The O.D.

by Chris James

  Geirsson swung the binder back to face him, located the relevant section and began paraphrasing.

  “Oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. Most are volcanic in origin. The Mariana Islands, the Aleutian Islands and most of Tonga were formed by volcanoes arising from the subduction of one plate under another. Eydos will not be one of those.

  “Where an oceanic rift reaches the surface, another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs− Iceland, for example, and Jan Mayen. Eydos will not be one of those.

  “There are some non-volcanic oceanic islands that are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have pushed the deep ocean floor above the surface. For Eydos, we have to note the distinction between deep ocean floor and continental shelf. It is all covered in here.

  “A third type of volcanic oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the moving tectonic plate above it, so a chain of islands is extruded as the plate drifts, like the Hawaiian Islands and the Tuamotu Archipelago. Tristan da Cunha is an example of a hotspot volcano in the Atlantic Ocean, another one being my country’s own island of Surtsey, formed in 1963. Eydos will not be one of those, either.”

  Unable to extend his long legs under the coffee table, Geirsson stood up and stretched. “Now we come to continental islands,” he said, walking around the room. “These are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent, as opposed to a particular country. Great Britain, Ireland and Sicily are all islands on the European continental shelf. There are similar examples to be found all over the world.” He resumed his seat and turned a few pages until he found what he was looking for. “Sable Island off Nova Scotia is believed to have been formed by a terminal moraine deposited on the continental shelf near the end of the last Ice Age. Again, Eydos cannot be placed in this category of island. Nor is Eydos an atoll, a microcontinental island, a seamount, an islet, a skerry, a bar or a cay. Eydos is nothing until it is defined. And who better to define it than the UN Commission on Maritime Law?”

  Fridrik Geirsson and Forrest Vaalon both looked at Pilot with broad grins of satisfaction. Lonnie Pilot returned their smiles with interest.

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law in terms of proving ownership,” Geirsson continued. “If we are successful in establishing to the entire world your lawful claim to possession in that first hour, then we will have only the other one-tenth to contend with.”

  Geirsson withdrew a single sheet of paper from the back of the binder and handed it to Pilot. “This is an outline for a declaration to be transmitted to the world the instant you make landfall.”

  Pilot aimed a questioning glance at Vaalon, who took the floor.

  “Both the transponder broadcasting your exact position, and the transmitter sending out your declaration, will be automatically activated on contact with the rising island,” Vaalon explained. “As a failsafe, as soon as you’re able to do so, confirm the position of your landfall by radio. Either way, within seconds and minutes, the entire world will know you’re there.”

  Lonnie Pilot left Geirsson’s apartment a happy man. He hadn’t had the patience to read through the entire document− the tall Icelander’s summary had been sufficient.

  The following morning, with an entire day to fill before his evening flight, Pilot decided to take up Serman’s offer of a city tour on foot. They started walking east at a purposeful gait, counting down the avenues as they went and, half an hour later, stood peering up at the sleek, slim, silvery monolith of the U.N. building as it toppled over on them, a trick of the scudding clouds behind it.

  They were frisked going in and took the first available guided tour. Inside the General Assembly, Pilot tried to imagine the scene as their claim was made. As had happened at Le Conquet, his confidence was being eroded by his proximity to the actual stage in the coming play. It was not a comfortable feeling and he was relieved when the tour was over.

  They left the building, turned left and began following the river down to South Street, stopping at the sight of the top third of a four-masted clipper ship visible over the wharves and warehouses. “Theme park,” Serman said. “The theme being Nineteenth Century New York Maritime.” They strolled around for half an hour then walked out to the end of the pier and sat on a bollard.

  Pilot had often wondered why it was that eras, environments, ways of life, even everyday objects, were never appreciated until after their time had passed. Why, for instance, should an ordinary 19th century commode have appreciated in value a hundred fold since it was last sat upon, and today enjoy pride of place as a valuable antique in someone’s best room – never again to be used for the purpose it was created? Had nostalgia always been as strong, or was this just a symptom of civilization coming as far as it could and looking longingly back at the paths it would never again tread?

  With no consideration for Serman’s understanding, Pilot launched straight from thought to expression. “It would make much more sense,” he said, “if we could live the second half of our lives backwards.”

  “…What?”

  “Then we’d be able to appreciate, through reverse nostalgia, the things that had passed us by in our past – now our future− redress the wrongs we had done and repair the people we had hurt.”

  Even at the age of twenty-five, there was a lot of material in Pilot’s life that he would like to have a second go at. Like the way he had treated his mother when she said she was leaving with the man he called ‘the snake with a snakeskin briefcase’. He had made her cry, but in the intervening years had learned that the desires that move people to do such things are much more powerful forces than basic loyalties, principles and ties to their children. They could rationalize any behavior and could no more help themselves than could rutting deer. He should have been more understanding.

  The adenoidal hoot of an unseen tugboat closed this particular thought tangent and brought Pilot back to his current position. Serman was still looking at him as if he were ill. “Sorry, Aaron. Where to next?”

  “You can’t leave without visiting the The Freedom Tower.”

  The elevator to the 100th floor observation deck didn’t feel as if it were even in motion, but when it stopped and the two emerged, there, spread out below them, was the whole of greater New York semi-obscured by a layer of smog, the roof of which must have been five hundred feet below them. His legs were like rubber and the urge to jump barely resistible. The half-inch-thick plate glass, although insuring his body stayed in the building, did nothing to arrest his imagined fall. He sat down on the floor as far away from the window as he could, dreading what the future held in store for them.

  “Tomorrow morning I’m flying to Madrid to brief your advocate there,” Vaalon said later. “As for you, Lonnie, you need to relax. With E-Day approaching, you can’t afford a nervous breakdown. When you get back to England, think of a diversion and do it.”

  Pilot was glad he’d seen New York, because for him, that city – and he was thinking Wall Street, not Harlem or The Bronx – represented the advance camp in civilization’s relentless march to the edge of the precipice. The rest of the world was fast catching up, and then, like the last pieces of garbage completing the landfill, it would all be over. The destruction of the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty by outside forces, and self-inflicted wounds by the bankers, fiscal conservatives, survivalists and the growing army of anarchistic, unemployed youth throughout the States had been mere surface symptoms of the deadly canker growing deep below the skin of the corporate global body.

  As he was dropping Pilot at Departures, Serman began laughing.

  “What’s funny, Aaron?” Pilot asked.

  “Just something I read in the flotilla manifest yesterday.”

  “What was that?”

  “Five thousand condoms.”

  VI

  Pilot discovered the diversion he needed in a banner ad on a hot air ballooning website. He pulled out his phone and presse
d speed dial 1. “It’s a week’s course in theoretical and practical instruction,” he explained to Vaalon. “Do you mind if I put the cost on the credit card?”

  There was silence at the other end of the connection, and Pilot was ready to retract his request when Vaalon answered. “For this one, phone Franz Barta. You’ll have to introduce yourself some time, so it might as well be now. He can pay them direct. Let me have a quick word with him first and you call him first thing in the morning. It sounds like good medicine to me. Just don’t fall out of the basket.”

  The next day, Pilot gave Barta the banking details of the Bath Balloon Club, thanked him and hung up. Then he headed for Newlyn harbour to read up on hot air ballooning in the ‘plein air’.

  “I can envisage an entire fleet of them, with flights to Spain, France, England, Ireland and maybe even Iceland, depending on which way the wind’s blowing,” Pilot said to his aunts on his return from Bath.

  “Lonnie, what on earth are you talking about?” Sally asked.

  “Blimps,” Hilda said. “He’s talking about blimps.”

  “Not blimps, Hilda, hot air balloons. Blimps use hydrogen or helium and have rudders and propellers. With mine, you heat the air in the canopy with a gas burner underneath and up you go. As the air cools, down you come ... slowly. The only thing you haven’t got control of is your direction.”

  The two sisters raised four eyebrows. “What good is it then, if you can’t go where you want to go?” Hilda asked.

  “Having control of our direction only takes us to bad places,” Pilot answered. “Human nature can’t help but steer towards them. Like Icarus.” His aunts looked at each other blankly. “By the way, I’m leaving the country for good on August first.”

  A piece of toast, which had adhered to Hilda’s lower lip when her jaw dropped, fell off onto her plate. “Leaving the country? Whatever for?”

  “You can’t,” Sally added. “It would break your mother’s heart. We’d miss you too.”

  A rare feeling of affection welled up in Pilot. “I’ll miss you, too. It’s time I moved on all the same.”

  “Where are you going, Lonnie?”

  “I was thinking Australia.”

  “In a balloon?”

  The weather during the middle two weeks of July had been strange all over the world. In Penzance there had been neither sun, nor rain, nor wind – only a damp-looking, yellow-grey blanket spread from horizon to horizon. The air below was hot and heavy, like the people who walked through it, gamely trying to accomplish their daily tasks with the good humour expected in mid-summer. Not even Lonnie Pilot could motivate himself to a level deserving of his impending big day.

  As if on cue, Eydos sent Pilot a message care of the BBC News website. He almost missed it, so lax had his concentration become, but the familiar detonation in his chest told him that what he was half reading was, in fact, news of their own first labour pains. He went back to the beginning of the item and shut out everything in the world but the text rising up his screen.

  Earth Tremors Recorded in Bay of Biscay

  AP− Geologists in France, Britain and Spain last night recorded a series of mild tremors centred in an area of the Bay of Biscay 150 miles southwest of Brest. At their most severe, the tremors registered 2.5 on the Richter Scale.

  Dr. Philip Graff of the Royal Seismographic Observatory said, ‘What we recorded was something called a harmonic tremor, which is caused by a continuous release of seismic energy typically associated with the underground movement of magma. Under land, this magnitude of activity would have caused tea cups to rattle in their saucers, but, occurring at sea at a depth of over 5,000 metres, the tremors were felt by no one.’

  Dr. Graff also stated that, although there are no records of previous seismic activity in this area, the people of Western Europe have nothing to fear from the event. ‘It is unusual, but unthreatening.’

  According to RSO readings, eighteen separate tremors, lasting a total of two hours and twenty-five minutes, ended shortly after 0200 hrs GMT.

  Any lingering doubts Pilot may have had regarding Vaalon’s prediction no longer held water. Two point five on the Richter Scale was all it took to shake him out of his lethargy.

  “There’s another of your crew I’d like you to meet before E-Day,” Forrest Vaalon said in a phone call to Pilot the next morning. “His name is Henry Bradingbrooke. We can meet you halfway, and I was thinking the day after tomorrow in Bristol.” After they’d arranged a time and a place to meet, Pilot went straight to the laptop, opened Bradingbrooke’s file and began reading.

  Thinking it an apt venue, Vaalon had chosen a restaurant with a view of Bristol’s floating harbour for their meeting. Pilot arrived first, was led to the table Vaalon had reserved, ordered a jug of water and got out his newspaper to finish reading a piece about the latest US crop failures. When he’d finished, he tore out the article, put it in his shoulder bag and ran his eyes across Bristol harbour. Cary Grant was born here, he thought, dredging up another piece of useless information from his vast well of ephemera.

  When Vaalon and Bradingbrooke entered the restaurant, Pilot stood up, shook Vaalon’s hand, pulled out his chair for him and was about to do the same for Bradingbrooke when he remembered his place in the pecking order. He sat down and let Henry Bradingbrooke, a baronet, pull out his own chair. Pilot had never been impressed with titles, especially inherited ones. But he was impressed by Bradingbrooke’s qualifications. Henry Charles Finucane Bradingbrooke, Bart., held a PhD in meteorology and had been working at the IGP for two years. Over several days, Pilot had been harbouring a nagging suspicion that the man now sitting next to him was Vaalon’s ‘Number Three’, and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

  “Glad to meet you, Henry,” Pilot said, extending his hand.

  “And you, Pilot.” Bradingbrooke used the public school practice of addressing cohorts by their surnames.

  “Henry’s been running studies on the ramifications of solar tides on the world’s weather patterns,” Vaalon said. “Henry?”

  “The solar tide exerts an imperceptible drag on the jetstream,” Bradingbrooke explained. “Although barely measurable, it causes anomalies in our weather patterns, such as those we’re experiencing at the moment. So far, they’re working in our favour. When it comes time to bring the barges together and secure the flotilla, we just hope the seas are as flat as they are now. From what I can tell, it looks as if they will be.”

  “The calm before the storm,” Pilot said.

  “Indeed. What I’m also trying to ascertain is what sort of weather we’ll have in the weeks after the storm. What we don’t want are gales or torrential rains when we’re trying to get a toehold.”

  “What’s the forecast?”

  For the first time in the meeting, Bradingbrooke smiled. “Easterly, gale-force French, followed by heavy British from the North. Joking aside, I think it will be mild and dry throughout August, with winds gradually building up velocity in September. Then, Pilot, all hell will break loose.”

  After dinner, the meeting took a more casual turn. Vaalon told them about his childhood in New Mexico and how the geology bug had bitten him at the age of seven. Henry Bradingbrooke attributed his interest in the weather to many months spent sailing with his late father in the Solent. Pilot wanted to know more about what lay below Bradingbrooke’s education. “Are you married, Henry?” he asked, knowing full well the man wasn’t.

  “I very easily could have been− three years ago. But my head was in the clouds, literally, and I missed my chance. She married a banker.”

  “Not a good investment on her part. You’re in a position to travel then.”

  Bradingbrooke laughed again. “I can’t wait to shuffle off this mortal coil.”

  As he walked back to the station, Pilot reflected on his meeting with Vaalon and Bradingbrooke. He liked Henry. More importantly, he had at no point felt inferior to him. Whether that was through growing self confidence or Bradingbrooke’s seeming acceptance o
f the leadership hierarchy remained to be seen.

  Pilot spent the next few days saying goodbye to his old life and his old haunts. For all its lack of pulse, his neighbourhood had something he knew he was going to miss. He would never again enjoy the comfort to be found in being insignificant and living in an insignificant place. Ahead of him lay the prospect of a future on centre stage, forever a public person, and this frightened and enticed him at the same time.

  He decided to take a last walk, and as he was passing Humphry Davy’s statue, he came across a group of teenage girls, one of whom he had in the past privately referred to as Botticelli’s Cornish Venus. He barely recognized her now, though, so dissolute and hardened had she become through three years on crack cocaine and two abortions. He railed at the cruel defacement inflicted on her and at his present impotence in the matter. He averted his eyes with sadness, gave them all a wide berth and began walking to Newlyn.

  When a figure crossed his field of vision at Wherrytown, he recognized the walk as belonging to the vagrant with the special light in his eyes. On an impulse, closely followed by an idea, Pilot ran and caught up with him. “I’m leaving here for good in a few days,” he said to the man, “and I’d like to give you something. Come for a drink at my place and I’ll show you.”

  The sharp eyes blazed and Pilot feared the man was deranged. Then the face morphed into a grimy smile and answered, “So long as you’re buyin’, son...”

  The hot spell had broken that day and it was just beginning to rain. Had Bradingbrooke got it wrong, Pilot wondered, or was this just a temporary anomaly? He bought a flagon of scrumpy from Lidl’s and led his new friend through the downpour to his net shed.