Fidel Perugachi came aboard last, having survived the collision intact save for a dramatic and bloody cut on his forehead. He glared at me as we tied him and dropped him like a sack on the deck, and I flashed him a grim smile.
“Serves you right for killing my employer,” I said.
“That wasn’t my idea,” he said, “and I didn’t do it. I advised against it, in fact. I knew it would only piss you off.”
“So whose idea was it?” I asked. I didn’t expect him to reply, and he didn’t.
We took the waterlogged launch in tow and headed for the People’s Republic, where we dropped the Ayancas on a deserted rocky shore after making them bail out the launch. We also took their clothing.
Stranding them naked in a deserted corner of China, with no papers for crossing back into Hong Kong and no way of communicating with their employers, seemed likely to keep the Ayancas out of our hair for a while.
We also stranded the Fabulous Femme of Zuma, though we left her a towel for modesty’s sake.
Leila was sullen and tried to bum a cigarette, but Perugachi did not take it well. He waded into the sea after us and shook his fist, filling the air with colorful Aymara oaths.
“Allu!” he called. “Jama!”
“Don’t mess with the Hanansaya moiety!” I shouted back at him. “Our ancestors were kings!”
Which in our democratic age may seem a bit of aristocratic pretension, but quite frankly I thought it was time that Fidel Perugachi was put in his place.
*
“A pyramid,” murmured Dr. Pan. “A white pyramid.”
“Tetrahedron,” I corrected helpfully.
His assistant Chun ignored me and gave Pan a desperate, hollow-eyed look. “The culture wasn’t supposed to be able to survive in nature,” he said.
“Didn’t test it in the nutrient-rich effluent of the Pearl River, now, did you?” I asked.
Again Chun ignored me. “I can't understand the part about the pyramids. That’s not supposed to happen at all.”
“Tetrahedrons,” I said again, “and what culture?” I focused on him a glower that would do Fidel Perugachi proud. “I was exposed to it, after all. If I'm about to turn into a four-sided polygon, I have the right to know.”
We were in Pan’s luxurious suite aboard Tang Dynasty, all silk hangings and rich furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and air thick with tobacco smoke from Chun's pipe and Pan’s disgusting little cigars.
Those of us who had returned from the Goldfish Fairy- minus Deszmond, who had been assigned to run the catamaran hard around in Aberdeen harbor and then take the bus back- had decided it was time to confront Dr. Pan and find out just what our little mission was all about.
Pan caved in without resistance. “Our colleague, Dr. Jiu,” he said, referring to Jesse, “was working with a type of diatom. These are small one-celled algae that live in colonies and create crystalline structures.”
“Divers know about diatoms,” Laszlo said.
Pan nodded. “What Dr. Jiu managed to create was a diatom modified to excrete polycarbon plastic instead of a silicate. Since our current lines of plastics are created from fossil fuels, our company was quick to see the economic advantages of a far cheaper plastic that was created from, well, nothing, and we acquired both Dr. Jiu and his, ah, creation.”
“And now the sea’s got it,” I said.
“The plastic structure is itself organic,” Chun said added hopefully. “Sooner or later, other microorganisms will eat it. And in the meantime it's a very nice sink for carbon dioxide.”
I looked at them. “Is that before or after the white tetrahedron breaks surface in the shipping lanes?”
Sometimes it is necessary to be blunt in order to shock some of these more cerebral types back to reality.
Both Pan and Chun winced.
Pan combed his distinguished white hair with his fingers and looked at Laszlo. “What is normally done to stop an underwater contamination?”
Laszlo stared at his right biceps while absentmindedly flexing it “Well,” he said, “in cases of seaweed, like that caulerpa taxifolia that can infest whole ecosystems, you cover the infected area with plastic, then pump in something that will kill it, like chlorine. You have to keep coming back at regular intervals to make certain it hasn’t come back.” He shrugged. “But how you deal with a diatom, I don't know. Wouldn’t the little critters be carried off by the current? Shouldn't it be all over the South China Sea by now?”
Sometimes it’s possible to be too blunt: Chun looked as if he were about to cry, and Pan seemed profoundly cast down and gave a deep sigh.
“We are dealing with a specific diatom,” Pan said, “a bilaterally symmetrical organism that reproduces sexually through the fusion of protoplasts. It won't survive long on its own, but will do well in its colony.”
He looked at Chun for reassurance. “We don’t think the organism will spread far.”
“How much plastic sheeting can you get on short notice?” Laszlo asked them.
They looked dubious.
“Oh come on,” he urged. “You're in the plastic business.”
“That would involve contacting another division of the company,” Pan murmured in a subdued voice.
“It would involve explanation,” Chun murmured back.
Pan gave another profound sigh. “So very awkward,” he said.
“Awkward,” Chun agreed.
I began to suspect that huge sheets of plastic were not in our future.
Which was how, two days later, I found myself the skipper of the ten-thousand-ton freighter Twice- Locked Mountain, a rusting hulk that had been thumping around the bywaters of Asia for the better part of the last century, so ancient and decrepit that it could only have been kept from the breakers’ yards in the hope it might successfully be involved in some kind of insurance fraud.
I swung the wheel, steadied onto my new course, took dead aim at the anchored freighter Green Snake, and rang Jorge in the engine room for more turns.
The venerable reciprocating engines thumped and banged, the propeller flailed water, and a shudder ran along the old ship, shaking off a few hundred pounds of rust flakes. I hoped she would hold together just a few more minutes. It would be embarrassing to sink her prematurely.
“Hurry up,” came Laszlo's voice on the radio. “We’ve got to be in Shanghai by tomorrow night.”
“I'm doing the best I can,” I said, and reached for the controls of the ship’s siren to signal brace for collision.
We were probably doing all of ten knots when we hit Green Snake dead abeam in a crash of tormented iron, venting steam, and gurgling water. Since Green Snake was at least as old a ship as Twice-Locked Mountain, and in even worse condition, I half expected us to slice our target in two, but instead we stayed locked together, which wasn't in the plan, either.
“Get everyone on deck,” I told Laszlo. “You’re about to go down fast.”
I reached for the engine room telegraph and rang for full astern, which is exactly what you're not supposed to do when your ship has just collided with another. Twice-Locked Mountain backed out of the hole it had torn in Green Snake with another shriek of dying metal, and the sea flooded in. In mere moments the Green Snake was listing, and the water ballet guys, pausing every so often to flex, began piling into their lifeboat.
Our bow had been caved in, but I wasn’t sure how much water was coming in through the bulkhead that we had so carefully punched full of holes, and I called Rosalinda on her cell to find out. The intake seemed insufficient, so I ordered the sea cocks opened, and then we began to settle fast. I managed some last maneuvering with the aid of my satnav, then signaled Sancho on the foredeck to trip the anchor, which ran out with a roar and clatter and a splash.