EXCERPT FROM RIEBECKITE BY OLVIER LEA
The rotten egg smell of the Hara forest was most noticeable at low tide. Elshad parked the truck at the end of a dirt trail, close to the north shore. After only minutes of unloading containers and instrument cases, the thick humidity sheened their skin and darkened the necks of their shirts. Mangrove trees stood like an army of tentacled creatures marching out across the Khoran Strait towards the mainland.
A couple of hundred metres to the north-west, the white spindle of the Tabl Skyscrubber tower pierced the sky.
“Where do you want me?” Yusef asked, hoisting a carry-tray of filter pots.
“Just collect the traps from last week,” Tahira said. “If you’re running low on containers, blue colonies can be bunched together, but separate them with dividers as best you can. If you’re lucky enough to find any black colonies, keep them separate.”
“Those are the live ones, right?” Yusef sounded excited at the prospect, and with good reason. Qeshm’s Hara forest was one of the few places on earth black riebeckites had been found.
“Technically, they’re all live,” Tahira said. “Blue riebeckites are just dormant. If you find black ones, whatever you do, don’t touch them. Just transfer them into a container and seal it up.”
“Also,” Elshad said, “keep an eye out for any unhealthy or dead animals. Especially birds. If you see a struggling bird, try to get hold of it.”
“Why especially birds?”
Elshad laughed. “Because Tahira has a phobia of birds and won’t go near them herself.”
“That’s not true, is it?” Yusef grinned.
Tahira gave him a theatrical glare. “Let me put it this way: If you do capture a bird, don’t even think about letting it loose near me or you’ll be washing filters for the rest of the month.”
They donned rubber boots and made their way down the muddy shore. Tahira regarded the shimmering blue mist out on the strait. She wrapped a shemagh scarf around her neck and pulled it up over her mouth and nose. Most of the riebeckite spores caught in the Skyscrubber’s spray germinated by the time they reached ground level. The respiratory risk was very low compared to other parts of the world, but even a low risk became cumulative over time.
Small, yellow foam balls on stalks marked the locations of the traps. Each trap was a simple tube with a filter in the middle designed to catch clumps of riebeckites in the water. The mud was cloying and slippery, but Tahira and Elshad were well-practised at traversing it without compromising their safety or dignity.
Tahira walked past the traps closest to the tide line. Further out, she located a trap settled between the stilt roots of a mangrove tree with a patch of cobalt blue showing through the frosted plastic. She picked it up and held it vertically, peering down at the filter. The colony looked like a piece of flawless lapis lazuli, about seven centimetres in its largest dimension. It glistened as she angled it to admit direct sunlight.
Going deeper, her feet sank into the mud past her ankles. Elshad and Yusef remained within earshot, as per procedure. Getting stuck in the mud was a well-understood risk. Elshad had done it four times in thirty months. Tahira was proud to have a clean sheet in that department, though took special care, supposing she was well past due for an incident.
Yusef shouted and pointed at a spot Tahira couldn’t see. She waited for confirmation from Elshad that Yusef had discovered something worthwhile. A moment later, Elshad beckoned and shouted something that sounded like ‘frog’. Tahira squelched her way back to meet them on dry land.
“Poor little guy,” Yusef said, turning a dead frog over in his hands.
Tahira nodded sadly. “I know. You think you can tell me how it died?”
“Well, this species eats small shrimp, right? So the filter feeders consume riebeckites which clump inside them, the frog eats the filter feeders, and the riebeckite colonies clump together in the frog’s stomach.”
“Exactly. One time, we found a frog with a colony in its stomach so big it looked like it had swallowed a snooker ball. Its mouth was fixed open, and the colony was just right there, perfectly round. It was horrible.”
“So we’ll keep this one then?” Yusef asked, already pulling the sealing strip off a container.
“Definitely. Get it into a container and then head back out for more traps.”
A sound through the trees drew Tahira’s eyes to the tower. She listened, resisting the urge to shush Yusef and Elshad as they chatted. It came again: the rubber-squeak call of a green heron. She sat on the grass and pulled off her mud-caked boots.
“You done for the day?” Yusef snorted as he boxed the frog up.
Tahira shot him a look. “I’m going to the Skyscrubber tower to check the filters for riebeckite colonies. Pass me the grid tray.”
“Why don’t you take Yusef? He hasn’t seen the inside of a tower yet,” Elshad suggested. The younger man bobbed his head enthusiastically, his mop of hair flopping about like a jellyfish.
“No,” Tahira said. “I’m the only one with security clearance. You know what Azkord are like. If they think I’ve been letting other people in, they might take it away.”
Yusef sighed and looked at Elshad. “Oh well, I guess it’s just you and I stomping about in the mud then. We know our place.”
Tahira took the sample tray, retrieved her satchel from the truck and left them to their banter. The sun-baked dirt path meandered between patches of slender mangrove knees, reaching up like the bristling lances of a sunken miniature cavalry regiment. Insects and birds called and chirped to each other, having long made peace with the presence of the titan in their midst.
The ground felt different on the artificial peninsula holding the tower, the soil a thin facade disguising the huge foundation. Four huge cylindrical pump feeds — reminiscent of the mangrove stilt roots — sloped up from the surrounding water to join the tower thirty metres above the ground. Its white surface was featureless apart from the seams of a few hatches, the open steel frame of an external elevator, and the entrance lobby door sixty metres up.
Tahira craned her neck and squinted up the full length of the tower. The drone of the pumps rose and fell, but the colossal spray of water was much too far up to see or hear. The only evidence of it from the ground was the rainbows, most prominent in the morning or evening. Hot vented air and grease cut through the hydrogen sulphide stench of the mangroves.