Existence

It was awkward, because holding on to just one strand wouldn’t do. The pulley would let him plummet like a stone. So he wound up wrapping both slender ropes around his hand. Before swinging out, Bin closed his eyes for several seconds, breathing steadily and seeking serenity, or at least some calm. All right, let’s go.

He released the ledge and swung down.

Not good! Full body weight tightened the rope like a noose around his hand, clamping a vice across his palm and fingers. Groaning till he was almost out of breath, Bin struggled to ease the pressure by grabbing both cables between his legs and tugging with his other hand, till he finally got out of the noose. Fortunately, his hands were so callused that there appeared to be no damage. But it took a couple moments for pain to stop blurring his vision…

… and when it cleared, he made the mistake of glancing down. He swallowed hard-or tried to. A terror that seemed to erupt from somewhere at the base of his spine, ran along his back like a monkey. An eel thrashed inside his belly.

Stop it! he told the animals within. I am a man. A man with a duty to perform and luck to fulfill. And a man is all that I am.

It seemed to work. Panic ebbed, like an unpleasant tide, and Bin felt buoyed by determination.

Next, he tried lowering himself, hand over hand, by strength alone. His wiry muscles were up to the task, and certainly he did not weigh enough to be much trouble. But it was hard to hold onto both strings, equally. One or the other kept trying to snap free. Bin made it down three stories before one of them yanked out of his grip. It fled upward, toward the pulley while Bin, clinging to the remaining cord, plunged the other way, grabbing at the escaped strand, desperately-

– and finally seized the wild cord. Friction quickly burned through the makeshift padding and into his flesh. By the time he came to a halt, smoke, anguish, and a foul stench wafted from his hand. Hanging there, swaying and bumping against a nearby window, he spent unknown minutes just holding on tight, waiting for his heart to settle and pain speckles depart his eyes.

Did I cry out? he wondered. Fortunately, the window next to him was blocked by heavy drapes-the glare off the Huangpu was sharp this time of day. Many of the others were boarded up. People still used this building, but most would still be at work or school. Nor would there be much AI in a hi-rise hovel.

I don’t think I yelled. I think I’m all right. His descent should be masked by heat plumes and glaring sunlight reflections off metal and concrete, making daylight much preferable over traversing this passage at night, when his body temperature would flare on hundreds of infrared-sensitive cams, triggering anomaly-detection programs.

Learning by trial and error, Bin managed to hook one leg around each of the strands and experimented with letting them slide along his upper thighs, one heading upward and the other going down. It was awkward and painful, at first, but the tough pants could take it, if he went slow and easy.

Gradually, he approached the dull gray concrete levee from above, and Bin found himself picturing how far it stretched-extending far beyond vision to the left, hugging the new coastline till it reached a great marsh that used to be Shandong Province… and to the right, continuing along the river all the way to happy regions far upstream, where the Huangpu became the Yangtze, and where people had no fear of rising waters. How many millions were employed building the New Great Wall? And how many millions more labored as prisoners, consigned on one excuse or another to the mighty task of staving off China’s latest invader? The sea.

Drawing close, Bin kept a wary eye on the barrier. This section looked okay-a bit crumbly from cheap, hurried construction, two decades ago, after Typhoon Mariko nearly drowned the city. Still, he knew that some stretches were laced with nasty stuff-razor-sharp wires, barely visible to the eye, or heat-seeking tendrils tipped with toxins.

When the time came, he vaulted over, barely touching the obstacle with the sole of one sandal, landing in the old marina with a splash.

It was unpleasant, of course, a tangle of broken boats and dangerous cables that swirled in a murk of weeds and city waste. Bin lost no time clambering onto one wreck and then leaping to another, hurrying across the obstacle course with an agility learned in more drowned places than he could remember, spending as little time as possible in the muck.

Actually, it looks as if there might be a lot of salvage in here, he thought. Perhaps he might come back-if luck neither veered high or low, but stayed on the same course as his life had been so far. Moderately, bearably miserable.

Maybe I will risk it, after all, he thought. Try to find a broker who can offer the big white stone for sale, in some way that might keep us safe…

Before climbing over the final, rocky berm, separating the marina from the sea, he spotted a rescue buoy, bobbing behind the pilot house of one derelict. It would come in handy, during the long swim ahead.

ENTROPY

What about those “collapses”? Failure modes that would not wipe out humanity, but might kill millions, even billions? Even with survivors scratching out a bare existence, would there forever after be harsh limits to the range of human hopes?

This category is where we’d assign most punishments for mismanaging the world. For carelessly cutting down forests and spilling garbage in the sea. For poisoning aquifers and ruining habitats. For changing the very air we breathe. For causing temperatures to soar, glaciers to melt, seas to rise, and deserts to spread. For letting the planet’s web of life get winnowed down, through biodiversity loss, till it’s a fragile lattice, torn by any breeze.

Most animals have the sense not to foul their own nests.

On the other hand, no other species of animal was ever so tempted. So empowered. Or so willing to gradually learn from its mistakes.

Would intelligent rats, or ravens, or tigers, or bears, or kangaroos have done any better, exercised more foresight, or dealt with the world more carefully than we have?

– Pandora’s Cornucopia

21.

THE TRIBE

Once in open water, Hacker tried to keep up by swimming alongside his dolphin rescuer. But it was hard to do, with his body battered and bruised from that harsh landing and narrowly evading death on a coral reef.

Also, the survival suit-advertised as “good for everything from deep space to Everest to the bottom of the sea”-took some getting used to. But Hacker’s brain still wouldn’t focus. His hands felt like sausages, fumbling as he pulled tabs, releasing extra gill fronds from a recess along the helmet rim, in order to draw more oxygen from the water.

Worse, the darned dolphin kept getting impatient. When Hacker tried to deploy extension fins on each bootie, for better swimming, the creature gave out a frustrated bleat and chuttering complaint. Then it resumed shoving Hacker along, with its bottle-shaped nose.

Like an exasperated relative, forced to push along an invalid, Hacker thought, resentfully. I don’t have to put up with this!

Though he still couldn’t hear with his clamped eardrums, the sonic sensor in his jaw indicated that they were heading farther out to sea, leaving the pounding reef behind. And with it, the shattered remnants of his expensive suborbital capsule.

I should have tried to salvage more. At least grabbed the radio console.

Or that little survival raft, under the seat! Why didn’t I think of that before? I have to go back for