Page 12 of Prima
They strangled crops, shattered roads, and lifted entire buildings off the ground. They were everywhere except over large bodies of water. At school her class was shown vintage footage shot by fleeing refugees, of Plant Cover growing at terrifying speed, throwing out wrist-thick vines that writhed on the ground in real time.
They were immune to herbicides and unpalatable to animals and insects. They gunked up power tools and emitted toxins when burned. Perhaps in the great deserts in the hearts of continents, pockets of civilization have endured. But along the coasts, all the survivors were eventually pushed out to sea, there to regroup and begin the long road to reclamation.
The continents are still out of reach. Even some of the mightier islands proved too monumental a task: The more Plant Cover there is, the more it behaves like the Hydra of Lerna—for every head chopped off, two regrow.
Dawan has reclaimed four hundred or so of the two thousand islands that lie within its territorial waters, which still leaves an endless sprawl of biomass domes, great and small, to dot the blue waves, a collection of oversized topiaries.
The Dawani islands she has sailed by during daytime are almost invariably covered by a genus of mutated species known colloquially as silken threads, which grow tendrils that are almost as delicate as strands of a spiderweb, yet so sticky it’s impossible to separate a single offshoot from the malignant whole.
From time to time, she spies a flatter dome made by heavier vines, like those from that iconic footage. And once, she came across an island that looked as if millions of brown-barked pythons had hardened into a scab over the entire landscape.
Although she has no obligation to act as a traveling cartographer, she dutifully confirms each land formation and its vegetation type against a digital map. Nothing has changed since the last time anyone from New Ryukyu came through these parts, years ago.
Is the boy still behind her? She hasn’t allowed herself to check this morning—she’s determined not to jump into the water again until she reaches Dragon Gate. But what if he doesn’t follow her all the way there? Surely he can tell from her leisurely pace that she’s waving a “this way” sign, beckoning him with all her might.
Between two islands she catches a glimpse of a long, oval strip of land that isn’t on her map. Sea level has been dropping for nearly a century. Has it gone low enough to reveal a previously submerged islet or have there been some underwater volcanic activities in the area? This is the Ring of Fire, after all.
She turns her raft starboard to get a better look. Up close it’s easy to tell that this is a formerly sea-swallowed island seeing the light of day again. She marks the spot on her map.
Something makes her glance up. She rounded one long, half-moon shaped island and is now in the bay sheltered by its crook. But this sizable crescent concealed another, smaller island behind it. And just off its shores, which looked similarly overgrown and abandoned a minute ago, a canoe rowed by eight men pulls into view less than a klick away.
The men stare at her, then at one another. They hold a rapid-fire exchange in patois that she can’t understand very well, but her Sea Sense-enhanced hearing makes out the rising excitement in their voices.
She can’t believe what she’s about to face. Perhaps it’s because for the first seven thousand kilometers of her Grand Tour, she sailed in a solar yacht that was obviously capable of some firepower—no random men dared to bother her. Even after that, when she had to flee on her raft, she was still treated with all the respect and caution due an enemy combatant who could inflict significant damage.
But now, practically on her own doorstep, comes this mob of yahoos who only see her as a body with some potentially juicy parts.
They are laughable idiots who have no idea that she can blow them to smithereens, but that doesn’t make the malevolence at the root of their grinning anticipation any less repugnant.
She tacks her raft and turns it around just as the men in the canoe start paddling toward her, shouting, “Hey, pretty girl, where are you going? What’s your hurry?”
The most sensible solution would be to outlast them—paddling is hard work, especially at sea. The raft lacks the streamlined shape for true speed, but it has other means of locomotion. She matches her speed almost exactly to that of her pursuers and continues in the direction she was headed.
She’s been dawdling. She should have already reached the boundaries of New Ryukyu. If she had, she wouldn’t have had to deal with these men. But she also wouldn’t have met the boy—although it is still debatable whether they have actually “met”.
Does he know what’s going on? She looks south, past the men making kissy noises in the canoe, to the horizon. A thunderbolt strikes deep in her veins: She can make out a set of distinctively tall sails where the sea meets the sky.
She has never seen the boy’s sails—they were furled when she swam up to his vessel and the rest of the time he stayed just far enough away for the curvature of the earth to hide him from view. Are those his sails?
She becomes more certain when he continues to keep a meticulous distance from her. He wants her to know that he is there—and aware of the situation?—but does not plan to approach. Yet.
Why not?
Her gaze falls on the men hollering and paddling frenetically. Maybe she can guess what the boy has in mind. She adjusts her speed so that the men can catch up to her slowly but perceptibly.
The boy begins his acceleration when the men are only six hundred meters behind her. She was right about his vessel being a fast hydrofoil design. Within minutes, sailing beam reach, he’s barreling toward her at close to forty knots.
The men in the canoe, too busy shouting various endearments that are barely veiled threats of sexual enslavement, fail to perceive the swift approach of a third party on the scene.
She moves to the far side of the square sail at the head of her raft and slips off out of sight, going down nearly fifty meters. As she passes the canoe, the men’s laughter booms overhead, as does the catcalling.
She does not surface until she is a few meters on the far side of the boy’s decelerating vessel, its hull between her and her pursuers. It has a name,The Arrow of Time. And she happens to be at the correct angle to see the emblem of the Dawani Coast Watch emblazoned on its sails.
The men quiet as they take in the new arrival, but they must hope to brazen it out because a deep-throated voice takes the lead in addressing him. “Greetings, young brother. You’re working hard! Why not come with us and let us offer you a cup of tea?”
“Greetings,” he replies coolly. “Are you volunteers from Work Camp 66?”
She half expected that he would be mocked for being young and pretty—and for trying to impose his authority on eight full-grown men. But none of the adults in the canoe deride him. In fact, no one says anything at all.
