Garrett got up to pace the deck. “What can we accomplish today, while we wait for our ship to come in?”
Garrett tapped the microphone. “Can you hear us?”
“I appreciate your taking the time. That story on your departure paid my grocery bill, even with the bad choreography.” There was an annoying signal delay.
“Sorry I didn’t hire a stuntman.” Garrett did have a camera crew though: an eager Tess and Alexis waving computers around to get stock footage of everything. The one taped to the back of the bridge showed him Paul Samuel, that reporter again, in an office. “It’s not much to look at, I know. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Play up what you’ve got, man. News is about stagecraft and glamour — literally, the magic of making the ordinary look awesome. How else would my colleagues get people to fawn over every petty action of a celebrity with no assets but her breasts and an excuse for acting talent?”
“I guess,” said Garrett, feeling intimidated. “It’s been a while since I had even the second one.”
Paul’s camera view followed the reporter into a classroom that looked like a starship bridge. The front screen showed a flying-stars screen saver, and the desks had computers built in. Paul backed off to give the Castor crew a view of the kids, who slouched in their desks. A birdcage stood along one wall under a blue blanket.
Paul said, “We’re here at Canticle Middle School, where students are getting a chance to speak live with a new generation of explorers, the crew of an experimental ocean station. Mrs. Shakla?”
Suddenly the birdcage moved and spoke. The teacher’s voice was muffled through the mesh square covering her face, the only opening in the blue cloth. “That’s ‘Miz’.”
“I’ve got a question,” said a boy in a t-shirt. “What are you doing out there?”
“Farming,” said Garrett, still staring at what he could see of the teacher. “One of the big advances in history came when people started mapping and fencing and tilling the land to grow food, instead of being hunters and gatherers. But we’re still mostly hunters on the ocean, which is why the fishing grounds have worn out.”
A girl pressed forward. “People wrecked everything on land and the water already, so shouldn’t we leave Nature alone now?”
That was an easy one. “No. No, we shouldn’t.”
Alexis said, “Allow me.” Garrett gladly stepped out of the limelight to let her answer. She smiled and said, “We’re using technologies that are more efficient than normal, because we need to be efficient to be profitable. We’re recycling everything we can.”
“But you’re polluting the ocean,” the kid said.
“Technically.”
Garrett hastened to add, “Less than a drop in the bucket. We’d be doing the same thing indirectly if we were on land, by getting all our resources there.”
The girl shyly looked down at her desk. “I read that our farms and stuff are going to use the new European regulations to help the planet. Wouldn’t it be cleaner if you stayed here?”
Garrett nearly broke in again. As little as he liked arguing, he wanted to say that the efficiency, the regulation, or the profit margin wasn’t the real point. All his planning was mostly an excuse to go out there and make an honest living with his science. If he could press a button on a remote control and watch the plan unfold at his command, he wouldn’t care. Come to think of it, maybe that was the real reason Martin had wanted to come.
Alexis shrugged. “Nature is certainly important, but I think we can do a good job at limiting the damage.”
“What about all the treaties, though? You can’t create an eco-disaster without a plan to leave no trace, right?”
Garrett blinked. “Disaster? Leave no trace?”
“Well yeah,” said the kid, with a definitive nod. “That’s how people ought to live.”
Here lies one whose name was writ in water, the poet Keats had written. For his epitaph, when tuberculosis flooded his lungs and he mourned his failed life.
Garrett’s expression hardened, and he interrupted Alexis’ answer. “That’s not how I want to live.”
“Why not?”
Garrett blinked, and gave Alexis a chance to keep him from saying anything stupid. She said, “We shouldn’t be starting an argument here.”
The little Keats said, “Anyway, isn’t it like space — like, we should wait till we’ve solved our problems on land before we go?”
Garrett said, “If we wait till then, we’ll die.”
“Then maybe we deserve to.”
“Stop that!” Garrett snapped. “If you spend your life thinking that way, you will die. Study some history. No matter how bad things get, the winners have been the people willing to try new things and muddle through.”
Alexis held an arm in front of him. “Let’s change the subject.”
The teacher wisely brought forward someone else, a boy who was barely audible and who clutched a computer. “I had read that kelp doesn’t grow in warm water. Did I get that right? How will you, you know, fix it?”
Alexis looked relieved at that one. “Smart question. We’re using several varieties of genemod kelp. Or gengineered, whatever the term is now.”
“Genetically manipulated,” said the teacher.
One of the earlier kids said, “You’re letting GM crops loose in the wild?”
Alexis said, “No, they’re part of the farm. See, the Japanese practiced seaweed cultivation for centuries, and it has a hundred uses in industry, science and food. Fish farming goes back to ancient China and Rome.”
The pale kid returned. “What’s that robot for?”
Garrett fielded that. “Right. Um. This here is Zephyr, the latest creation of Hayflick Technologies. He’s designed for—” Paul the reporter was gesturing again. “He’s an intelligent underwater scout unit with turbo-speed swimming and advanced learning systems with blast-processing capability.” Thumbs-up from Paul.
Miz Shakla said, “We’re about out of time. Thank you all for speaking with the class.”
“No problem,” said Garrett, as the video cut off.
A few minutes later Paul came back on, in private. “You get a gold star, for the most part.”
Alexis said, “I’m sorry we snapped at them a bit. It’s not our place to talk about things like that.”
Garrett sighed. “Can you cut out that part where I got angry?”
“That was good material!” said Paul. “It was what people need to hear. Say, when you get your real equipment set up, flash me some footage, hey?”
When Paul was gone, everybody sat around. “I guess that counts as public service,” said Garrett. “Man.”
Martin had watched. “You do have the right idea about this place.”
“Not much of a ‘place’ yet,” Garrett groused.
“Tierra, tierra!” said Tess. “Land!”
Garrett was sprawled on his tiny cot and moaned in response. Martin and Alexis shook him till he sat up scowling. It was the middle of the night.
“Tierra!” Tess explained.
Martin said, “That’s backwards. Land’s coming to us.”
Tess prodded them upstairs to see lights on the horizon. “That must be it!”
Garrett grunted. Alexis leaned on him pleasantly. They made coffee and sat on deck, watching the ship and straining to see what was hopefully behind it. “Santa’s sleigh,” said Garrett.
The radio crackled. “This is Santa Maria, seeking research ship Constellation.”
Garrett jumped up to stand by the radio. “That’s us! I mean, Constellation here.” He gave an ID and convinced them to approach. The ship was already changing course enough to let them see what it was towing. He hurried belowdecks to fetch the spyglass, then took turns with Tess using it.