by Chris James
Once again he felt a need to get out of the flat and into the fresh air. The aunts heard the door slam and went into the kitchen to tut at their great-nephew’s culinary experimentation.
“Push, dear. Push.” Diminishing amounts of sweat from a labour now in its fifteenth hour were being squeezed from the girl’s body. “Breathe,” her mother said, willing her fifth grandchild to appear. “You have to relax, Rosa. You’re too tight.”
“I’m thirsty, Mum,” the girl gasped. “I need water. ANYTHING. A lager for fuck’s sake.” Truth be told, in this particular corner of Queensland, lager was nearly more plentiful than water.
After thinking about it for a while, the woman went out to the kitchen, where her husband and son-in-law were nursing warm beers by the broken fridge. “We need one of them,” she said, grabbing an unopened can and racing back to the bedroom.
It may have been the world’s first lager-assisted birth, but with things the way they were in these parched parts, it probably wasn’t. When the eight-billionth nail in the Earth’s coffin was extruded ten minutes later, nobody was counting.
Pilot spent the early part of the afternoon walking to Marazion, back to the train station for a cup of tea, over to the post office, into the police station for a look at the noticeboard and up Causewayhead to people-watch. He was observing something he never could understand− human life and all its working parts, functioning or not to a design he felt to be wrongly conceived from the beginning. He saw people over the years sell their lives and the souls of their children to their places of work without question or remorse. He saw the whole framework of humanity as a large animal coming to the end of a fat kill− unbeknown to it, the last of the game. To Pilot’s way of thinking, a mass of human beings could no more exercise restraint than a thousand soldier ants happening across a juicy rodent. Anyone falling outside the scale on the side of sense or awareness would be left on the shoulder while the main column marched on, painting over any road sign that suggested it was traveling the wrong route.
Just then, one of the town’s homeless walked by. Pilot had often found the man sleeping in the doorway of his aunts’ shop and had made a practice of inviting him in, but the vagrant had always declined. As Pilot looked at the stubbled and grimy face, he saw a laughter and contentedness in this outcast’s eyes, as if he alone knew that it was warmer outside than in.
When Pilot got back to the flat to wash up, his saucepan was still there, exactly as he, and subsequently his aunts, had left it. But the sugar-weighted saucer had pushed the spam down to a level where it was flush with the surface of the pancake. He poked it with his forefinger and forced a thin circular band of porridge up through the space between the pancake and the side of the saucepan. Then he pushed France all the way down to the bottom of the pot and watched the porridge wash thickly over her from all sides.
IV
Two days later, Pilot was on the phone to Brussels. He had based his initial ideas for the island’s name on variations of Atlantis− Atlantis Minor, New Atlantis, Atlantis Novus. Then he moved on to anagrams of Atlantis. The island would comprise the edge of the continental shelf, pushed up wedge-like at a slant – Atislant, Atslanti, At-Slanti, Slanttia. Great anagrams, but ridiculous names. Same with Listtaan. ‘Listing’ in the ocean. Not an impressive picture. The other problem he was having was that all the names were based English words and he felt it should be more international.
He liked the anagram Nilstaat, from the Latin root ‘nihil’, nothing, nil, and the German word for nation, ‘Staat’. Nilstaat fit the concept of a nonaligned, unaffiliated state, but it sounded too German.
By lunchtime Pilot knew it had to be a made-up name− something non-lingual, like Häagen Dazs, dreamchild of an advertising copywriter. Of the fifty names he invented, he whittled it down to ten and then went to bed. By the morning, nine had evaporated. He’d based the tenth, Eydos, on the Greek word eîdos, meaning ‘the distinctive expression of the cognitive or intellectual character of a culture or a social group.’
“I won’t be processing any of the paperwork until the end of July,” the soft-spoken Scottish voice at the other end of the line said, winding up their short conversation. “How do you pronounce it again?”
“Eye-doss, A-doss, Eee-dose, Ay-doze, Eye-doze, Eye-dose,” Pilot replied. “It’s non-ligual.”
His next call was to his mentor to arrange a time to view the IGP’s computer models. “As soon as you can get here,” Vaalon said.
In the morning, Pilot arrived at Penzance station half an hour before departure time to ensure getting a table in the unreserved coach. The journey lasted five and a half hours, most of which he spent reading files on the laptop. Vaalon’s vision was solidifying in Pilot’s mind and things were beginning to seem less fantastical than at first.
The IGP building was just off Exhibition Road behind the Natural History Museum and Pilot found it easily. His anticipation and excitement when Vaalon greeted him at reception was impossible to hide. “Follow me, Lonnie,” the man said without preamble. He ushered Pilot into a large room on the third floor housing a number of computers, sat down at one and signaled Pilot to pull over another chair.
The screen came to life and Vaalon began to play the keyboard like Chopin. One diagram after another – in 2-D and 3-D, black and white, multicoloured – danced across the monitor. “Bear with me, Lonnie. I’ll start with ‘pc-R00018’, the pyrocoagulum we’ve been following for two years.”
“What’s a pyrocoagulum?”
“It’s a lump of magma – a knot of greater viscosity than the material around it. By charting its movement, we can guage the pull of the magnetic field created by the solar tide.”
Vaalon settled on an image Pilot guessed was a cross-section of the Bay of Biscay and began pointing out the various layers. “Mainland France, seawater, continental shelf, crust, mantle and this swirl here is pc-R00018. This is its position as we speak.” Vaalon flicked the right arrow on his keyboard a few times, moving the magma lump deeper into the mantle. “And this was its position when we first identified and measured it.” He tapped back and forth between the two images to give Pilot an animated rendition of magma in motion. “Now, look what happens when I advance it 13 weeks.”
Pilot put his face closer to the screen and focused on the continental shelf and pc-R00018’s increased proximity to it. The movement was so imperceptible that he almost missed it. Vaalon zoomed in and ran the sequence again. This time, the line of the continental shelf could be seen converging on the surface of the sea. One further click of the left arrow and part of the line rose above sea level. Vaalon traced the section that was out of the water with his fingertip. “From here to here is about 150 miles. Let’s look at it from a different angle.”
He rotated the aspect 90 degrees clockwise, giving a southeast to northwest view, and ran the sequence again. This time, the cresting of the continental shelf was much more graphic, appearing as a narrow angled wedge pointing towards the mainland. Vaalon ran his finger horizontally from the fat end of the wedge to where it disappeared under the sea to the east. “From there to there is around 20 miles. And this figure – “ he pointed to the western elevation “ – is between 300 and a thousand feet.”
Something was niggling Pilot. “In that sequence you showed me just now, between your discovery of our magma lump and its position today, it hardly moved at all. How fast is it rising?”
“Approximately one foot every ten years,” Vaalon said. “Slower than a glacier.”
“Then how can it cause the island to surface so quickly? Logic says it would take three or four hundred years for that stretch of shelf to crest.”
“In this case, logic is trumped by the harmonics of solar magnetics, tectonics, lithospherics and isostatics. Together they create the jolt necessary to trigger the pulse I described earlier. The equilibrium that keeps landmasses stable – isostasy – refluxes, or hiccups. A volcano will be many years in the making, but it only takes an instant to erupt.
On the geophysical clock, the birth of your island will be a mere nanosecond event. On the human clock, it’ll take anything from five to ten hours. Babies can be born quicker than Eydos, but I guarantee you it’s not going to take 400 years.”
Pilot sat baffled and mute in front of the computer.
“Lonnie, you’ll just have to put your trust in the quality of knowledge and the accuracy of data used to program our software. The computer models all predict that your island’s going to surface this August… stabilize… dry out for a few centuries… then sink again just as suddenly. It will – “
“Why doesn’t the island keep on rising during the centuries it’s above water?” As soon as he’d asked the question, Pilot had guessed the answer, remembering how, in his porridge-pancake-spam-saucer experiment, the weight of France had prevented the spam from rising any higher over its bubble.
“The solar tide holds the shelf in stasis until it ebbs. It can’t rise higher because of the weight of the mainland and the magmatic pulse itself lasts at least four hundred years,” Vaalon said. “So, Lonnie. How are you feeling now?”
“Hungry.”
Over dinner at the Casa da Comina, Pilot brought up the politics of sovereignty. “I need to know if there’s a plan, Forrest, and what influence, if any, our advocates have.”
Vaalon’s eyes locked onto Pilot’s. “On June 23rd you’re flying to New York with me to meet Fridrik Geirsson, Iceland’s ambassador to the United Nations. I can understand your concern about this aspect of the operation, but a meeting with Geirsson will dispel your fears. He and his father before him have owned the UN Commision on Maritime Law for the past forty years.”
Over the ensuing three weeks while he was waiting for his passport to arrive, Pilot meandered through Vaalon’s hard drive as though through a spring meadow. He noted facts, figures, weights, measures, cargoes and personnel with the same part of his mind that fed on beautiful countryside, magnificent trees and poetic skies. This wasn’t work. It was pleasure.
In preparation for his trip to Dublin, he read the files of his three Irish crew several times until he knew them as well as one can, short of actually meeting them in the flesh. Jane Lavery was in charge of the settler’s vegetable-growing programme. A gardener for the Earl of Dungarvan, she had been an environmental activist since her late teens and had even spent six days in jail for handcuffing herself to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine during a demonstration against the genetic modification of potatoes. Now, at the age of twenty-seven, her protesting had taken a more mellow turn. The keyboard had replaced the sword, her popular blog having gained over a thousand subscribers in just six months. Pilot clicked the link to her blog site, read her latest entry – a well-documented case linking southern India’s escalating birth defects to genetically modified rice – then went back to her photograph. Frecklebound was the only word to describe her. He’d never seen so many on one human face. He found her colouring of olive skin, rust-coloured hair, brown eyes and freckles unusual and very attractive.
The expedition’s master-carpenter and builder, Josiah Billy, had been born in Australia. Orphaned while still crawling, Billy had learned to walk in a succession of foster homes before sprinting out on his own at fifteen. His paternal grandfather was Aborigine. The other three grandparents were Irish. A gifted club rugby player, but unable to make it into the Australian national team, Billy had been invited to play for Ireland, based on his Irish lineage. With few family ties in Australia, he took the first flight out. Josiah Billy had won fifteen caps as a loose forward in the Ireland national rugby team, but sin-bin offences in successive games had put an end to his international career. Vaalon’s notes described ‘a hefty, thirty-two-year-old joiner, wood carver and poet’. Pilot looked at the photograph, but couldn’t see the poet. He thought Josiah Billy looked dangerously alpha and wondered if he’d be able to work with him.
He closed Billy’s file, opened Macushla Mara’s and went straight to her photo. Her thick black hair, prominent eyebrows and dark lashes could have washed ashore from the Spanish Armada; the green eyes were Irish; the nose and mouth Pre-Raphaelite. Governmental speechwriter Mara, a Trinity College classics graduate with a PhD, would soon be working for Lonnie Pilot, a Cornish tutor of seven-to twelve-year-olds, as his ‘press secretary’. With a sickening dip in confidence, he closed out the file. If he were able to pass himself off as a convincing leader to these people, no-one would be more surprised than Lonnie Pilot.
Three days before his flight, Pilot’s passport arrived. He thought it a waste of money, because, in just over two months, he’d be throwing it, along with his past, into the English Channel. He re-read the postcard he’d received from Macushla Mara. Its calligraphy was exquisite.
Dear Lonnie Pilot,
Mr. Vaalon has booked us rooms at the Central Hotel, Exchequer Street. See you in the hotel bar at around seven? Looking forward to meeting you and the others.
− M. Mara
Pilot was relieved that he wouldn’t be the only stranger in the group.
Maroon, moss green and peat brown were the predominant colours of the first floor Central Hotel bar. Four underpowered wall lights added little to the dingy atmosphere of a space more akin to a waiting room than a watering hole. An emaciated, acned youth in black trousers, white shirt and black tie hung loosely behind his bar, Pilot’s Guinness being the only drink he had poured in half an hour. In the far corner, a young woman in an orange coat, already confirmed by Pilot as being neither Jane Lavery nor Macushla Mara, sat nursing a long-cold coffee and looking at her watch every two minutes. It was 6.45. Plenty of time to drown his nerves, which were still on edge. His flight from Exeter had been both frightening and exciting, as it was the first time Pilot had been on a plane. The bus ride into the city centre, consisting of road works topped by rush hour, was worse.
At seven o’clock, a large man entered the bar and began scanning the room. In the gloom, Pilot couldn’t tell if he were Josiah Billy or not. The answer came when the orange coat leapt from her seat, skipped over to the fellow and threw her arms around him.
Five minutes later, Pilot’s peripheral vision picked up another figure coming through the door. He turned his head, recognized Jane Lavery, and raised his hand. Lavery smiled and sauntered over to his table. She was tall and slim, and far more striking than her photograph had suggested.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Pilot,” she said, extending her hand. “How was your trip?”
“Uneventful.” Pilot had decided not to mention the fact he’d never flown before. Heads of state flew. “Call me Lonnie.”
Lavery pointed to his glass. “Would you like another drink, Lonnie?”
Pilot’s natural reaction would have been to offer to get the drinks himself, but he decided to stay in character. “Guinness”, he said. “Thank you, Jane.”
As the barman was waiting for the head to settle on Pilot’s drink, Josiah Billy walked in and went straight to the bar. “I’ll have what she’s having,” he said, turning to face Lavery. “Jane Lavery− I recognize the freckles. I’m Josiah Billy.”
“Hello, Josiah.” She shook Billy’s hand with unfeminine gusto. “By the way, the Guinness is Lonnie Pilot’s.”
“He’s here?”
“Over at that corner table.”
Billy looked over his shoulder. “Grey hair. I thought Pilot was in his twenties.” “He’s younger than he looks. Go introduce yourself. I’ll bring the drinks.”
A few minutes later, Lavery took her seat and added to the awkwardness of strangers meeting for the first time. Pilot felt it was his job to break the ice, but Lavery beat him to it. “After thinking long and hard about this,” she said, “I’m going to give Mr. Vaalon the benefit of the doubt… with a big but. No disrespect intended to you, Lonnie, but it’s a ludicrously fantastical proposal by my way of thinking.”
Before Pilot could respond, Macushla Mara appeared from the shadows and sat next to Lavery.
“You haven’t mi
ssed anything, Macushla,” Pilot said. “We’ve only just started. I’m Lonnie Pilot, this is Jane Lavery, and this is Josiah Billy.” Polite greetings were exchanged and Pilot signalled Lavery to continue where she had left off.
“Don’t get me wrong, Lonnie. We all turned up, including me. Now that’s something.”
Pilot laughed. “The fact that I’m not sitting here on my own is a miracle,” he said, squirming in his chair. “But our proposal is neither ludicrous nor fantastical, Jane. What exactly did Mr. Vaalon tell you about what’s going to happen?”
Lavery took a sip of wine, then gave a shorter version of the story Vaalon had given Pilot, but with her own twist. A group of international idealists, led by a Cornish teacher, strap themselves to some barges, land on an emerging land mass in the Bay of Biscay and create Utopia. “When Vaalon described it, it sounded believable,” Lavery said. “When I describe it, it’s the most outlandish fiction that’s ever been imagined.”
Pilot turned to Mara. “Macushla?”
“It’s the basic premise of landing on an earthquake that perplexes me,” she said. “The entire scenario is implausible, unbelievable, farfetched, unlikely and plain dangerous.”
“Then why are you here?” Pilot took Mara’s words as a challenge. He locked eyes with the woman, determined not to be the first to look away, but failed. The strength in her stare made it difficult for him to focus. “I had my doubts too, at first,” he said, softening. “But I’ve seen the computer models. It’s a huge leap of faith we’re asking of you, I admit that.”
“Bizarre is what it is,” Billy said. “I’ve made some big leaps in my life, but this is a leap too far.”
“Then I think you should leave. I don’t –”