fortunes began to wane as oil magnates tried to cash in by overpricing a failing resource. The result of this was that the fundamentalists hereabouts soon learned that religious tolerance began and ended at the petrol pump, and no one felt any inclination to build the new fusion reactors in lands which, in public perception, had constantly supplied the world with bearded lunatics with strap-on bombs or home-brewed biological weapons.
When the Golden Decade came to an end in an overpopulated world where food and fresh water were running out and financial systems imploding, barren desert countries were the first to suffer, no matter how fat the bank accounts of their rulers. Then, as the nascent Committee gleefully began applying confiscatory taxes, Middle Eastern fortunes plummeted further. Here in Dubai the money eventually ran out and the island project failed, the island groups dissolving into a saltwater swamp that swallowed all the millionaire condos and tower blocks. But it was a failure Palgrave was now making use of.
‘The fiddler crab population here shot up just after the Scour,’ explained Palgrave, breaking into her thoughts as he pointed at a tank containing some examples of that species, ‘then it crashed with the spread of a very specific fungal infection. That’s our problem, you see. Monocultures are susceptible to that sort of thing, so we need more variety.’
‘I am aware of that,’ Serene replied, frowning, a little of the sunshine going out of her day, ‘which is why, as you must be aware, the
‘Though admittedly,’ Palgrave hurriedly added, ‘every day we’re rediscovering species long thought to be extinct. All it takes is one or two surviving eggs or spores on the seabed . . .’
There had been some cheering news over the last few months. Some old varieties of bees had been discovered building colonies in defunct agricultural plants – bees thought to have been wiped out in the twenty-first century by mite infections. Serene often found herself now wondering if Earth’s biosphere could recover without all that stuff from the Gene Bank. However, every time her hopes were raised, something else came along and dashed them. The Mediterranean octopus was one example. Amazingly it still existed, yet the proof of that was only washed up on the shore
From the panoquaria they headed down below decks to the nursery tanks, all swarming with fish fry, crustaceans, mollusc larvae and seaweed spores. This place gratifyingly smelt of life, of renewal, of new beginnings.
‘It’s begun,’ said Palgrave, pointing out one tank as it began to drain, its tonnes of fish fry draining out through metre-diameter pipes to outlets all along the sides of this erstwhile supertanker. She followed him along two kilometres of aisles, never feeling any of the inclination to boredom she felt in scramjet or space-plane construction plants. At one point, noting their lack of enthusiasm, she dismissed her PAs back up to the deck, retaining only Sack and her close protection team. By the time, four hours later, she reached an elevator leading back up to the deck, many of the nursery tanks had emptied and were now refilling with filtered and purified seawater.
It had begun; the renewal of Earth had really begun.
As they came back up onto the deck, Palgrave put his fingers up to his fone, then stumbled. He suddenly looked even paler than before, as he turned to stare at her with terrified eyes.
‘A problem?’ she enquired, immediately recognizing his reaction.
He glanced to one side, towards the distant deck rail. ‘There was always the possibility—’
She held up a hand to silence him. ‘What is the problem?’
‘I have to check something.’ Palgrave started to back away.
‘Bring him,’ she said, turning and heading towards the rail.
Palgrave let out a yelp of surprise and she glanced back to see two of her team grab him and begin dragging him after her. Heat haze shimmered over the deck ahead and the sunlight seemed suddenly too bright. Sweat immediately plastered her blouse to her back and she began to feel extremely irritated. She groped in her top pocket for her sunglasses, put them on, then quickly took them off again to wipe off the smeary fingerprints with a tissue. It was so difficult ever to obtain answers that weren’t utterly distorted by the self-interest of her employees. Putting her sunglasses back on as she reached the edge of the ship, she rested her hands on the hot graphene rail and gazed first in puzzlement, then in growing horror at the scene before her.
‘The pumps,’ Palgrave said miserably, ‘they’ve stirred up something from the ocean bed.’
Hectares of ocean were now covered with a scum of dead and dying fish. Nurtured inside this ship, raised healthy and ready to begin their task of renewal, they’d been pumped straight out into poison. Serene reached up to raise her sunglasses, scrubbed away tears, then slipping the glasses back into place she turned her gaze on Palgrave.
Of course, the man hung dejectedly between the two enforcers, and fully expected to die. She also noted that every one of her protection team, and Sack too, expected her to give the order, and were only waiting to learn how she wanted Palgrave killed.
‘Release him,’ she said.
The two enforcers did so, and Palgrave subsided heavily on his knees.
‘In your effort to please me,’ she said, ‘you did not take sufficient precautions. You did not adequately survey this release area.’
He looked up at her, still waiting for the axe to fall.
She continued, ‘Do not make the same mistake again.’ She then turned and began walking back along the hot deck to the aero landing platform, gesturing Sack and her team after her. Always, she decided, there came a time to put away childish things, and killing out of spite was one of them.
