The Changes: Refuge-Rescue-Return

By Tim Cadman

Climate change is here. Charles Peters, a low-level nobody in what's left of the UN, is sent on an unexplained mission to save humanity. Madé, an Indonesian child refugee, must endure the powerlessness of 'people-processing' in an era of displacement and disease. Marie-Claude Bertillon must take responsibility for the lives of these, and many mi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Cadman
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781648713132

Tim Cadman

Dr Timothy Cadman specialises in the governance of sustainable development, environmental politics and policy, climate change, natural resource management including forestry, responsible investment, and institutional performance.

Book preview

REFUGE

I CHARLES PETERS

Charles Peters was late. He woke up in the certain knowledge he had overslept. Panicking, he reached over for his handy and read the time: 07:23. The alarm had failed to go off. Dry tongued, he dialled for the nearest ground vehicle. 07:40. He had to be at the terminal for boarding at 08:20. Packing at the same time as he scrambled into his clothes, he gulped from the tap (unwise) and headed out.

The handy pinged in his pocket. The ground vehicle had been rerouted and a replacement wasn’t due to arrive until 07:50. He spent the remaining minutes waiting for the GV in an apoplexy of angst. Why today of all days? It was turning out to be his worst nightmare, just like the one he had this morning, shortly before he woke up. The GV came around the corner and the dream-memory vanished with the last vestiges of the hangover.

Sitting in the GV, he fell into a reverie that sang a harmony to the melody of his anxiety. It was a scorching hot morning as ever, but Charles Peters had broken into a sweat long before.

Can’t you go any faster? he demanded of the driver.

The driver – separated by a screen of bulletproof glass and with his intercom switched off – jabbered something muted and incomprehensible. At last the terminal came into sight. It was 08:07 – still time to make it. They got to Security. The vehicle immediately in front had just set off an impressive array of sensors, lights and alarms and a large mesh screen shot up, blocking the way forward. Any hope of catching that flight failed like the last blinking lights on the departure board. Charles rapped on the plexa-glass screen in his frustration and gesticulated to the driver to turn on the intercom.

Isn’t there anything you can do?

He could just make out something that sounded like ‘handy’ and ‘here’. Unwilling to let go of the device but desperate to try anything, he slid it through the safety grille. The driver took it and pushed it into a slot in the dashboard. After a few moments’ silence a ping announced the outcome.

What did it say?

The driver looked at the handy, pushed it back through the grille, and got out of the GV. There was a message.

You have been placed on an alternative flight.

Stay in the vehicle until it reaches the departure terminal.

By authority,

WORLD COALITION OF NETWORKS

The vehicle resumed the journey on auto. His anxiety now somewhat in abeyance, he sat back in the relative comfort of the GV and examined his own life. He’d been working for WorldCON for more than twenty years. He knew that at some basic level he was being taken care of, unlike the billions who had not been. But the constant impacts of The Changes were escalating. Time was running out. His grandfather had been instrumental in the establishment of WorldCON and its first Secretary General. This had brought privilege of a kind, but he had been expected to follow in the footsteps of his lineage.

He was the only surviving child of high-ranking diplomats who’d married late. As a family, they’d been one of the lucky ones – at first. But then The Changes took his parents and his only sister. A translator by training, Charles had been drafted and spent most of what he bitterly thought was wasted time recording customs and languages that had gone or were going extinct. Cultural Retrieval it was called. This was another one of such jobs, except that it was in Japan rather than anywhere else.

Not that it really made much difference to Charles. He really only lived to work, had no social life, and was constantly tired from overwork. How could he complain? He had shelter, warmth – food in his belly. He had a gold pass compared to millions of his fellow citizens who had to scramble for any kind of living just to survive. He had led the strangest life of being parachuted into the worst disaster zones and areas of deprivation he had to see himself to believe. He was almost always associated with a larger rescue team; the incidental, not really part of the set-up, picking through the ruins of fire, flood, famine and drought.

This time in Japan, he had been debriefing from an operation in Hokkaido where he’d been sent to record the last of the songs being sung by the Ainu people about the bears and salmon with whom they had once shared the world. Years of drought and dry winters had left the island tinder-dry and it had recently burnt end-to-end, leaving the population with nothing. He’d been with people from various agencies. No one took much notice of a translator, but he had given his presentation anyway. He had got rather drunk at an underground bar that still sold real Sake. Then he had woken up late.

At a break in the fence, the GV turned down a huge avenue of razor-barb walls. His journey was to continue for another few kilometres yet; more time for reflection. Charles was sick of his life: sick of working for people who didn’t care a damn about what he did for them. His research and reports went unread; people were dying as he wrote about them and he felt like a pirate, grabbing the last of his victims’ precious artefacts on their demise.

The love of his life had been words; they were the only things he ever really interacted with on an intimate level. He had done well in his studies, but life had got in the way and The Changes had prevented him from doing what he really wanted. He was pitched straight into WorldCON; a cultural vampire, driven to protect all that was left of the recorded fragments of civilisation as it was being extinguished on Earth.

Initially, he’d found the work fascinating. His first major project had been in China. He had been sent to a region that had been devastated in a flood. Subsequent assignments kept Charles busy for months at a time, usually at eighteen hour-long stretches or more. He never had time for anything except work. The privileged appeal of being one of the very chosen few on Earth who were allowed to travel by air had worn thin. He didn’t have a person on Earth who really cared for him or even noticed him. His life was at the proverbial crossroads: could he go ahead with everything as normal, or admit that he was going slowly insane? He knew too much not to know that the human race and countless other species were rapidly disappearing; The Changes had sped everything up. His research became an ever-increasing catalogue of disappearing people and their remains and under such terms it could only be depressing. No one noticed him or what he did anyway; he was too unimportant. He just did his work for WorldCON and that was it.

The GV reached another security booth. At this point he was required to get out to be scanned. An anti-nausea pill popped out of an automatic dispensary, which he took, now ready for the flight, and resumed the trip. The GV swung past the main terminal taking a route he had not gone before. He noticed an Authorised Access Only sign behind the razor-barb. Charles wondered where he was being posted that required such secrecy, but he knew times were tough; people could be sent anywhere.

The GV approached a building unlike any of the other terminals he was used to and pulled up at the main entrance. Taking everything he had – either in his pockets or his one piece of carry-on luggage – he entered into a large concourse. His handy pinged. On the screen was his flight number. He just had to find it on the departure board and he’d be off. He didn’t know where; you hardly ever knew until you arrived.

By this time, being late was an irrelevancy. He was completely in the hands of WorldCON. There was nothing to do except wait until the handset pinged.

He glanced up at the departure board. He looked at the list of flight codes, but couldn’t see his. He scanned it again. This was not usual.

He approached the service desk. Two young flight attendants stood there impassively. He knew the rigmarole, and gave his flight number. One of them bowed, stood back, holding open the curtain behind the service desk. He passed into a smaller scanning booth, and emerged on the other side. A third attendant ushered him down a long snaky corridor, through its puckered end, and on board.

He belted up and prepared for take-off. He felt himself being gently and increasingly forced back into the chair as the gees increased. This was the worst part of the flight, but it didn’t last long.

He looked out of the tiny window. There she was below him, his whole world: bluer and browner than his grandfather would have seen it – and a lot more clouds. He wasn’t aware of falling asleep – one of the side effects of the anti-nausea pill – awaking to the insistent vibration of his handy.

You have been selected as a candidate for intensive training.

You will shortly be arriving at Colony Nine.

You will undertake integration upon arrival, after which you will be given your next assignment.

They touched down. He unbuckled and made his way to the exit. He stepped into a tunnel. There were no windows. He walked alone down the corridor. Ahead he could see a crowd of people in front of a security booth. The queue was long. Ordinary people, all with a single piece of luggage and dazed like him. There were holo-screens on the walls every ten meters or so. A vaguely familiar elderly man was sitting behind a desk, holding a sheaf of papers and looking directly at him.

Welcome to Colony Nine. I hope you enjoy your second chance.

Eventually it was his turn. He was instructed to leave his handy and bag behind, take off his clothes, put on new weatheralls, and proceed. He did as he was told, and walked into a new world.

II MADÉ

His father was drunk as usual, even though it was still early. His mother was distant and uncommunicative as she worked to tidy the one-room shack, eyes glazed and teeth deep red from constant betel chewing. His little sister Ketut was crying. He never cried even though his big brother teased him much more than Madé teased her.

He wandered out of the shantytown of lean-tos and hopelessly inadequate bamboo shelters that had been erected on higher ground since last year’s cyclone. Winding his way through the squalid back alleyways and onto the main road, he found a gang of older boys he shyly idolised. They were going up into the hills on velos with some tourists. Despite The Changes there were still a few.

After much wheedling on Madé’s part, they agreed to let him come on condition that he collect the fuel cells from the charge station, watching with amusement as he lurched and staggered with batteries that were nearly as heavy as he was. Terrified and exhilarated, Madé clung to the back of the boy riding the velo as they wound along the treacherous roads that led up into the hills, stopping at some hot springs.

The rich and privileged visitors sat in the sulphurous waters and the boys smoked cigarettes, laughing at Madé as he coughed on the sickly clove-stick. They resumed their journey, the lush tropical vegetation giving way to a rockier landscape. Risking a glance over his shoulder, Madé could see the ocean far below, thick dark clouds rolling towards the shore.

They stopped shortly afterwards at a popular cave, and the tourists disappeared inside. The air felt heavy and stifling. Everything was very still, the only sound coming from the people around him. It was hot – hotter than usual, anyway. The tourists re-emerged, bored now, paying the boys and climbing aboard the ground vehicle that had arrived to collect them.

Cashed up now, the boys bought snacks from a street-food vendor, treating Madé to a packet of sesame biscuits. He could hardly believe his luck, licking his fingers as he devoured the sticky contents.

In the way of children, or perhaps like an animal with some preternatural instinct, Madé could sense that something was wrong. Seconds later there was a vast rumbling. Everybody jumped up, startled. The stall vendor shouted for them to get inside the cave, his voice torn away by a massive gust of wind. They hurriedly retreated inside, the vendor pushing his barrow and the boys their velos.

After a short while the rain and wind made the entrance so uncomfortable and wet that they had to retreat further inside, leaving everything behind in the hope it would be all right.

Madé had never experienced anything of such intensity. Even in the safety of the cave it was impossible to talk without shouting. The storm seemed to last for ages, if anything growing worse.

They caught a little sleep in the early hours of the new day as the cyclone wore itself out and moved out to sea again.

Light began to creep into the cave, and they cautiously came out into the entrance. The food stall was broken in pieces, the velos lying under muck and branches. They left them where they were and ventured outside.

Madé could barely recognise the landscape from the day before. All around him the trees and shrubs had been uprooted and lay scattered everywhere. In the distance the land between the ocean and the hills had been devastated. There were no more shantytowns, no more paddies – just one huge brown stain. Madé wondered what had happened to his family. Everybody started talking at once, arguing about what to do and he was caught up in the necessities of the moment. A closer inspection of their velos revealed they were damaged beyond repair.

The vendor was from the nearest village and suggested they head there with him. Madé knew that he was a long way from home and wasn’t going anywhere alone. After a long, silent look at the land below, Madé followed the boys.

The going was tough, the road completely covered by fallen branches and tree trunks. They had to weave their way through and it became apparent very quickly it would take days to clear the debris. As they got higher the forest thinned out completely and made their going a lot quicker.

Midday passed and the afternoon sun was beginning to lose its warmth when they finally reached the pass to the lands below. The vendor began to walk quickly and told them to pick up their pace if they wanted to be at the village before dark. Madé’s legs were aching and he was bone tired, but he knew he had to keep going.

III MARIE-CLAUDE

Marie-Claude Bertillon surveyed the room with the practiced and professional eye of a bureaucrat of many years’ standing. She had brought in new bottles of water, which she set out neatly on a side table. Drinking water was scarce these days. She stowed the empties in her backpack, distributed copies of the agenda around the conference table, pushed the chairs in, took a seat herself, and waited.

Shortly afterwards the delegates filed into the room and sat down. There was a brief flurry of hushed conversation as the latecomers drifted in and settled themselves. Marie-Claude waited for the talking to subside and stood up.

Good morning everyone. I hope you slept well. Welcome to this extraordinary session of the Coalition of Non-aligned Nations’ Emergency Evacuations Subcommittee. As you all know, this meeting has been called ahead of next year’s summit due to the escalating weather conditions. Unless there are any objections, I propose the agenda be accepted and we proceed.

It was not even an implied question. There was no response, just a few sighs, and she knew the meeting was going to go smoothly. She relaxed invisibly. She didn’t want to let it show, or be caught off her guard for any surprises should they eventuate. They often did. She was too experienced for that. The price of bureaucracy was eternal vigilance. As nation states collapsed around her, she had retreated into order and process. Everyone around the table had. There was no other option. This wasn’t some madly inspired war game among the superpowers that could be avoided with the right trade deal. This was what used to be quaintly termed ‘climate change’, and was now just referred to as The Changes.

We will proceed with the regional reports. Central Europe?

They were off now. The speaker reported a catastrophic litany of disasters, floods and landslides. Gdansk was the latest city to have suffered massive floods. The port had been destroyed. Vienna was a sad wreck of itself, almost completely abandoned by anyone other than desperate refugees from somewhere else. The representative wound up. The room was silent.

Thank you, Central Europe. The Low Countries?

Denmark, northern Germany and the Netherlands had been coordinating their relief efforts for several years. By now it was largely based on abandonment and consolidation where possible. Everybody had moved to higher ground inland, or somewhere else: hungry people, clinging like rats to whatever piece of flotsam they could snag hold of. The movement of people was becoming almost impossible to manage.

Running on autopilot, she kept the flow of the meeting regulated, having the most control, saying the least. She knew she was supposed to feel pride in what she did. She did, but she had lost any sense of inner warmth at the achievements made during the course of her now long career. Although thoroughly committed to her role in CONAN, she had watched her innocence wither over the years, replaced by pragmatism and cold strategy. Like everyone else around the table there had been no other choice. The Changes had seen to that.

The representative for Northern Europe concluded. The British Republic delegate shuffled his papers and continued the next chapter in that once great nation’s recent history of calamities. London had been abandoned, the representative reported in a sombre voice; parliament had been relocated to Manchester and martial law declared. All government capabilities were being concentrated on refugee evacuation and relocation. Food shortages were escalating; this year’s harvest had been devastated by bad weather.

The talking continued around the table. The French delegate spoke for the other attendees from South West Europe. France had lost the Vendée in a tidal wave that had swept inland, causing flooding in low-lying areas along the Atlantic coast as far as Portugal. Spain had been less affected, apart from constant drought, but the rising sea levels were creating waves of refugees everywhere. Everyone already knew about the most recent disaster in Italy. Marie-Claude spoke.

Thank you everybody. That concludes the regional presentations. We are very lucky today to have a special presentation from Major Jack Armstrong of the United Nation States of the U.S. Aerospace Force. He is spending three months on secondment to the CONAN Evacuation Programme. Major Armstrong, would you please give us all an appraisal of the situation in the Americas?

The air of expectation in the room was palpable. Armstrong got up to speak.

"Thank you, Madame Secretary. As most of you know, we’ve been worse hit than almost anywhere else except the Low Countries and South East Asia. The North and The South have been wasted by tornadoes and rampant wildfires for more than two decades now. Whole cities have been wiped out. New York’s a write-off, and New Orleans has been washed away entirely. Northern Mexico has been burnt from coast to coast. It’s been chaos since the old system collapsed under the financial costs of repair. We’re only just able to cope now, and we’ve lost millions of people in the meantime. Millions more are displaced. We have to guard all our storm shelters with troops to avoid riots.

"I don’t need to tell any of you folks that none of us can go on this way much longer. I’m here to learn from you and hopefully for you to learn from me. I hope this will be the start of a new era of cooperation. I’m here with a mandate from every UNSUS member to do what I can to find a solution to the refugee crisis. If we can’t make room for the world’s displaced people, they’re going to make room for themselves; they already are. We’re now losing almost as many citizens to fights over living space as we are to the twisters.

I’m here for a few weeks, so please, come see me any time. I’m also hoping to see for myself what’s going on in your regions and how you’re all responding. I’ll be taking a report back to the UNSUS Special Committee on Repatriation, recommending action based on my experiences here. I look forward to working with you.

There was some scattered applause. Marie-Claude was pleased to see the effect of his speech on the members of the subcommittee. It had taken months of negotiation to bring the Major over.

Thank you, Major Armstrong. I’m sure everybody here wishes you well and will cooperate in whatever way they can. We’ll now take a ten-minute break before proceeding with the rest of the morning’s agenda. You might like to take the opportunity to introduce yourselves to Major Armstrong.

The delegates got up and drifted over to the side table, the water quickly disappearing. The delegates clustered off into smaller affinity groups and continued the conversations they had been having before the meeting started.

Every now and then someone would peel off to shake hands and talk with Major Armstrong. Marie-Claude monitored the discussions with a detached interest that concerned itself mainly with the behaviour of the delegates. So far everyone in the subcommittee had been getting along fine. This always made the task at hand so much easier.

Despite all her years of experience, the thing that most wore her down – not The Changes, nor the trauma that it caused – was factional conflict. She remembered the huge fights that had ensued in the last days of the United Nations. Like many of the permanent bureaucrats she had fought all the way to keep it intact and had been forced to flee New York to Geneva, setting up again as CONAN. The early days there too had been fraught with tension, inspired by the impacts of The Changes as Coalition countries squabbled over scarce resources to combat its effects. Fortunately, enlightened self-interest had prevailed and the CONAN countries had developed zones of cooperation with neighbouring territories, helping share the burden of refugees and public works. This process was working well so far. CONAN members were in a far better position than those in the Islamic Alliance or UNSUS.

Seeing a gap in the flow of traffic, Marie-Claude went over to speak to Armstrong.

Well done Major. It looks like your presentation went down well with the delegates. I hope it can lead to something constructive. A few of us are going out after dinner for a coffee. It might be a good opportunity for more networking. Would you like to come?

Call me Jack. That sounds great, I’d love to. And thanks for pulling this whole thing together. I’ve no idea how you managed to convince UNSUS to send me, but I appreciate it. We need all the help we can get.

How the mighty had fallen. In the disastrous first decades of the new millennium, the former United States had imposed its pax Americana across the world with unstoppable fervour, and almost every possible energy source had been ruthlessly secured in a series of regional wars. The practice of converting local currencies to the dollar had massively expanded the economy. When The Changes hit, a mass of insurance claims created an on-going recession and the sprawling economy never really recovered. UNSUS still had seventy per cent of the world’s energy resources, but the costs of maintaining infrastructure in the worsening climate conditions exerted never-ending pressures. The confederation was shrinking back to North and South America. Russia was busy reasserting its own regional dominance. India starved and China died of thirst. The world’s remaining independent nation-states were fighting it out among themselves.

Excuse me Major. Sorry – Jack, but I think it is time to start again.

The delegates returned to the table.

Thank you everybody. I hope you have all had an opportunity to refresh yourselves and catch up with each other. We will now move on to the next section on the agenda – the reports from the subcommittees for refugees, infrastructure and human resources. I would like to introduce Professor Klaus Trappinski from the Subcommittee for Refugees. Thank you, Professor.

And so the meeting continued with more reports on the failures – and moderate successes – of the other subcommittees in coping with The Changes. The Subcommittee for Refugees had its hands full. It had a much wider mandate, including identification, assessment, verification and placement of all CONAN country member refugees. Refugee rates in CONAN countries were low – only thirty per cent or so out of the average population – but it was still a huge infrastructural burden to manage. It was hard to keep track of the millions of people being processed through the system – a process of moving, checking, arresting, hospitalising, burying, or whatever – that had to be done day in day out, the numbers of people in the queue getting larger every year.

Being a member of the Refugee Subcommittee herself, Marie-Claude was already well acquainted with the learned Professor’s lists of depressing statistics outlining trends in the quality of human lives devastated by flooding, storms, fires and freak weather. Trappinski finished with the latest mortality figures in each of the CONAN member countries. Marie-Claude already knew that this year had been the worst on record.

The representative from the Subcommittee for Infrastructure gave her report. Infrastructure mostly dealt with sanitation, health and housing. Virulent infections were rife throughout CONAN. There was a constant war of disinfection and reinfection being waged in national populations. The British Republic and Eire were better off being islands, their populations confined within their own tightly controlled borders, but diseases waxed across the face of old Europe. Finding shelter for the mass of transient populations of internally displaced refugees was ever harder, as demand always outstripped availability. The only solution was to set up camps and storm shelters, but these took months to build. This luxury was not available to most of the Islamic Alliance, or even UNSUS. The speaker reminded everybody of this fact and finished her presentation.

Marie-Claude gave the floor to José Osses, from the Subcommittee for Human Resources. José was an old UN colleague. He had defected to CONAN in the early days. She respected him enormously. HR was the toughest of the subcommittees, dealing with policing, peacekeeping and the administration of CONAN itself. When the first of The Changes had hit, the subsequent looting, rioting, arson and fighting had been almost uncontrollable, and CONAN members had agreed to pool their security forces. These now enforced calm wherever possible to allow Evacuation and all the other subcommittees to do their jobs.

Osses presented the latest calculations of funds available among CONAN member countries to run the administration. Human Resources managed all member nations’ budgets and communicated directly with local government, wherever it still existed. In turn, CONAN provided peacekeepers, police or bureaucrats as required. This model of administration was still holding together, but on an ever-diminishing budget.

Marie-Claude and everyone else around the table had ceased being paid years ago; they subsisted on allocated food and accommodation, serving CONAN in whatever capacity they were most able. Money was running out. Economies had collapsed and others were collapsing. Basic provisions were getting harder and harder to obtain as The Changes wreaked their havoc on food and energy production. It was a depressing outlook.

Thank you Señor Osses. That completes today’s section of the agenda. We commence tomorrow at 8.30 am sharp, please. Dinner is available from the commissary. I wish you all a good evening.

After a few more polite goodbyes, one of which included telling the Major she would catch up with him later, Marie-Claude was once again alone in the room. As methodical as ever, she straightened the chairs, picked up the stray flimsies and stylos and collected the empty bottles. She turned off the lights, shutting the door on another meeting, and crossed the CONAN compound to her accommodation module. There she unpacked and washed her face and hands in a cupful of water. That would have to do for tonight. She dressed into something warmer and headed for the commissary and the evening meal.

She got the last serving, kept warm just for her. She knew she was appreciated but it didn’t make up for the mush that presented itself as tonight’s offering. At least she had something to eat. She could see that others were already leaving. She finished her meal, encouraged by the bread roll (not mouldy) that accompanied it, returned her tray, thanked the kitchen staff and headed out, following in the direction of the chatter across the compound.

Most of the Subcommittee delegates had gone through the checkpoint by the time she signed herself out, but she knew where they were going. Café Ersatz was about the only place left in Geneva where you could still get a half-decent coffee. It was down near the old lakeside, and the view was quite pretty in a desolate way, the late afternoon light reflecting off the broken shadows of flooded buildings, the weather calm but cold, before the storms started. Even if it was chilly, now was the time to enjoy the luxury of being able to sit outside without being eaten alive by the mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects that bred over summer in the Lake’s foetid water.

IV CHARLES PETERS

Further along the corridor, he encountered another security check. This time, he was made to wait as others came through; eventually, a GV showed up and they got in. It shot forward, racing through the tunnel, and he lost all sense of location and time. Looking at the rock walls rushing past he assumed he was underground. As for time, he had surrendered any knowledge of that with his handy. He looked at his fellow travellers. Each one of them had a ghoulish aspect in the sickly glow tubes of the tunnel. They stopped. Here the lights were much brighter, the tunnels more like corridors. As they got out of the conveyance, they were directed towards a kiosk. There he was given back his handy – no, it wasn’t: it looked like it had been replaced with a new model. About time; the one he had surrendered was more than ten years old. A message flashed onscreen.

Follow the locator function on this handset.

You will be directed to Integration Services.

Any deviation is strictly prohibited.

He walked with his handy, glancing about him as he passed doors and routes for which he had no authorisation. He was eventually directed to take a turn to the right. There were more people waiting at another transport point. After a short trip they disembarked in a large chamber. Men and women were standing around. They seemed to be waiting for something to happen and stopped talking as a man climbed onto a small rostrum.

"Your attention please! We welcome you here among us. I am Captain Branksome. I know you are all tired, hungry and a little confused. You will be fed shortly and everything will be explained to you in due course. Please introduce yourselves to each other. The colonists are here to answer any questions you may have. We work on eight-hour shifts. You will be allowed to sleep through the next shift.

People began to drift over to a food hatch in the wall. Charles collected a plate piled with shaped protein pieces, which looked distinctly unappetising. He went over to a table against the wall and began to eat. A woman came over.

Charles Peters? I’m Joanne, or Jo, Stein.

She had pronounced it Steen. Her name, like his, was stitched above the top left-hand pocket of the coverall.

I know you want to eat and sleep. I just came over to introduce myself. I’ve been assigned to help you over the next few days of your orientation. I hope we can get along well and I hope you will be able to talk to me any time if you have any concerns. I have been through what you are about to undergo. Good luck, and see you tomorrow.

She smiled, turned and walked away. He was left to his food; it didn’t taste too bad. Meat was worth its weight in gold and was only available on the black market. You never knew what it was. That tended to put most people off. The newcomers at the other tables were finishing their meals. The colonists who had been talking to the other new arrivals got up to leave. His handy vibrated displaying a new set of instructions, and following the others he walked through another exit in the rock. They were back in low tunnels once more. They reached a corridor with doors on either side, names above them, and a bathroom at the end. Charles found his. Inside, the room was spartan: bed, desk and console, chair, locker. There was a spigot on the wall and a glass on the desk. He drank the heavily chlorinated water and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and slept.

V MADÉ

They made it to the village with the last light of the day. It too had been decimated, although the damage was less severe than Madé imagined had happened to his own home. An army truck was parked in the square, soldiers handing out emergency rations once the villagers had given their thumbprints.

The vendor saw a relative in the line and went over to join them. There was an animated exchange and the vendor returned. He told the boys what they had expected; the villages on the coast had been hit by a huge cyclone. There were no survivors to be found. The whole area was being evacuated. Hungry and exhausted almost beyond endurance, Madé waited in the queue with his companions. The soldiers asked them their names and where they were from and on hearing their answer told them to get into the truck and stay there. There was nothing to do except obey. Madé began to cry. The boys told him to shut up, although they were clearly afraid as well. As night came on, an uneasy silence fell in the back of the truck, but Madé was so tired he fell asleep where he was sitting. When no one was looking the others lifted up the canvas side of the truck, and disappeared into the darkness.

He woke up with start. A torch was shone into the back of the truck and it filled up with soldiers wearing the green berets of the Islamic Alliance. One of them asked him where everyone else had gone. He said he didn’t know and began crying again. The soldier slapped him, telling him to act like a man. Madé was ashamed and afraid. He had been betrayed. He had lost his parents and he was on his own. He stared desolately out of the back of the truck, turning away from the soldier’s angry gaze to hide his tears. The truck started, the noise of its ancient engine drowning out any further conversation. Jammed in the back the soldiers in their turn fell asleep against each other as the vehicle made its way towards safer harbours.

They arrived in the middle of the night, pulling into a brightly lit compound. The soldiers quickly jumped out as soon as the vehicle stopped. The same soldier who struck him went to lift him out of the truck and Madé pulled back in fear. The soldier told him he wasn’t going to hurt him, but he got out of the truck himself. He was escorted across the compound to a collection of huts behind a barbed wire fence and handed over to another green-beret. The gate closed behind him, and he was taken to a white building with a tattered Red Crescent flag. There the civilian staff took down his details and showed him the shower cubicles where he was to clean and dress himself in the new clothes provided. Afterwards he was given a data card which he was told not to lose.

Another guard drove him to the docks leaving him at the end of a long line of evacuees getting on board a huge ship. Soldiers moved up and down the line randomly checking IDs. Madé waited his turn, anxious, filled with emotions that he was unable to put a name to. Although he didn’t really love his mother or father, he worshipped his grandfather and loved his little sister. The thought that he was never going to see them again was like standing on the edge of a huge cliff and staring down into a black abyss.

Then he had to give over his card for inspection, was handed a blanket and told to follow the blue line to his deck. It was crowded and as he was one of the last on the boat, it was impossible to find anywhere to sit. He crawled under the seats, surrounded by hundreds of strangers. He was nine years old, the sole survivor of his family. It was pure chance that he was alive at all. In the pitching and tossing ship, he was silent, hugging himself whilst he replayed over and over the shocking events of the last hours – hours that seemed like weeks to his immature and overloaded senses.

The drone of the engines nursed him to sleep, despite his anxiety. He slept on, oblivious, as the ship made two more landings over the next few hours.

He was unable to sleep through the call to prayer that echoed from speakers throughout the ship. After prayers, the speakers announced that a meal was available on green deck. Not wanting to miss out, he left his hideout and followed the exodus from blue-deck.

The canteen seemed huge to his smaller perspective. But he was hungry, and more particularly, thirsty, so he moved into what looked like the shortest queue and waited. He took his bowl of soup and beaker of water to a crowded table, bending his head over the bowl and trying not to draw any attention to himself, already learning to adapt to his new circumstances. Once he had eaten, he decided to go onto the top of the ship and see outside properly. Noticing that people were going out through heavy doors at the end of the canteen, he slipped through before they swung shut.

Outside, he clung to the railings, unsure of his balance as he looked down at the sea below him. Standing on a bench that ran along the side of the viewing deck, he strained to see the land, a distant smudge on the horizon. As far as he could see, the water was clogged with flotsam.

He felt certain now that all his family must be dead. He silently prayed that this might not be so, that he might one day find them alive, but when he looked back to the shore his hope died. He got down off the bench and retreated to his den, curling up in a little ball of misery and staying there for hours, ignoring the calls to prayer.

Madé knew nothing about the big political picture. His was a life of survival in the shantytown, of poverty and hunger. Indonesia as a nation state had crumbled; the Alliance the only entity capable of doing anything. There were camps, where refugees were issued with enough food to keep them alive, and there was basic shelter, sanitation and health provided by the Red Crescent, but no one went to the camps by choice.

Hundreds of millions of people had been displaced by the worsening climatic conditions across the Asia-Pacific and they were now living as virtual prisoners while the Alliance struggled to keep order and find a longer-term solution to the rising numbers of displaced people. Tensions with the United Kingdoms of Australia were high. Its military personnel were either on border patrol turning around ships, or evacuating its own low-lying cities. There was no help to be had from those quarters. The UKA remained a significant regional power, and patrolled the whole Timor Sea and its energy resources vigorously. PNG, East Timor and New Caledonia were under its control. New Zealand was part of the Free States, doing what it could to handle the refugees of the Pacific islands who now outnumbered the local population five to one.

After a week or so, the ship arrived at its final destination, having dropped off most of the refugees in evacuation camps along the way. Living conditions in these places were hard, everybody knew, but there was little alternative. Madé, already catalogued and designated a ward of the Alliance, waited to disembark.

VI MARIE-CLAUDE

As she approached, Marie-Claude could see Armstrong was sitting on his own. The others had put the tables together along the terrace. The Major was obviously looking out for her, as he stood up and waved once he caught sight of her.

"I ordered for the two of us – figured it might save some time. I’d much rather spend it talking to you while I have the opportunity. There are a lot of things I have to tell you – developments inside UNSUS you need to know about. Our scientific guys are predicting worse weather events to come, some of which will wipe out many current areas where we have storm shelters. Within a hundred years fifty per cent of the Americas will be uninhabitable.

"Your guys are probably telling you the same, but what they’re not telling you is where UNSUS is at with its refugee programme: nowhere. High-level people are talking about heading into space. You know, leaving the sinking ship and all that jazz. The CONAN Space Agency is defunct, but UNSUS has maintained its space program even if it is on a much more limited basis, and purely military. We’ve still got a small base on the moon. It all sounds pretty kooky I know, but believe you me, a lot of people in the administration are giving it serious thought.

At the moment it’s only on the drawing board, but people are already talking about a lunar facility ten times the current size. Of course, it’ll probably never get off the ground. I think we’re pretty much doomed, but it might be worth a shot. That’s why I’m here – to see if CONAN wants in on the project. We can’t do it alone. Think about what I’ve said. You don’t have to respond immediately. Great, here comes the coffee.

After that he would not be diverted from savouring the real milk and freshly-ground beans. Seeing that the two of them had finished talking, the other committee members pulled up extra chairs and invited them to join. They were in high spirits, having ordered a bottle of schnapps. She thought about the Major’s comments, paying little attention to the light-hearted banter. She heard her name.

I’m sorry. What did you say?

It was the British Republican delegate, Gordon Braithwaite.

We’re having a debate at this end of the table. Trappinski here claims you met President Willis. Is that true?

In her early sixties and having spent most of her life in the UN and later CONAN, Marie-Claude was a font of knowledge on many things historical-political. She had been present at the last meeting of the UN General Assembly Special Session that expelled the US from membership shortly after Gulf War V. She had organised the secret evacuation of all essential UN staff from New York, to help with the establishment of CONAN.

Not exactly met, but yes, it’s true. Just before he made that unbelievable speech to UNGASS on manifest destiny and duty to God. He didn’t know there were any UN personnel in the room. He made a comment to his aides about ‘nuking’ Europe.

What did you do?

You know the answer to that. The US was expelled from the UN. It’s amazing what kind of results insulting a bureaucrat can have.

They all laughed. Braithwaite was the most radical of all the CONAN delegates at the meeting today. But Britain had been through a lot.

I maintain that the nation state as an institution has been effectively dead for years. Wouldn’t you agree, Madame Secretary? All that holds the world together now is mutual self-interest and the machinery to maintain it. We’re that machinery – us bureaucrats – whether we’re in CONAN, UNSUS, the Islamic Alliance, or wherever. Look at Europe. Country borders have been irrelevant here for decades. And we only have three accepted global currencies these days.

He was clearly warming to his theme.

What I mean to say, Madame Secretary, is what are we going to replace it with? We’re already witnessing the degeneration of the non-core members of UNSUS. We know what it’s like there – a series of dog-eat dog enclaves. No offence meant, Major Armstrong.

He turned to the Major, who inclined his head in quiet acknowledgement, and looked back to Marie-Claude, awaiting her response. She took some time gathering her thoughts.

"I’m not sure which question you would like me to answer, Gordon, so I’ll take the first. I can only give my perspective, but it is a long one now that goes back many years. I think you are right. I have personally witnessed a massive shift in the way countries relate one to another. Since The Changes and the collapse of the UN, we have had to look to our immediate neighbours for help. I would go so far as to suggest that this has led to the pseudo-states we have today, with their single currencies, common policies and cross-border security agreements. CONAN is perhaps the most extreme example of that model, in contrast to the unitary states that are still trying to survive.

"As regards your second question, I take it to mean that you want my opinion on what will come after what we have now. That depends on how we respond to The Changes over the longer term. Clearly, things cannot go on as they are. Soon it’s going to become impossible to maintain the level of civilisation that we have enjoyed for centuries. The collapse of our cities is a reflection of the collapse of the nation-state. We are going to have to let go of so much history and culture that we will become like pagans again.

Before that time comes, we must do all we can to rescue and preserve what we have. After that, maybe we will all have to evacuate. Leave Mother Nature to herself. If we don’t, I’m afraid we’ll tear her apart.

Like Braithwaite she had been more serious than originally intended, and a pensive mood descended upon the table. Deciding to take a risk by sharing her conversation with Armstrong among the larger group, she turned to the Major.

What do you think Jack? Should we head for the stars?

No one knew what they had discussed, but she had put him on the spot, nonetheless. He didn’t seem to mind.

The military still has some assets in orbit and on the moon – and the capacity to take some people off planet. But what you’re talking about will take years to get the kind of political support needed. The Changes may finish us all off before that. The global economy is hardly robust at the moment, either, and we’re talking big money to finance such a venture. We would have to focus all our efforts on that alone. If you ignore those as factors, then sure, it’s feasible. But you’re talking hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of people. First off, you’ve got to rescue them, then hold and process everyone somewhere, and get them into space. Once they are, how are we going to accommodate them all? That’s way out of our league in terms of planning or ability right now. Perhaps somebody else has a better handle on all this stuff. What about you, Professor Trappinski? Is any of this even possible?

Trappinski sat up straight and assumed a serious expression, looking at everyone around the table before answering.

Oh yes, Major; it is indeed. We have the necessary technological ability. The evacuees could simply be placed in cryogenic storage. Efforts in space should be directed to expanding the moon-base to accommodate everyone. But given the deterioration of the world’s climate it would be a major infrastructure challenge. Then as you say, there is the budget. We all heard the presentation of Señor Osses. But I for one would be happy to contribute my expertise to the endeavour.

He sipped his schnapps, enjoying the attention.

Then of course there is the consideration of how we will return everybody, once The Changes are over. Now I will ask a question. Who will be in charge of our little conspiracy? What about you, Madame Secretary? You would certainly keep us under control.

Let me know when you’re ready to begin, Professor, and I’ll prepare the agenda.

Now is as good a time as any, Madame Secretary. Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to propose a toast. To the moon – and back!

Everybody was laughing now, their enthusiasm kindled by the discussion and the effects of the drink.

Gradually, the group began to disperse. Soon only Braithwaite, Armstrong, Trappinski and Marie-Claude remained. There was a companionable silence. She was the first to get up.

Well, gentlemen, I will say goodnight and leave you to your schemes. Just don’t be late for tomorrow’s meeting. Conspiracy or not, we still have work to do.

VII CHARLES PETERS

He was woken by his handy, surprisingly refreshed and with no fog of bad dreams. The device flashed a message.

Your allocated time in the wash facility is 05:00 - 05:03.

Your wash items are in the table drawer.

Breakfast is in the mess hall.

He did as he was bid. Once he was drafted, he was pretty used to sleeping in hostels. This was no different, except he didn’t really know where he was and what was happening. But that had happened before, although not in such curious circumstances. He didn’t get a chance to see landfall when they had arrived; he’d slept through the whole trip.

He made it to the bathroom in time for a shower although it shut off after ten seconds. He finished his brief ablutions and made his way to the canteen, taking a tray and standing in line. Once he was served, he again found a table to himself. He finished his meal. The same man from the night before came into the cavern with a small entourage of followers – Branksome, he remembered the name – and stood on the podium again.

I hope you all slept well. You will shortly be undertaking your first orientation exercise. For the comfort and safety of all present, my staff members are here to assist should anybody find the next stage difficult to assimilate. Please follow them to the GV waiting outside.

Branksome’s staff began checking everybody on a tally, directing them to the GV. Stein got in and sat down next to him.

I remember my own orientation. There was so much to take in, and the shock of it all.

He said nothing. After hurtling through the tunnel for ten minutes or so they began to slow down; shortly they stopped at another way station, disembarked, and passed through yet another security booth. They moved into a corridor with a set of doors at the end, passed through a narrow tube and got into another GV. They were advised to strap themselves in. There was a feeling of acceleration, and they were rising, speeding upwards through a vertical tunnel. There were strip lights in the wall, flashing by in seconds. An alarm sounded. With a huge surge of gees, they were pressed back into their seats. The plexa-glass of the GV turned black. Lights came on.

After a short time the glass cleared, revealing the outside. A uniform gasp went up among the newcomers as Earth swung into view. They were orbiting the moon. Charles scanned the lunar surface. Across its barren landscape, huge domes were visible. Branksome spoke.

"By now, you have probably worked out you’re no longer on Earth. This is Colony Nine. It is one of several colonies formed in response to the deteriorating situation on Earth. You are part of an evacuation programme that was commenced almost a century and a half ago. I understand the difficulties you must be experiencing in assimilating this information. Many years’ experience has shown that the sooner you are made aware of the situation, the quicker your integration. We have made huge advances as you can see below you, but the colony is still not capable of supporting human life outside the domes.

Upon our return, the day’s activities will continue with the first in series of briefings to bring you up to speed. Please feel free to ask the colonist sitting next to you any questions you may have. Thank you for your attention.

As the landscape below him fell into closer perspective, they approached one of enormous bubble-constructions, dropping through an airlock and approaching the giant city inside. Towering above it were huge smokestacks, spewing atmospheric gasses into the contained space. Airships wove in among the spires. The scale of what he was looking at was immense, and terrifying. He shrank back into his seat, overwhelmed.

VIII MADÉ

He didn’t go to a camp and was told he would be taken to a school where he would be looked after. He wanted to do that. His cousin Ali had gone to school, but his own father always took his mother’s money, and after she spent what was left on food there was none left over for fees. Despite himself, he was excited, just young enough to disconnect from what had happened to him; already his life in the shantytown was receding into the past.

He was taken off the ship by the soldiers and driven to an IA compound further inland with other children from ship. They were orphans too. On arrival they were sent to prayers, and after they had eaten, were sent to a small classroom. After a few minutes, the door opened and a white man came into the room. He didn’t look like a tourist. He wore black, with a white piece of plastic stuck in the collar of a buttoned-up shirt. He looked at the children and smiled.

Hello children, my name is Francis Cordwell. Some people call me Father, but you can just call me Francis. I am here to take care of you. You will not be staying very long. In a few weeks you will go to another place, away from the storms, where you will be with other children. Before you leave, I need to spend some time with each of you, so we can collect as much information about you and your family as possible. You must stay inside the compound, but there is an exercise yard and a gym, as well as a games room. For now, you can all go to the games room. I’ll call each of you in turn. Remember you are still inside an army camp, so please do not go wandering on your own.

He breezed out of the room without pausing to see if they were following, leading them to a smaller building situated behind the canteen. It was locked. He produced a key.

If I let you in, will you all swear to look after the equipment? If you do not, I can guarantee you will be in solitary confinement for the rest of your time here.

Madé couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. After they had all duly sworn, he led them inside. It was like a standard games room except the couches looked far more complicated. Madé loved to play the games in the arcade on the island, but it cost far too much for him to do it very often. He collected cigarette butts off the streets for hours on end to sell for a few Dinars, hidden away from his father, so he could play. Eventually, he had been found out and the money discovered. His father had been very angry and beaten him. Like the other boys, he was beside himself with excitement and was about to clamber into one of the couches, only the white stranger called him, promising he would be able to go back in a short while.

The man took him to a small room inside the main building. On one wall there was a poster of a turtle, on the other a holo-screen that showed a loop of palms waving in the breeze on a white shore with a blue ocean. Madé noticed there were an assortment of toys in boxes and a wooden sandbox on wheels in one corner. The man took out a device, which he touched a few times, wanting to know whether he minded if the conversation was recorded?

Madé agreed, and the man asked him his name, address, the names of his parents and family; the same things he had been asked before. When he was asked if he wanted to talk about what had happened, he said no, and the man, who insisted that he call him Francis, not Pagi, didn’t push him. Francis asked about his grandparents and where they were from, and that was all right, until he told him about how he used to go fishing with his grandfather, and then he didn’t want to talk about his family any more. Francis asked him all sorts of strange questions about his religion and if he did any traditional dances or knew any traditional songs and tried to persuade him to sing him one. Madé thought this was stupid and said so, but Francis said he might appreciate it later because this was being recorded and he might want to listen to it in the future when he was a little bit older. So he sang a song that his grandmother had taught him, and although singing it made him feel sad again, he explained it to Francis. Francis thanked him and said he had sung it very well.

After that, the time seemed to go fast. Madé enjoyed the attention. Francis took out the sandbox and upturned the boxes of toys onto three blankets. He asked Madé to choose a few objects from each blanket and bring them back to the sandbox, inviting him to arrange the objects in any way he wanted. The man put on some gamelan music and left him to it. At first Madé thought this was silly as well, but he put the things in the box and arranged them. By the time he had finished there was a