by Trevor Hoyle
“Dammit, Colonel Madden!” General Smith exploded. “Over a year ago you and—and—” He jabbed his finger.
“Farrer,” Madden supplied.
“You and Farrer stated with absolute certainty what the effects would be on the United States if the Soviets went ahead with their scheme to divert two rivers away from the Arctic Basin. Your report stated quite specifically”—he ticked them off on his fingers— “droughts, flooding of our major coastal cities and towns, widespread crop failures throughout the midwest. Are you now saying that this isn’t likely to happen?”
“Not at all, sir. Those effects were, and still are, predicted as accurately as we know how. But as Farrer has made clear, the biosphere is an extremely complex mechanism. Neither we nor the Russians knows precisely what might happen.” Madden smiled blandly. “Just as no one could say with total certainty how nuclear warfare would affect the planet, General. The same applies to environmental war. It’s a gamble.”
“Come on, George, we knew that all along,” General Stafford admonished his fellow chief of staff. “Hell, if we dealt in copper-bottomed certainties we could hook up a computer and let it make all the decisions. As far as I’m concerned Colonel Madden has laid it on the line.”
“So we’re back to stalemate,” said General Beaver with a heavy sigh. He looked directly at the president. “Until the Soviets decide to go ahead while we’re still dithering.”
It seemed that the president hadn’t heard, or chose to ignore, the criticism. He was watching the display, eyes half-closed. But then he said, “When they make their move we’ll be ready. Mr. Zadikov assured me that DEPARTMENT STORE is superior to the Soviet threat. They know we can wipe out the biosphere any time we feel like it. And I would add that I have complete confidence in Mr. Zadikov’s judgment.”
Of late, Binch had begun to scour the Reuters and AP press reports that chattered off the center’s teleprinter day and night. There was a pile on his desk this morning and he skimmed through them before he did anything else. It had become a kind of ritual.
His secretary, Janis Swan, poured a cup of coffee, added the three regulation heaped spoonfuls of sugar, and placed it by his elbow. She was middle-aged and unmarried, neither of which seemed to bother her. “Is the world still in one piece?” she inquired laconically.
“Just about,” Binch muttered, distracted, intent on the reports.
PRJ217 29-0668 SA
BRAZIL, JULY 14, REUTER—LONGEST DROUGHT IN LIVING MEMORY CONTINUES IN EXTREME SOUTH, WITH EXTENSIVE LOSSES TO SOYBEAN, CORN, AND RICE PRODUCTION.
SEVERE FLOODING IN MINAS GERAIS AND RIO DE JANEIRO STATES IN SOUTHEAST, WITH ESTIMATED 6,000 HOMELESS AND MANY CROPS LOST. FLOODING IS REPORTED ALONG THE SAO FRANCISCO VALLEY WHERE SEVERAL DAMS BURST, CONTRIBUTING TO HEIGHT OF FLOOD.
—REUTER TL/SB
Drought in one part of the country, floods in another. Not unheard of, Binch thought, sipping his coffee, but not usual either. He picked up the next off the pile.
>
NNNNNNNN A485 14-2235 CC
CHINA, JULY 13, REUTER—DROUGHT FROM PREVIOUS SEASON CONTINUES TO AFFECT CROPS IN HELIONGJIANG, ANHEWI, ZHEIJANG, AND HUPEI PROVINCES.
WUHAN (CENTRAL CHINA) HAS RECEIVED ONLY 426 MM OF RAIN BETWEEN MARCH AND JUNE, THIS BEING THE LOWEST VALUE SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1880.
TORNADOES HIT PARTS OF ZHEIJANG PROVINCE IN LATE JUNE DEPOSITING HAIL 1 (ONE) METER DEEP IN PLACES.
—REUTER VN/4PP
“These really set you up for the day,” Janis said, leaning over his shoulder. “Couldn’t you just read the obituaries instead?”
“Haven’t you got anything to do?” Binch grumbled at her.
“What exactly are you looking for?”
Binch slid another report in front of him, sighing. “Wish I knew.”
13 JULY
AA71256 AP BULLETIN: MOSCOW, USSR
FLOODS CAUSED BY HEAVY RAIN HAVE AFFECTED THE DON, SIM, AND OKA BASINS. WATER LEVELS HAVE RISIN 7-11 METERS AND INUNDATED 270,000 HECTARES OF FARMLAND, THE REGION’S WORST FLOODS IN 80 YEARS. DURING MID-JUNE 450 SQ KM OF FOREST AND AGRICULTURAL LAND WERE UNDER WATER IN THE KIEV OBLAST REGION.
THE PRIPET RIVER NEAR CHERNOBYL RAYON HAS NEVER BEEN SO HIGH DURING 96 YEARS OF OBSERVATION.
FLOODING HAS ALSO BEEN REPORTED ALONG THE VOLGA AND YENISEI RIVERS DUE TO THE MELTING OF THE SNOWPACK. THIS IS THOUGHT TO BE RELATED TO AN EARLY START TO NAVIGATION ON THE OB AND YENISEI RIVERS FOLLOWING LAST WINTER.
2197 R/TF 45-6
“Looks like the floods have it today,” Janis observed. “Do you want some more coffee?”
“No,” Binch said. “Thanks.” He rifled through the rest of the pile, his round face set in a pugnacious expression, as if the man in the moon were scowling. Poland ... serious flooding ... river Warta 1.5 meters above danger level. France ... wettest spring and summer on record. India ... snow and hailstorms ... one thousand five hundred people and four thousand cattle dead. Indonesia ... torrential rain brings floods ... seventy people reported killed by landslides ...
It suddenly occurred to him that he was acting just as Brad Zittel had. Looking for signs of catastrophe and finding them—as of course you could if you surveyed the world at large.
But his concern was real enough. Frank Kollar’s program for DELFI had revealed a new and disturbing trend. Based on existing data supplied by WIMP—the World Integrated Monitoring Program—the computer had forecast a specific, discernible decrease in atmospheric oxygen by the year 2006.
At first Binch had been skeptical. The predicted deficiency was only a couple of percentage points, and it was assumed that DELFI wasn’t accurate enough to predict minor fluctuations so far in the future— seven years being a long time in computer weather modeling. So initially he had noted the oxygen decline without becoming too alarmed by it. After all, the computer’s forecast of a 2.19 decrease was within the permitted margins of error. No, he couldn’t accept it.
Two weeks later Frank came back with more figures. He’d taken the projection beyond 2006 and what he’d found was a nightmare.
The curve rose steeply until by 2016 the oxygen decline was over 4 percent. By 2031 it had decreased a further six points—which meant that the oxygen content of the atmosphere would be only about half of what it was today: 10 percent as against 20.94 percent. Clearly, as Binch realized, this couldn’t be interpreted as a statistical error or a freak climatic anomaly. On the basis of the best evidence currently available, DELFI was predicting a significant alteration in the composition of the earth’s atmosphere.
Binch pushed the stack of reports to one side and lit a Winston, his ninth that morning. Did any of this support the prediction that the world was running out of oxygen? No; not directly at any rate. Then what would confirm it? That was the nub of the problem. He’d looked closely at the most recent figures on oxygen sampling, all of which had shown the oxygen content of the atmosphere to be perfectly stable at around 20.94 percent. If the effect wasn’t apparent now, was it really conceivable that within seven years there would be an actual, measurable decline?
Maybe DELFI had fouled up or was being fed with spurious information. But he didn’t really believe that, for one very good reason. The change in Frank Kollar, from hardened skeptic to a guy who walked around with a worried look in his eye. Not that he’d turned overnight into a doomsday soothsayer—no, nothing so dramatic. Simply that he’d clammed up, had stopped making his sly cynical jokes, had almost reached the point of noncommunication so that any discussion of the problem consisted of Binch asking questions and Frank not answering them.
“Shall I file these?” Janis asked, gathering the press reports together. When Binch nodded without looking at her, dragging deeply on his cigarette, she said, “Why do you keep reading this stuff, Binch? No wonder you’re moody these days. It’s enough to depress anybody.”
“Because somebody has to. If I didn’t bother, who would?” Binch replied, and checked himself. Jesus, he was even starting to sound like Br
ad. What had happened to Brad? Was he dead? A down-and-out bum somewhere? In a psycho ward? Well now, my friend, he cautioned himself, better take care you don’t go the same way. Snap out of it. Think positive. He chuckled gruffly at this piece of shopworn advice, and Janis said: “That’s better. Just as long as you don’t start talking to yourself.” She gave him a meaningful look over her shoulder and went out.
Later in the morning Ty Nolan from the satellite photoreconnaissance section came up to see him with a file of twenty-by-fifteen-inch glossy prints. These had been taken by the geostationary comsat above the Pacific, transmitted to the receiving station at Temecula near the Mount Palomar Observatory in California, where they’d been computer-enhanced and sent on here. The service was as regular as a milk run and Binch didn’t see every batch that came through; just now and then, when the PR section had a problem, which was the case today.
“It shows up here,” Ty Nolan said, pointing to an area south of the New Hebrides, “and here, southwest of the Solomon Islands, and also here”—he pulled another glossy print from the sheaf and placed his finger on the spot—“south of the Ellice Islands, longitude one hundred eighty degrees. It isn’t cloud shadow or lens distortion. At least we’re pretty sure it isn’t.”
Binch held a photograph in either hand, peering at each in turn. “What am I supposed to be looking at? I don’t see anything.”
Ty Nolan handed him a magnifying lens. Binch leaned closer.
“Fuzzy dark patches. Do you see them?”
“Yes,” Binch said slowly. He reached for another print and examined it through the magnifier. “What do you estimate their size to be?”
“The one near the Solomon Islands is roughly twenty miles by nine. The other two are slightly smaller, though it’s hard to be precise because the edges are blurred.”
“They’re too big for fish shoals.”
“Plus the fact they don’t move,” Ty Nolan said, delving into the file and laying three more prints on the desk. “These were taken twenty-four hours earlier and the positions are identical.” He pushed his hand through straggly blond hair. “We’ve all had a crack at it but nobody can figure out what it is. Or what they are, I should say. Then somebody suggested you.” He grinned.
“I’m flattered,” Binch said dryly. And none the wiser, he thought. “What about an infrared scan?”
“This comsat doesn’t have it.”
“Wonderful. What’s the depth of the ocean hereabouts?”
“Pretty shallow, less than three thousand feet. It’s the Melanesian area, bordered by the Coral Sea and the South Fiji Basin. Hell of a size, over four thousand square miles.”
“Any eye-sightings to confirm these?” Binch offered cigarettes, which the other refused, and lit one himself.
“No reports so far, but then all three are some distance from land. And whatever they are, they could be below the surface and therefore not visible at sea level.” The young man perched himself on the corner of the desk, his pleasant boyish face set in a perplexed frown. “Any ideas, Binch?”
Binch stared at the prints scattered across the desk. Droughts. Floods. Fuzzy dark patches in the western Pacific. Were these the signs he was looking for? He was reluctant to think they might be—and even more reluctant to admit that DELFI wasn’t mistaken.
What if the human race had sown the wind and was about to reap the whirlwind? A whirlwind devoid of oxygen?
Dear God, what if DELFI was right?
Elaine Krantz came drowsily awake in the hot pressing darkness. For one horrific moment she thought she was suffocating.
By her side in the double bunk her husband, Jay, slept soundly, his faint snoring oddly muffled in the small airless cabin of the thirty-eight-foot fiberglass sloop Seabird. After several weeks at sea she was accustomed to the sound and found it comforting.
Boy, it was stifling! The wind must have dropped altogether, she decided, moving her tanned legs from beneath the single sheet. There were times, even now, when she reckoned she must have been crazy to agree to the trip. Jay had called it their “honeymoon adventure”—and adventure it was, all right. Tossed about in a plastic eggcup, drenched with spray, stung by wind, and baked crisp under a pitiless Pacific sun. Now that she’d endured her baptism at sea, though, she felt rather proud and just that bit superior. Starting out by detesting the little craft, she’d come to love every inch of it, and endeavored to keep the cabin and tiny galley as neat and shiny as if it were her first home.
From Fanning Island, almost on the equator, they had sailed to Pago Pago in the Samoan group, then Neiafu, Suva, and Vila, island-hopping through the Fijis and New Hebrides. They were now on the last lap, having left Honiara three days before, and with Malaita less than twenty-four hours away, given a good breeze.
Though there wasn’t a whisper of air tonight, much less a decent breeze. And that was strange, Elaine thought, cocking her head—she couldn’t even hear the familiar swish and gurgle of water against the hull.
Careful not to disturb her husband, she slipped down from the bunk and padded naked to the companionway, so sure of her bearings that she put her hand unerringly on the rope handrail in the pitch-blackness and hauled herself on deck.
The stench hit her in the stomach.
She caught her breath, gagged, and screwed up her face as she fought back the nausea in her chest. In the next instant even this discomfort was forgotten as she looked around at what should have been a boundless expanse of ocean glittering in the moonlight. There was no ocean. Only a dark reddish solid unmoving mass as far as the horizon, absolutely still and silent. Seabird was stuck in the middle of it like a fly in molasses.
Elaine yelled for her husband, filling her mouth and nostrils with the evil smell. As he tumbled onto the small square of afterdeck Jay stubbed his toe and cursed, but the word was smothered in silence as he took his first foul breath and saw the motionless quagmire surrounding them.
Under the purple dome of the night sky the silence and stillness were eerie.
“It’s some kind of weed,” Jay grunted, leaning over the stern and scooping up a soggy handful. “Jesus, what a smell!”
“But where’s it from?” Elaine wanted to know. “It must stretch for miles.”
Jay squatted on his haunches, sun-bleached hair silvery in the moonlight. “Could be dead kelp,” he said thoughtfully, “just drifting along with the current. The Sargasso Sea is supposed to be like this, though I’ve never seen it.”
“That’s in the Atlantic, isn’t it?”
Jay nodded. “There’s nothing marked on the charts, no banks of weed. I’d have noticed it,” he said. “And they didn’t warn us about anything like this back at Honiara. Must have just ... appeared, I guess.” He shrugged.
“What are we going to do?” Elaine asked, a slight tremor in her voice. Her old fear of the mysterious, unknown sea came back, the fear she thought had been conquered and left far behind. They were in the middle of nowhere, helpless and alone. The realization made her shiver, in spite of the heat, and a spasm of dizziness swept over her.
“Elaine, what is it?” Jay was by her side, supporting her. He moved some equipment and helped her sit down.
“A bit faint, that’s all.” She managed a weak smile. “Phew! Thought I was going to pass out. There’s no air. It’s so oppressive.” Jay too, she noticed, was panting slightly, as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath. What was happening to them? Her throat felt tight and small.
“It’s probably the smell,” Jay said. “Rotting vegetation.” His bare body was running with sweat. He gazed around at the solid carpet stretching away on every side. “We daren’t risk the engine, the propeller would be fouled in seconds. I guess there’s nothing we can do except wait until daylight. Maybe it’ll have drifted on by then.”
“But if we’re drifting with it ...” Elaine said.
“Yeah. Well, nothing for it, honey, but to wait and see.” He put his arm around her, but his skin felt clammy, like the physical manif
estation of her own fear, and Elaine didn’t feel comforted.
Jay found a grin to cheer her. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.” But when he tried to laugh it came out a hoarse choking sound, like the gasp of a dying man.
The man, woman, and boy strolled along the broad strip of dazzling white sand. They wore face masks and bright-orange compressed-air cylinders slung on their backs. The line of empty-eyed concrete towers on their left had once been busy tourist hotels, but they were now derelict and vandalized; had been for several years since Miami Beach was evacuated.
The “sea” moved hardly at all. From its scummy cracked surface bubbles of methane and sulfur belched into the mix of gases that had become the unbreathable atmosphere at the tip of southern Florida.
Chase stepped over a heap of decaying seaweed that straggled along the beach as far as the eye could see and held out his hand to steady Cheryl. The slim sixteen-year-old boy, almost as tall as his father, leaped over it and bounded up the shallow slope of sand, not even breathing hard. “You came here before, didn’t you, when it was a holiday resort?” Dan asked.
“Yes, just once, the year before you were born. Your mother and I drove down from New York and stayed for three days.” Chase grinned at his son through the curved faceplate. “Come to think of it, you were probably conceived here.”
“What?” Dan gazed around in disgust, wrinkling his nose. “I hope not. Not here.”
Chase studied the row of concrete hulks and pointed one out. “There, that one. Twelfth floor, Holiday Inn, Collins and Twenty-second Street.”
“Are you putting me on?”
“That’s where we stayed right enough—though I can’t vouch for the conception theory.” Chase winked at Cheryl as they walked arm in arm up the slope, their protective PVC coveralls crackling and rasping from the friction.
“Do you think anyone still lives here?” Dan asked curiously. His thick black hair sprouted in clumps through the mask’s nylon webbing.