eyes?”
“How long before we arrive?”
Qi rocked back and let out her boyish hoot. Then she hopped up and dove at him bodily. She tumbled him over and started wrestling him on top of the barrels, bruising his shoulders, knocking his mask sideways and tickling him under the arms. “Ask one more question, and you go for a swim, Nick-O!”
Her playfulness ended abruptly. She sat up listening, while Dominic struggled to get his mask back on. “Shhh,” she whispered.
Then Dominic heard it, too. A sucking liquid noise. Far away, but growing louder. “What is it?” He sat up, cocking his ear. The noise was echoing out of the west, and they seemed to be heading straight for it. He said, “It sounds like the edge of the world.”
CHAPTER 5
----
FLOATING EXCHANGE
THEY sailed steadily westward toward the booming roar, shading their eyes and squinting into the horizon. In the distance, a slate gray object projected from the ocean, and Dominic saw it gleam intermittently between swells. The roar gradually resolved into a loud pulse of churning waters, and the closer they approached, the larger the object grew. By the time they came within half a kilometer, the din was deafening, and the structure loomed up like a colossal black wall blocking half the sky.
The noise drove Dominic to cover his ears. He stared dumbfounded. The ship was so enormous, it could have held a city. Its gargantuan rust-streaked hull was shaped like a drum, squat and cylindrical with a flat top, and there were no portals or openings. Just below the waterline, a ring of slime-crusted machinery circled the drum, slurping up water and rapidly spewing it out again. This action caused the ring to revolve briskly around the hull, creating a dangerous wake of boils and whirlpools. Their little raft was sailing straight for it.
When Qi hauled the sail down, Dominic sprang forward to help. At last, he recognized the strange craft. It was a factory ship. He’d seen them in holographs on the Net. These titanic vessels lumbered at the edge of swift ocean currents and generated power from hydrodynamic differentials. At the ship’s core whirled a thick column of turbines, and inside its huge hold, robots and protected employees manned the revolving rings of production lines powered by the turbines. Such a ship could manufacture anything from cars to caffie pots. But the factory ship wasn’t alone.
Clustered in its shadow, just beyond reach of its treacherous wake, Dominic saw a mat of floating debris, and as they glided closer, the flotsam resolved into the outlines of fragile little boats. Junkers they were, cobbled together from polyfoam crates, PVC tubing, plastic jugs and billboard panels. Beer logos and snippets of advertising copy slanted across their sails in a bright linguistic patchwork. Dominic even saw a hazardous-waste tank lodged among the trash. There must have been fifteen or twenty of these boats, each with its crew of men, women and children, exposed to the atmosphere, worn-out, beaten down and clinging—like animals, he thought.
“Runaway protes,” he said aloud.
Qi couldn’t have heard him over the din. When she finished tying down the sail, she stood and shouted, “This is our rendezvous.”
It took Dominic about a second to grasp that the protes were sheltering in the factory’s infrared shadow to hide from satellite scans. A fairly clever idea. He wondered who thought of it. At the top of his voice, he yelled, “What Com owns this factory? Are the executives complicit in this?”
Qi put her mouth close to his ear. “Don’t get your shorts in a wad, Nick. There’s only one exec on board, and he stays zonked twenty-four/seven on Mellow Yellows. That exec doesn’t even know we exist.”
Dominic assumed the Benthica was hiding directly below. He studied the ship for markings. If only he could get a fix on the location. But Major Qi had made sure he couldn’t do that. “You’ve known the submarine’s coordinates all
“How long before we arrive?”
Qi rocked back and let out her boyish hoot. Then she hopped up and dove at him bodily. She tumbled him over and started wrestling him on top of the barrels, bruising his shoulders, knocking his mask sideways and tickling him under the arms. “Ask one more question, and you go for a swim, Nick-O!”
Her playfulness ended abruptly. She sat up listening, while Dominic struggled to get his mask back on. “Shhh,” she whispered.
Then Dominic heard it, too. A sucking liquid noise. Far away, but growing louder. “What is it?” He sat up, cocking his ear. The noise was echoing out of the west, and they seemed to be heading straight for it. He said, “It sounds like the edge of the world.”
CHAPTER 5
----
FLOATING EXCHANGE
THEY sailed steadily westward toward the booming roar, shading their eyes and squinting into the horizon. In the distance, a slate gray object projected from the ocean, and Dominic saw it gleam intermittently between swells. The roar gradually resolved into a loud pulse of churning waters, and the closer they approached, the larger the object grew. By the time they came within half a kilometer, the din was deafening, and the structure loomed up like a colossal black wall blocking half the sky.
The noise drove Dominic to cover his ears. He stared dumbfounded. The ship was so enormous, it could have held a city. Its gargantuan rust-streaked hull was shaped like a drum, squat and cylindrical with a flat top, and there were no portals or openings. Just below the waterline, a ring of slime-crusted machinery circled the drum, slurping up water and rapidly spewing it out again. This action caused the ring to revolve briskly around the hull, creating a dangerous wake of boils and whirlpools. Their little raft was sailing straight for it.
When Qi hauled the sail down, Dominic sprang forward to help. At last, he recognized the strange craft. It was a factory ship. He’d seen them in holographs on the Net. These titanic vessels lumbered at the edge of swift ocean currents and generated power from hydrodynamic differentials. At the ship’s core whirled a thick column of turbines, and inside its huge hold, robots and protected employees manned the revolving rings of production lines powered by the turbines. Such a ship could manufacture anything from cars to caffie pots. But the factory ship wasn’t alone.
Clustered in its shadow, just beyond reach of its treacherous wake, Dominic saw a mat of floating debris, and as they glided closer, the flotsam resolved into the outlines of fragile little boats. Junkers they were, cobbled together from polyfoam crates, PVC tubing, plastic jugs and billboard panels. Beer logos and snippets of advertising copy slanted across their sails in a bright linguistic patchwork. Dominic even saw a hazardous-waste tank lodged among the trash. There must have been fifteen or twenty of these boats, each with its crew of men, women and children, exposed to the atmosphere, worn-out, beaten down and clinging—like animals, he thought.
“Runaway protes,” he said aloud.
Qi couldn’t have heard him over the din. When she finished tying down the sail, she stood and shouted, “This is our rendezvous.”
It took Dominic about a second to grasp that the protes were sheltering in the factory’s infrared shadow to hide from satellite scans. A fairly clever idea. He wondered who thought of it. At the top of his voice, he yelled, “What Com owns this factory? Are the executives complicit in this?”
Qi put her mouth close to his ear. “Don’t get your shorts in a wad, Nick. There’s only one exec on board, and he stays zonked twenty-four/seven on Mellow Yellows. That exec doesn’t even know we exist.”
Dominic assumed the Benthica was hiding directly below. He studied the ship for markings. If only he could get a fix on the location. But Major Qi had made sure he couldn’t do that. “You’ve known the submarine’s coordinates all
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