they might b
ecome a serious problem later if he didn't keep control of the situation. "It's not even safe, what they're doing. Not out here away from any harbor. When somebody dies from the foam-blocks getting swamped or something, I'll get blamed."

  Zephyr noted, "The presence of the SeaSheet material helps dampen the waves. If we had even more of it, we could create an effective artificial harbor."

  "Good enough to make a scrap-heap raft like that seaworthy?"

  "Not really, although it may be safe enough if the residents evacuate during storms."

  Garrett chuckled. "I'm an engineer. 'Safe enough' is a subjective term."

  The robot asked, "Then who gets to define it?"

  Leda said, "We should refocus the role of Castor. We can shoo away the chaos and go back to being a group of farmers instead of this, this mess we've got. We can't let people come here if it won't be safe and under control."

  Eaton rolled his eyes. "Safe! None of you are safe! It's a matter of what the security risks are, which I assume is why you called me." He began a brief lecture about improving the station's security in general. Then he talked about the US approach for international airports these days.

  Garrett was intimidated by the complexity and cost of the surveillance systems Eaton described. "I'm not looking forward to my next trip home."

  Eaton leaned back in his chair. "I looked into your departure. You technically broke the law, the way you left without filing the right paperwork or fees. There'll be questions when you go back -- especially considering your recent activities. And when you leave again, you'll need permission."

  Garrett scowled.

  Leda said, "We may not be able to afford the full array of sensors and security we'd like, but we should do what we can."

  Noah, sitting with Leda, said, "We do need to protect everybody."

  Martin said, "We should be encouraging people to come here, even if we're not in charge of exactly who's here or what they're doing. This is a free-trade zone, not a fortress."

  Everyone was lost in thought. Garrett sighed. "Fortress or not, there'll always be a need to stand ready to kill people, won't there?"