Ark

by Stephen Baxter

  Maybe she slept.

  She was jarred awake by a buffeting, a whirr of engines. Lisa pointed at one of the small windows, beyond which lights moved in the dark.

  Kelly got out of her couch, stiff and cold, and bent down to peer through the plug of glass. She saw spheres set out on the ocean floor, fixed by cables and illuminated by floods, gleaming like some industrial facility. The spheres touched each other, kissing at the circular interfaces that connected them. The spheres all had paintwork on their hulls, the Stars and Stripes, a bold UNITED STATES, and that triangular Ark Two logo. Another submarine like their own hovered over the facility, tethered by loose cables.

  They were floating over what looked like a road, and a hummock in the dirt that might once have been some kind of vehicle. But ocean-floor silt lay everywhere like a murky snow, and strange fish and crabs worked their way over broken tarmac, pale pink and white in the sub′s lights. A fence of wire mesh stretched off as far as she could see, picked out by the sub′s own spotlights, broken by what looked like watchtowers.

  Dexter tapped a key. A screen filled up with a human face, broad, gnarled, and a harsh voice rasped. ′Ferry Three, you have permission to dock. And you passengers, you are now twelve point four kilometres beneath the waves, deeper than any point on the ocean floor before the flood started. Welcome to Ark Two.′

  Kelly stared. ′Dad?′

  Edward Kenzie glared. ′That you, Kelly? I knew you′d screw up. I′ll see you when you come through regularisation. Ark out.′ The screen flickered and filled with blue.

  81

  ′Regularisation′ turned out to be a lengthy process. Everybody who had been ′up top′, including the crew of the ferry, was put through pressure equalisation, which involved sitting in a kind of airlock for a couple of hours while medics took samples of blood and tissue from their nostril linings, and gave them basic medical checks. Dexter said the purpose was to ensure they didn′t carry any unfamiliar bugs into the Ark itself. The airlock itself showed more similarities to Ark One: the scuffed metal surfaces, the door handles polished smooth with use, the faintly scarred glass of the thick portals. Like Ark One, this was another old machine.

  Beyond the processing chamber was a junction of metal-walled corridors. Here, Mel Belbruno met them. He was standing to attention when the airlock door opened. But when he saw Kelly he broke, ran forward and hugged her. ′My God. I never thought I′d see you again.′

  ′Well, you weren′t supposed to.′ She held him at arm′s length. He had bulked out with age and was losing his hair, but above his thickened neck was a very familiar, slightly anxious face. He was dressed in a coverall like the others′, but smart, his trouser legs looked as if they′d been ironed. ′You look good, Mel. You always did look like you belonged in uniform.′

  ′We′ve all read your log. What an incredible adventure. I always did envy you. The sights you saw, the places you went—′

  ′We′ll talk about Holle. We′ll make time.′

  ′I′d appreciate that.′

  ′She did well, Mel. Very well. And she didn′t find anybody else. Or not as far as I know, up to the Split. It was only ever you.′

  He nodded, his mouth tight.

  ′Mel, my father—′

  ′He′s asleep right now. He′s ninety-four.′

  ′I know how old my own father is,′ she snapped.

  He flinched. ′I′m sorry. Look, he wants to see you, but he needs a lot of downtime. Let me host you for a while. You want to rest, sleep, eat?′

  ′I feel exhausted just standing here. If you′ll let me lean on you, why don′t you show us around?′

  ′Sure.′ He glanced at the party, including Eddie, who held his father′s hand. ′And this is Eddie? We have a playroom for the kids.′

  ′You have children down here?′

  ′We′re in it for the long haul. Lisa, maybe you could take Eddie—′

  ′No,′ Kelly said. ′Sorry, Mel, I′ve a better idea. Dexter, why don′t you take him?′

  Dexter faced her. ′Why would I want to do that?′

  ′Because he′s your half-brother.′

  His expression was blank. ′Grandfather said you were like this. Manipulating.′ He looked down at Eddie, who for his own unfathomable reason smiled. ′But I guess it′s not his fault. Come on, kid. We′ll have to make sure the other little ones don′t play too rough, I think you′re probably a bit more easily broken than they are.′

  ′I′ll come too,′ Masayo said.

  Eddie took Dexter′s hand. ′My name′s Eddie. What′s your name?′

  ′Dexter. I′m Dexter.′ They walked off together, with Masayo following.

  ′Families,′ Mike Wetherbee said, sneering.

  Mel asked, ′Are you ready?′

  He let Kelly take his arm and walked her down the corridor. Mike, Thandie and Lisa followed. Mel kept his pace slow, as if they were very elderly, very frail, but distinguished visitors.

  They climbed a metal stair, and followed a corridor that stretched around the circumference of one of the big spheres that comprised this habitat - spheres which, Mel said, the inhabitants called ′tanks′. The light cast by fluorescents was bright and harsh. Doors off the corridor were labelled with the names of facilities like air management, water filtration, biomass processing, medical isolation, geothermal power. Evidently this particular tank housed core technical functions.

  They walked past a robust decompression chamber which, Mel said, also served as an emergency inner refuge in case of a pressure breach. ′Which we call storm shelters, which is wrong every which way, but it′s a bit of space programme terminology we picked up from Gordo. The other tanks are more open than this. We have big communal spaces, an eating hall, an amphitheatre. And factories, a big hydroponics plant - although we mostly rely on produce from the sea - and major laboratory facilities, particularly biological. Our power comes from geothermal heat, the energy of the Earth itself.′

  Mike asked, ′How many are you?′

  ′Around a hundred, including thirty kids under eighteen or so. We′re about the same size of community as Ark One, with about the same habitable volume per head as you guys had. Although in free fall I guess you could make more of your space. We′re a human colony in the abyss.′

  The outer wall, subtly curved, was punctured by thick windows set in tapered frames that, Kelly surmised, offered protection against blowins. They paused by one window and looked out. The external lights′ glow spread only a little way into the dark. Kelly saw gleaming arcs, the walls of more tanks. More of those crab-like creatures scrabbled in the ooze, and a fish swam by, bony and angular. Kelly reminded herself she was twelve kilometres down, as deep as any oceanic trench on Earth before the flooding began. Something else moved across the ooze. It was a robot, low, like a table, with articulated legs and a camera cluster and a manipulator arm like a cut-down version of Ark One′s. It crawled out of her view, intent on its own unknown business.

  ′The waters are still rising,′ she said. ′These hulls must have a maximum crush depth.′

  Thandie said, ′Even at the current depth they′re withstanding a tonne per square centimetre. But they′re over-designed. Should be able to tolerate an ocean depth of a hundred kilometres, the maximum theoretically possible. In fact it looks as if the flood will top out at around eighteen kilometres above the old mean, well below that upper bound. And as this area was around two kilometres high before the flood, there won′t be a problem.′

  Mike asked, ′Why is a hundred kilometres the maximum?′

  ′Above that limit the pressure is such that water solidifies into a form of ice. No world with similar gravity to Earth′s could have an ocean deeper than that, although the precise freeze depth depends on surface temperature and thermal mixing …′

  Mel said, ′When we came down here the topping-out at eighteen klicks wasn′t yet apparent. We thought we might finish up entombed in exotic ices.′

  Kelly gazed out into the dark. �
�This place was a couple of kilometres high, before the flood. Where are we?′

  ′Wyoming,′ Mel said.

  Thandie said, ′Yellowstone Park, to be precise. Did you ever come here, Kelly? Geysers and mud spots and steam vents, and car parks and pine trees, and tourists at the railings around Old Faithful. You were born after such things as tourists existed in the world, but you might have been brought here for a training expedition. No?′

  Mel stood with Kelly and peered out. ′Edward Kenzie and Gordo Alonzo brought me here in ′44, right after we had to abandon Alma. I didn′t even know this place existed, even though Ed had devoted years of his life to it.′

  ′Nor did I,′ Kelly said with feeling.

  ′Ark Two was also intended as a last refuge for the President of the United States and his administration. President Peery never made it. I believe it′s a long time since we had formal communication with any government. I don′t even know who the President is, now. We kind of like being left to run things ourselves, I guess.′

  Thandie said, ′I do know a LaRei consortium began the construction of this place back in the 2020s, when they also started serious work on Ark One, long before the flood waters got here. They used the grounds of the old Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. They built these tanks right out in the open, and waited for the waters to close over them. Built the submarine ferries over in Jackson, and let them float off too.′

  ′The floods came in ′43,′ Mel said. ′By then the eye-dees had found this place and were besieging it. That didn′t stop even when the waters came; the eye-dees just took to rafts and carried on. When I was brought here in ′44, in the evacuation from Alma, the big domes were already just about covered by the water. We were lowered down from the choppers to hatches in the roofs. The first weeks were scary, Kelly. Even when the waters rose up above us, the eye-dees could still dive down to get at us. They used limpet mines, and managed to wreck one of the domes. That was the incident where Gordo Alonzo got himself killed. But the water was rising three hundred metres a year by then. That′s a metre a day. We watched those eye-dees being lifted on the breast of the sea up and out of sight, until they were too far above our heads to bother us. Then it got darker and darker, until after about three months the sun was shut out altogether. Incredible times.′

  Kelly tried to stay composed. ′And what about Don Meisel?′

  He looked at her, surprised. ′He stayed at Alma to the end. Protecting Mission Control. That′s the last place I saw him; I made it out, he didn′t. You didn′t know?′

  ′Nobody told me.′ Mike Wetherbee was watching her, waiting for her to crack. She forced a smile. ′So why Yellowstone, Thandie? What′s here?′

  Thandie said, ′This park contains half the word′s geothermal features. Two-thirds of the world′s geysers, in fact. I think your father and his advisers dreamed of surviving down here, and living off geothermal heat and the produce of black smokers. And I, and others, argued for a major seismic monitoring facility.′

  Mike frowned. ′What′s a black smoker?′

  ′A drowned geyser,′ Thandie said. ′Heated water escaping from the depths, eventually building up chimneys like smoke stacks. You found them in the deepest oceans, in the trenches. And each of them attracts life, extremophile bacteria - that is, lovers of heat and salinity and extreme pressure - off which feed the crabs and the fish and the worms. A whole food chain fed by the Earth′s inner heat, and entirely independent of sunlight, which, you′ll notice, they don′t get much of here. And, Ed Kenzie′s idea is, maybe people could live off that. Also you′d have access to the sea bed and related resources which wouldn′t be available from a raft on the ocean surface. You could mine for metals and oil and such.′

  Kelly said, ′And the seismology?′

  Yellowstone was such a geologically active area because it sat directly over a mantle plume, a hot spot, a fountain of rock flowing like liquid up from the Earth′s deeper core.

  ′There′s actually a supervolcano here,′ Thandie said. ′It′s erupted several times in the past - the last more than six hundred thousand years ago. Some of us theorise that the shifting weight of water over the land might trigger a new eruption, which is actually overdue. Which is why we wanted a station here. Even before the waters came there was evidence of uplift, for instance Old Faithful turned off in 2039.

  ′They′ve also been running seismic tomography surveys, studying rock flows in the deep mantle. We′re still working on theories of why all the subterranean water should have been released just now. It may have something to do with human activity or it may not. Perhaps it′s because of the configuration of the continents. They slide around, you know, granite rafts drifting on the mantle, and every few hundred million years or so they coalesce into giant supercontinents. This is called the chelogenic cycle. The supercontinents are like vast lids that block Earth′s heat flow, the way Yellowstone traps the heat of the mantle plume. Eventually that heat causes the supercontinent to shatter, and the bits go spinning away. Now the last supercontinent, Pangaea, broke up two hundred and fifty million years ago, and the next formation event is another two hundred and fifty million years off in the future. So we′re at a midpoint, and maybe the mantle currents are adjusting somehow to this unique moment. We might be entirely irrelevant …′

  Kelly saw that Thandie had lost her focus. She was talking to herself, receding into a mist of speculation, forever unproveable.

  Mel was staring out of the window. ′It was incredible to watch the life forms come and go. I mean, in the park there used to be grizzlies and wolves and herds of bison and elk, as well as vast forests. As the water closed over us, we just knew they were drowning, all of them. What′s that phrase from Genesis about Noah′s flood? ′′All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.′′ But then, you know, we got recolonised, by all the strange creatures that live off the smoker chemicals. Giant worms and shrimps and crabs, and sea cucumbers, and xenophyophores - just single cells, the size of your hand. Incredible things.′

  Thandie said, ′But there was an extinction event even for the creatures of the abyss. The deep trenches were so profoundly physically separated from each other that each trench had its own unique biota. When the flood came they mixed up and competed, and some went to the wall.′

  ′There are critters out there that bore into wood,′ Mel said. ′Clams, worms, crustaceans. They used to rely on the fall of wood from the continents to the sea bed. Now they got a whole sunken forest to eat. Those guys are in hog heaven, all around us …′

  Kelly caught Mike′s glance. Buried in their steel tanks at the bottom of the ocean, Mel′s people had become introverted, self-obsessed. Strange even by the standards of star-travellers who had spent eighteen years in a converted fuel tank. Kelly touched Mel′s arm. ′Maybe I could see my father now.′

  He seemed to come to himself, as if waking from a dream. ′Sorry. Yeah. I′ll take you to him and see if he woke up yet.′

  They walked on around the curve of the spherical tank, past window after window that revealed the endless dark of the ocean.

  82

  Edward Kenzie met his daughter in a storm shelter, a reinforced room right at the heart of one of the tanks. This room was evidently used as a kind of boardroom, for the walls were panelled with wood and a big triangular pine table dominated the floor. It was even carpeted, with a thick pile woven with the wedge-of-Earth symbol of Ark Two.

  Edward Kenzie′s heavy bulk was stuck in a wheelchair, and his head, entirely hairless, was covered in liver spots. He wore a business suit complete with tie tightly knotted around his neck. He permitted Kelly to kiss his cheek, and he gazed upon his second grandson, Eddie. He showed no signs of recognition, still less of joy. His massive presence in the chair frightened Eddie. The boy cried and clung to his father Masayo, who, as an illegal boarder of Ark One, Edward wouldn′t acknowledge at all.

  That was it for the family stuff. After that, everybody but Ke
lly, Edward and Dexter was excluded. They each sat at the centre of one of the table′s three sides. The silence stretched.

  ′I feel like I′m on trial,′ Kelly blurted.

  ′Ha!′ Edward snapped. ′That was always your way. Get the first word in and take control, right? Well, this isn′t a trial. Tell you who should be on trial, that boyfriend of yours and the other illegals who robbed the Candidates and others of their righteous places on Ark One.′

  ′It wasn′t Masayo′s choice. Anyhow what′s done is done, and even you and all your bitterness can′t change that, Dad.′

  ′Bitterness? Is that what you think this is about?′

  ′Where do you want to start?′ She glared at them both. ′How I betrayed you, Dexter, by leaving Earth? Or how I betrayed you, Dad, by coming back?′

  Dexter was red-faced with anger of a more confused kind. Kelly saw he must have fantasised about this situation, about having some kind of confrontation with the mother who had left him behind. Now she was here, he couldn′t find the words.

  ′He lost his father too, you know,′ Edward said. ′Don Meisel died at Alma, after—′

  ′I know! I know.′

  ′Good job this boy had me to save him, don′t you think?′

  ′Oh, don′t preach at me, you old fraud. You know that if I hadn′t volunteered to go back into the selection pool you′d have ordered me to. It was all about the mission. It always was. I was the best Candidate they had, I topped every assessment scale for years. In flight I was a competent commander. I even formed liaisons, I was ready to have more kids and fulfil my obligations regarding the gene pool.′

  ′Yeah. You always had your fan club, superstar. Well, your great days are in your past, if you ever had any. And now here you are with nowhere to go and nothing but a squalling brat by some renegade. So let′s talk about the mission. What went wrong?′

  ′You read the logs. You know what happened. I did what I had to do.′

  ′Horse shit.′

  ′It′s true. In my judgement Earth II wasn′t a viable option. And going on across another three decades to another hopeful case wasn′t viable either. Coming back was the only choice.′