laughed. “I guess not.”
“Cast off!” he called to his son as he pulled the stern line aboard and moved back to push the combination control lever forward to idle speed. Prop-walk pushed the stern out as the tidal current caught the bow. The old craft spun slowly towards mid-channel as he called his son back to take over.
“All below!” the fisherman called, pushing people towards the hatch. “You must not be seen. We will be stopped. I’ll be shot and you’ll all be taken away and God knows what’ll happen to you then.”
He urged them to hurry. “Quickly now; you can come out when we’re at sea.”
Willing hands took the children below and Lin Poi followed, placing a foot on the top rung of the ladder, moving carefully, her swollen body making the climb awkward. Fish smells here were stronger than diesel fumes, but not as strong as the sweat of frightened people. Her other foot sought and found the next rung. She lowered herself slowly to the floor of the hold and looked up, the boys clinging to her skirts. Loi was the last before the hatch cover blocked out the light. In the hot darkness children began to whimper.
Soft voices murmured assurances to children and frightened neighbours.
Loi had never been on a boat before and was ashamed of his fear as he sought and found Lin Poi’s hand in the darkness. After a while, a sliver of light reflecting off the underside of the white fibreglass cover made their faces visible. It had been propped open enough to let in some air.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “It’s not far to the sea.”
She squeezed his hand and wedged herself against the wall, the other hand seeking the children to assure them this was all expected and OK.
Someone heaved, filling the space with the sweet sour stench of vomit. Others became sick at the stench and threw up until someone called, “Let me out!” and a body moved up the ladder pushing the hatch aside.
Light flooded in with fresh air as the man climbed onto the deck and ran for the rail, to lean over and empty his stomach into the river.
Another face appeared over the hatch rim and the captain shouted at them.
“ở đó!” He yelled. “Stay there! Stay there! I’ll leave the cover off but you must stay there!”
He was gone and hope followed him.
Lin Poi hugged the children to her. “I don’t think we can stand three weeks of this,” she whispered to Loi. “Being caught might be better!”
“Then they would shoot us, the bastards!”
“Could that be worse?”
“I’m sure we’ll be OK when we’re out of here,” he whispered, not at all sure they would be. He looked around at his neighbours. Nobody was speaking and he read the message.
They were thinking of alternatives they might have pursued and were all wondering if they had made a terrible mistake.
10. CANBERRA
"No way, Bob!” shouted the Prime Minister. “It’s the centre piece of our climate change policy. If that goes, we look stupid.”
“I understand your problem,” reasoned his departmental head. “But the fact is, the stuff’s getting out. You can’t keep claiming it’s working when the figures show it isn’t.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Bob,” he snarled. “If it’s my problem, it’s your problem!”
“I didn’t mean it quite like that,” he smiled. “But in a way you’re right. You have policy. I only have science.”
“Well, what’s the problem?” asked Mulaney, still angry. “Is it money? It’s gotta be fixed!”
“No, it’s the basic technology. In a few sites we get complete containment and some sites we get an acceptable result of leakage of… maybe as low as a hundredth of a percent per annum, but others are not holding well at all. Too much surface fracturing. We can’t hold the pressure to keep it liquid, so it goes to gas and leaks.”
“What do we tell China? It’s their money.”
“They’ll have to know,” replied Bob Bouffler, Department of Sustainability. “They probably already know.”
“How’s that? Who told them?” demanded the PM.
“Their techs are here too, PM,” he replied. “They want to know where their money’s going; they see the reports.”
“There’s got to be a fix,” he moaned. “Look, get CSIRO onto it. No, I’ll speak to them personally. They need a shake up and you, you keep the Chinese happy until we figure something out. OK?”
“Well, yes,” he replied dubiously. “I’ll try, but they have access to the same figures we do. They’ll soon know. We see the numbers as they come in raw but within days, they have them too,” He looked seriously at his boss. “And they’ll know we know.”
“Where do we go from here, then?”
Bouffler had no answer. He was silent, calmly watching as Mulaney tapped a pen on his desk to accentuate his words, an annoying habit that indicated extreme agitation. He stopped tapping.
“I’ll get the minister to make a statement.” He tapped again. “We’ve discovered minor leaks but we’re close to a solution. We can fix it. How’s that!”
He glowered at his bureaucrat, demanding concurrence.
“But we can’t fix it,” insisted Bouffler. “There is no fix. The CSIRO has already said that, sir.”
The PM glared at him “They did not say there was no fix. They
said they were concerned. That’s the word they used, ‘concerned’. Don’t make it sound worse than it is.”
“True, sir,” he replied. “But as you know, scientists are careful to not overstate the case. Raw numbers seem to indicate a worse situation than they are yet prepared to put in reports…”
“Don’t lecture me on reports!” he shouted. “The bloody environment isn’t the only thing that’s heating up!”
“I can see that, sir,” smiled Bouffler, attempting to head off a
famous Mulaney rave. “The pressure isn’t all in the geology!”
“You’re damn right it isn’t! I’ve got the bloody Chinese bleating about spent uranium, the Yanks pushing us to undercut the Canadians, half the world is out there drilling holes all over the country for God knows what, and now this!”
“Oil,” said Bouffler quietly.
The PM had not heard him clearly. “What?” he asked.
“Oil, I said ‘oil’, sir,” he repeated. “They’re drilling for oil.”
“Of course they are. And wouldn’t
