9 Tales From Elsewhere 9 by 9 Tales From Elsewhere

Author:9 Tales From Elsewhere [Elsewhere, 9 Tales From]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bride of Chaos
Published: 2016-09-08T22:00:00+00:00

They left the others to walk together, father and son, along one of the floating pathways that divided sections of the operation. Row after row of pipes of varying sizes and thicknesses were arranged along the shallow lagoon’s floor—not connected to anything, yet clearly visible beneath the crystal clear water.

The son remarked about the water’s apparent purity and the father nodded.

“Give this ocean, this world half a chance—and maybe a bit of help—and it’ll come back from nearly anything!”

“More than a bit,” the son said, but not unkindly.

“I know,” the father replied in like manner.

The young man’s expression grew more thoughtful. “You must be extremely careful about their physical environment, to keep all those tiny invertebrates healthy?”

“Yes, we closely monitor everything—water temperature, mineral content, oxygenation. It all has to be balanced within a fairly narrow range. Ah, see those? That bare mesh, shaped like a pipe?”

The son nodded. “New ones, just starting?”

“Correct. All we do is shape it for whatever is wanted—we concentrate on piping of all sizes here, but you can make quite a variety of things. For instance, there’s one over on Zanzibar about to begin making a kind of thin ornamental siding for houses. What we do is shape the mesh—which is 100% recycled wire, by the way. Then we submerge it and run a .1-amp charge in for every square yard. The electrical field breaks down carbon ions in the mesh, forming calcium carbonate. That attracts the tiny larvae—shelled barnacles, clams, tube worms and especially, corals. They use the carbonate to build their shells. Once attached, they stay there—live out their lives on the mesh. Generation after generation of them—living, reproducing, dying.”

“And leaving their shells behind,” the son murmured. “You truly are growing—in effect aqua farming building supplies from organic matter.”

“Indeed. It’s good-quality and low-cost.”

“But what’s the timeframe? Dealing with creatures that small . . . .”

“That was another problem we had to overcome,” the father admitted. “It used to take three months to get just half-an-inch uniform thickness. Now we achieve as much in a third of the time.”

“How do you manage that?”

“You know about ocean warming killing so much coral?”

The young man nodded.

“Scientists needed to replenish the reefs before the Great Warming even began to be stabilized. They bio-engineered corals—ones designed to tolerate the elevated temperatures and that went through their life cycle much faster.”

“Hmm,” the son said.

“Once the required thickness is achieved, one simply shuts down the electrical pulse. New mesh, like those, are placed near the first and we send a charge through it. The living larvae migrate over of their own accord, beginning the process over again. Then we remove the finished product and ship it out, ready for use.”

“And nothing’s hurt? I can’t think of any sort of eco-damage in this process!”

“Hurt?” The father screwed up his face, pretending astonishment. “Why we provide safe homes for all those tiny animals—countless generations of them! There is the matter of the electricity, though.”

“Ah, yes. Where do you . . . .?”

“We mainly use geo-thermal and tidal power units.

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