Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan

Author:Greg Egan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

11

Matt could judge the height of the waves without leaving his bunk, or even opening his eyes. As his segment of the Mandjet seesawed between its pivots, tilting the cabin and agitating some spirit level in his inner ear, the whole geometry of the structure played out in his mind’s eye, a ship in a bottle come to life inside his skull. All he had to do was compare the waves he saw with the scale of the pontoons that were riding them, to arrive at the result: seven meters.

He opened his eyes. It was almost dawn. There’d be no school again today for the Timorese; it wasn’t worth the risk of someone getting hurt moving from vessel to vessel. But Hélia had been giving classes in English to the ten Sri Lankan children permanently on board, and she’d moved into a cabin of her own so she wouldn’t have to keep making the crossing.

Matt got up and took a shower. For the first time in a long while, the seawater felt cool on his skin, and when he turned off the flow and stood in the wind it dried him in seconds by sheer force, not heat. He was starting to believe that latitude alone really could save their lives.

There were low clouds in the east, turning the sunrise red over the gray ocean. He could see two unfamiliar boats in the distance among the flotilla, so he went to join Jožka in the control room.

“Do we know who they are?” he asked.

“Indonesians,” she replied. “They talked on the radio with Martinho’s boat; they’re not wanting to trade anything, they’re just passing through.”

“Okay.” Matt was never sure if he was over-sensitive to Indonesian-Timorese tensions; there’d been a couple of Sumatran workers on the rigs, and they’d got on well enough with all of their colleagues. But it was hard to imagine Martinho effusively welcoming a boatload of his former enemies into the flotilla.

Matt made his way to the mess, keeping one hand cupped around the safety rail so he could grab it in an instant if the slant of the deck threatened his footing. The mess was already packed with boisterous children and their parents, but when he hung back at the doorway some of the kids came and dragged him in, tugging at his hands and bombarding him with questions.

“Why did you make your ship like a circle?” Sundara asked.

“To hold the fish in the middle.”

“Why don’t they just swim away underneath?”

“There’s a net underneath.”

“So why do you need the ship around them? Why not just the net?”

“That would work, too,” Matt conceded. “But this way, there’s more room for people. And it’s easier to get electricity from the waves.”

Thiru approached and spoke in Tamil to his nephew, who turned to Matt. “Am I pestering you, sir?”

“No, it’s all right.”

Thiru led Matt over to his table and gestured to him to share the food already laid out.

“We have bananas?” Matt couldn’t process this. “Who did we get bananas from?”

“Madagascans,” Thiru replied matter-of-factly.

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