This was a small township, they were told. Population, five thousand. Since its launch it had been almost entirely self-sufficient. “We grow most of our food, and fish for the rest. There are arguments now with other townships about overfishing certain species. We’re doing perennial polyculture, growing new strains of corn, sunflower, soybean, sand plum and so on, all intermixed and harvested by robot, because harvesting is backbreaking work. We’ve finally got the technology to go home to gathering, that’s what it comes down to. There are a lot of onboard cottage industries. We’ve got wineries, see the vineyards out there, and there are vintners and brandy distillers. That we do by hand. Also special-function semiconductors, and a famous bike shop.”
“Most of the time we sail around the North Sea. There are some really violent storms sometimes, but we’re so big that we ride them out pretty easily. Most of us have lived here for all ten years the ship has existed. It’s a great life. The ship is all you need. Although it’s great fun to make landfall from time to time. We come down to Nilokeras every Ls zero for the spring festival. We sell what we’ve made and resupply, and party all night long. Then back out to sea.”
“We don’t use anything but wind and sunlight, and some fish. The environmental courts like us, they agree we’re minimum impact. The population of the North Sea’s area might be even higher now than if it had stayed land. There are hundreds of townships now.”
“Thousands. And the harbor towns with the shipyards, and the seaports we visit to do business, they’re doing very well indeed.”
Ann said, “And you think this is one way we can take on some of Earth’s surplus population.”
“Yes, we do. One of the best ways. It’s a big ocean, it could take a lot more ships like this.”
“As long as they didn’t rely too much on fishing.”
As they walked on, Sax said to Ann, “That’s another reason that it just isn’t worth it to force a crisis over the immigration issue.”
Ann didn’t reply. She was staring down at the sun-burnished water, then up at one of the couple dozen masts, each with its single schooner sail. The town looked like a tabular iceberg with its surface entirely claimed by earth. A floating island.
“So many different kinds of nomads,” Sax commented. “It seems that very few of the natives feel impelled to settle in a single place.”
“Unlike us.”
“Point taken. But I wonder if this tendency means they are inclined to a certain redness. If you know what I mean.”
“I do not.”
Sax tried to explain. “It seems to me that nomads in general tend to make use of the land as they find it. They move around with the seasons, and live off what they find growing at that time. And seafaring nomads of course even more so, given that the sea is impervious to most human attempts to change it.”
“Except for the people trying to regulate sea level, or salt content. Have you heard about them?”
“Yes. But they’re not going to have much luck with that, I would guess. The mechanics of saltification are still very poorly understood.”
“If they succeed it will kill a lot of freshwater species.”
“True. But the saltwater species will be happy.”
They walked across the middle of the township toward the plaza over the dock, passing between long rows of grapevines pruned to the shape of waist-high T’s, the intermingled horizontal vines heavy with grape clusters of dusty indigo, and bracken, and clear viridine. Beyond the vineyards the ground was covered with a mix of plants, like a kind of prairie, with narrow foot trails cutting through it.
At a restaurant fronting the plaza they were treated to a meal of pasta and shrimp. The conversation ranged everywhere. But then someone came rushing out of the kitchen, pointing at his wrist: news had just come in of trouble on the space elevator. The UN troops who had been sharing the customs duties on New Clarke had taken over the whole station, and sent all the Martian police down, charging them with corruption and declaring that the UN would administer the upper end of the elevator by itself from now on. The UN’s Security Council was now saying that their local officers had overstepped their instructions, but this backpedaling did not include an invitation to the Martians to come back up the cable again, so it looked like a smoke screen to Sax. “Oh my,” he said. “Maya will be very angry, I fear.”
Ann rolled her eyes. “That isn’t really the most important ramification, if you ask me.” She looked shocked, and for the first time since Sax had found her in Olympus caldera, fully engaged in the current situation. Drawn out of her distance. It was fairly shocking, now that he thought of it. Even these seafarers were visibly shaken, though before they like Ann had seem distanced from whatever circumstances obtained on land. He could see the news tearing through the restaurant’s conversations, and throwing them all into the same space: upheaval, crisis, the threat of war. Voices were incredulous, faces were angry.