The O.D. Page 11

  The shelf had hit the underbelly of the convoy at twelve miles an hour, or twenty feet per second – a hundred times faster than Pilot had estimated.

  Two things had saved them from catastrophe. First, due to the angle at which the land was rising, the leading barges had made contact first and soaked up at least some of the impact. Second, the eight crumple areas between the jumbo’s collars and Ptolemy’s deck had performed to specification, absorbing 90% of the collision energy.

  On board the old Boeing, minds, bodies and spirits were slowly being reassembled after the impact shock and the twenty minutes of violent tremors that followed. The only serious casualty had been Dubravka Horvat. Having dislocated her shoulder earlier during their roller coaster ride over the waves, for the landing, she thought she’d be safer sitting on the floor between seats. As a result, she now had a hairline fracture of the coccyx to augment the pain in her shoulder.

  Pilot got word of Horvat’s condition after the tremors had subsided to a comfortable level and went down to see her. She was in a lot of pain, but one of the doctors was attending to her. Pilot squeezed her forearm gently and offered some words of commiseration, apology and encouragement. By way of reply, she ran her free hand up the back of his leg and forced a smile. “Hvala,” she said. “Thank you. Was my fault, not yours.”

  The sun had set quickly behind a distant weather front that evening of August 4th and what light remained was insufficient to clarify the scene outside. A strong wind was whipping the water on the windows into fine tendrils whose progress across the glass distorted the scene outside. Very little of the features of their landing place was discernible. The sea was nowhere to be seen, that much they could tell, but they had no idea how far away the nearest coast now was. Nor was their current altitude known. At least it wasn’t snowing and the air didn’t seem any thinner than before. More important questions awaited their attention.

  Four hundred and fifty miles away, in the Wapping offices of The Morning Journal, Thursday night’s read-in man, Len Wenlight, sat po-faced in front of his computer screen alerting his back bench to the evening’s running stories.

  Most of the news coming in that afternoon had concerned the tremors in the Bay of Biscay and the tsunamis that had begun hitting Europe’s western seaboard, but there’d been a lull from that quarter for nearly an hour.

  “SRI LANKA TRAIN CRASH,” Wenlight called out.

  “Got it,” came the back bench reply.

  “CHANCELLOR CHEATS ON WIFE.”

  Reg Fuller, the night editor, stopped what he was doing for a second. “Cheats on wife? Who’s our magpie?”

  “Veronica.”

  “I might have known,” Fuller answered. “I think the Chancellor’s got enough problems—”

  “SCILLY ISLES EVACUATION UPDATE,” Wenlight interrupted.

  “Time?”

  “It’s running now. Started 1930 hours.”

  “O.K. I’ll read it.”

  Wenlight didn’t bother calling out the next catch line. The Morning Journal had never carried Hollywood gossip of a sexual nature and never would. For a further five minutes the bantam-weight journalist, who hated this job but willingly took his turn with the rest of the writers, fished his directory for usable copy. Eventually, he hooked a big one, or so it seemed at first glance.

  “BISCAY ISLAND LANDING, Reg.”

  From Fuller: “Biscay what?”

  “ISLAND LANDING.” He spoke the words with inflections of urgency and puzzlement.

  “Who’s the corr?”

  Wenlight didn’t hear the question. He was reading the copy.

  “WHO SENT IT, LEN?”

  “It’s unattributed. I think you should have a look, though.”

  Anything from the Bay of Biscay was news that night, so Fuller swiveled round to inspect the fish for himself on his own computer screen.

  Wenlight read the first few lines of the release, then looked across at Fuller in disbelief. “There was nothing about an island before I came on, was there?”

  But Fuller was too engrossed in the text marching up his screen to answer.

  On impact with Eydos, the transmitter in the jumbo’s nose cone had automatically sent Geirsson’s declaration, largely rewritten by Pilot, to the iPatch News21 system, a satellite facility used by journalists to file stories anywhere in the world to any number of locations simultaneously. Vaalon’s ‘redilist’, comprised the codes for every broadcast, print and internet news source in the world. Through the magic of technology, BISCAY ISLAND LANDING was worldwide in minutes.

  Bay of Biscay. 46° 42’N., 6° 04’ W. 4/8. Filed 2003 GMT.

  150 words. 20 screen lines.

  BISCAY ISLAND LANDING.

  PRESS RELEASE AND DECLARATION.

  At the exact time coded above, the outer edge of the continental shelf of Europe surfaced in international waters in the Bay of Biscay. As numerous sources will verify in the coming days, simultaneous with our landing on the aforementioned land mass, representations were made by our agents in London, Paris, Madrid, Dublin and the United Nations presenting our legal and indisputable claim on this island, which, as of this moment, will be known as Eydos.

  We have displaced no indigenous population to get here. Nor have we relocated from an existing political, sociological, ideological or religious base. We have left everything behind, and our baggage contains only clothes. We appeal to the international community to respect our claim on this island. And we invite the support of friendly nations in upholding it.

  Our geographical position is as logged above.

  -- L. Pilot

  “Who the hell’s L. Pilot?” Fuller asked no one in particular. “Run a check on the name, Tony. Alan, call the BBC, SKY and the Foreign Office. See if they have anything on an island. And New York… Paris. COME ON. Get the calls out.” Fuller seemed to be talking to everyone at once. “AND CHARTER A PLANE.”

  Behind his small, wire-rimmed spectacles, Wenlight’s pupils were like sharpened pencil points. “I reckon it’s a hoax, Reg,” he cautioned. “Look. The corr is unidentified. Plus, the story was filed at 8.03, and yet it claims this island came up at 8.03. How would they have had time to both write and file in one second? The whole country knows about the tremors and this is just some jokester journalist or hacker having a punt, but screwing up his timings.”

  Fuller weighed the evidence.

  “You’re probably right, Len, but let’s get the calls out all the same.”

  Satisfied with his detective work, Wenlight removed the hook from this strange fish and threw it back into a sea frothing with the fact, fiction, innuendo, gossip, half-truths and scoops being poured into it by sources on every shore.

  Ten minutes later, two ‘snaps’ came on screen in quick succession that made Len Wenlight forget all about jokes and hackers: EARTHQUAKE ISLAND U.N. CLAIM, and immediately below it, LANDMASS SURFACING BISCAY m.f.

  “This thing gets curiouser and curiouser, Len,” Fuller said over his colleague’s shoulder.

  Back on Ptolemy, Lonnie Pilot sat listening to Serman’s damage report. It seemed as if every joint in the barge had been dislocated by the impact. There wasn’t a right angle to be found anywhere. Yet, for all that, everything still functioned: the galley was operational; water came out of the taps and the lights worked.

  The mess room of the barge was turned into a makeshift infirmary and the dozen most severe cases of shock had been taken down to be treated. Quite a few of the crew were making their way to their cabins to recover privately from the impact, while those who remained in the jumbo were experiencing a different form of shock.

  The tremors had ceased at last and after four days at sea, culminating in the earthquake, the sudden calm – signifying as it did a return to solid ground – was disturbing in itself. Less than an hour before, the coordinates 46° 42’N, 6° 04’W had been 190 metres under water. It wasn’t surprising that the distinguished American billionaire had taken on new stature with his passengers, none moreso
than Lonnie Pilot, Henry Bradingbrooke, Aaron Serman, Jane Lavery, Josiah Billy and Macushla Mara. Someone appeared at the door with a tray of mugs partly obscured by the steam from the hot tea, an instant reminder that no one had taken any food or liquid for eight hours.

  The features of the barges around them were clearly visible in the fading evening light but all horizons were hidden from view. Those who remained in the jumbo shared the unspoken desire to disembark to look at, stand on and take in the world’s only current virgin territory. When Henry Bradingbrooke began toying with his torch, Pilot uncoiled himself from his seat. “We’re not going to sleep until we’ve seen it, are we?” he said.

  They decided to disembark aft, not yet aware of the easier descent forward from the damaged barges. Using a trestle table brought up from the mess room as a bridge, they crossed over to Fort Lowell and then to Earthmover IV where they secured one end of a nylon rope. Pilot tested the knot, then, taking the free end, walked over the trestle table to the top of the rubber barrage which bounced him up and down like a trampoline. With great ceremony he gathered up the slack, threw the rope to the ground and began abseiling down. On the way, he tried to think of something Neil-Armstrong-like to say to the others when he set foot on the surface for the first time.

  Lonnie Pilot’s desert boot met with solid rock, smooth as polished granite and still wet and slippery from its long, underwater sleep. “One bald baby’s ass for a man. One clean slate for mankind,” he said.

  “That’s terrible,” someone called down.

  “One innocent child for a man. One ripe virgin for mankind,” Bradingbrooke said, joining Pilot on the ground.

  Jane Lavery was the next one down. “One empty vessel for a man. One shiny new toilet bowl for mankind.”

  Pilot could make out in the moonlight the disappointment on Jane’s and everyone else’s faces. There were no pebbles, no rocks, no sand, no sediment. The entire landscape had been scoured clean of its skin by billions of tons of seawater dragging over it during its ascent. “I can’t believe how pessimistic you all are,” he said. “This place is beautiful. Use your imaginations. It might not look great now, but we’ve inherited nobody’s mess to clean up and nobody’s bad planning.”

  The others just looked at their feet.

  Macushla Mara parted her dark tresses and said, “A unique opportunity, to be sure.”

  Fatigue, hunger and cold soon got the better of them and, as the exhausted, bedraggled party made its way up the rope in front of him, Pilot bent down, ran his palm over the smooth, clammy rock and rapped it lightly with his knuckles, as if testing its solidity. Then he grabbed the rope and hauled himself up the rubbery slope of their fortress wall.

  In the mess room later, with everyone fed and watered, Pilot appeared with half a dozen bottles of liqueur. “Kruskovac. Pear brandy from Croatia, courtesy of Mr. Vaalon,” he announced. “Pass it around.”

  Pilot was still finding sleep elusive at 4am when he heard the unmistakable sound of rotor blades threshing the air to the east. He rushed up on deck and was joined by at least fifty of his crew. No one needed the moonlight to see what was happening. Searchlights from half a dozen or more helicopters zig-zagged over the glistening surface of the island looking for suitable landing spots. Pilot watched with growing anxiety as eight troop-carrying Chinooks with French markings set down next to the convoy and disgorged nearly two hundred of that country’s elite fighting men. The French commandoes were well-oiled, sliding out of their helicopters and encircling the convoy in under five minutes.

  Those on board Ptolemy waited to see what their visitors would do next. The all-too-visible firearms cradled in the soldiers’ arms like malevolent babies struck fear into the watchers’ hearts. Some ran below to their rooms and locked themselves in. Others just braced themselves for the worst, frozen to the deck, hearts pounding.

  An hour of standoff passed. While lookouts were sent to the four corners of the flotilla, Serman suggested that everyone else take it in shifts to go below for an early breakfast in case they didn’t get a chance later.

  Lonnie Pilot, who had fallen asleep from exhaustion just twenty minutes before first light, was wakened by a gentle hand on his shoulder. “It’s like an air show out there, Lonnie,” Jane Lavery said. “You’d better come up.” Eydos was ten hours old and the news of her birth was reverberating around the world.

  They climbed the ladder onto the wheelhouse roof where Aaron Serman was counting planes. “Where do you think that one’s from?” Pilot asked as a plane sliced the air overhead.

  “This is its second pass. Royal Navy, I think. Two French planes were just here and waggled their wings at our friends over there before leaving.” Pilot glanced across at the French commandoes and could see the smoke from their camp stoves. There was an aroma of coffee on the breeze. Another plane appeared from the south and buzzed the convoy at just a hundred metres. Its red and yellow roundel declared it to be Spanish.

  Someone appeared with a tray of steaming coffee mugs and a plate of toast – no butter. Seven more planes came and went by the time the three had finished their breakfast. Pilot wiped the crumbs from his mouth and began to take in the scene around him. Beyond the ominous French encirclement, the view confirmed his fears that the whole of Eydos was nothing but rock− undulating but otherwise formless, apart from the cloud shadows that rolled over its bald surface. They would have their work cut out planting one blade of grass, let alone themselves.

  He scribbled a note to Vaalon. ‘One injury, not serious,’ it read. ‘One no-show – Shenandoah, as I think you already know. We’re surrounded by French troops, but they haven’t made contact with us yet. Looks like they’re just flexing their muscles for now. We’re nine-tenths in possession and we’ll see what today brings. ~Pilot.’

  The previous evening, he had set a rota of volunteers to monitor the airwaves and he was eager to find out what they’d heard. Entering the radio room with the note, Pilot recognized the sole New Zealander in his crew, Kerry Jackson, sitting next to McConie. In his file photograph, Jackson looked like a fair-haired version of Lonnie Pilot. In the flesh, the resemblance was uncanny. He was wearing headphones and typing into a kPad. Pilot gave the note to McConie for encrypting, then addressed Jackson. “What’ve we got so far, Kerry?”

  Jackson scrolled to the beginning of the log and handed Pilot the tablet. The first mention had come at 2230 GMT and as he read through the entries, Pilot was able to piece together the jigsaw of what had been happening in the outside world since the Bay of Biscay had exploded the previous day.

  The first major waves had hit the Pilat Dunes in southwest France at 1630 and had reached St. Nazaire by 1700. The tsunamis had not abated until 2130. In spite of repeated warnings, and a deliberate exaggeration supplied by the IGP of the projected height of the waves, many people had ignored the order to evacuate to higher ground and had paid for their intransigence with their lives. Although the exact number of French dead was not yet known (and wouldn’t be for several months) it was estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000. Only a handful of casualties had been reported from the Channel Islands in what the Bailiffs of Jersey and Guernsey were calling the most successful evacuation before the jaws of death in history. In fact, the islands had been largely shielded by the Brittany peninsula, which had taken the brunt of the seas. The more exposed Isles of Scilly had been scoured by 20-30 foot waves, but not before every living soul, bar nine St. Agnes dairy cows, had been evacuated in what the British Prime Minister had described as ‘the most comprehensive relocation of an island population since Tristan da Cunha’.

  [In Penzance, two elderly women, having sandbagged the entrance to their shop earlier, had only minimal flood damage to clear up.]

  An American seismologist noted that, unlike the Japanese and California-Oregon tsunamis, the seas thrown up by the island’s rising had been lower, due to the slow surfacing of the continental shelf. Even so, the damage they caused was already running into tens of millions of Neuros.
[Derived from the German word neu, the new currency that had replaced the collapsed Euro had an unintentional ‘nervous’ring to it− unintentional but perfectly appropriate. The entire global financial foundation was more unstable now than it had been since the minting of the first coin.]

  Pilot read through the remaining entries quickly but found no reference to his five advocates, the press release or anything at all suggesting that the risen land had already been settled and christened. They were merely updates on wave damage, terrible loss of life and remarkable rescues and evacuations, but no mention at all of Eydos or its mysterious flotilla of barges. Until the satellite dish could be erected, they were unable to check what the world wide web was carrying.

  The early morning BBC news bulletin was just about to begin, so Pilot made himself as comfortable as he could, given his growing agitation, to listen. Again, no reference to them was made beyond a physical account of the new island. Aerial radar reconnaissance during the night had confirmed it to be a 155-mile ribbon of bare rock running from northwest to southeast parallel to the French coast from Brest down to Nantes. At its widest, the island was only 23 miles. The average width was 17 miles and the shortest distance to the French coast was 62 miles. The BBC’s Science Correspondent confirmed that the island was, in fact, the edge of the European continental shelf. Pilot noticed that it wasn’t referred to as the French continental shelf.