Dinosaurs

2058

Toby had been waiting all night to see the dinosaurs. These days you never got to see anything that big moving around. The whole town was animated, but she was ready to greet them. A thick fog lay over the sound, blocking signals and muffling sounds. No early warning, and she couldn’t see anything yet, but they were out there, she could feel it.

She’d waited on the roof of the old block all night with a blanket and a little telescope, tucked in under the laser receiver array. Mom had said not, but it was too exciting. She took a few deep breathes of the salty air, and listened the surf crashing and clawing at the foot of the old tower block. The ugly grey brick, gently splintering on sodden foundations, still stood tall among the angular shoals that were houses before the sea came. As the tallest remaining building in town, the tower was home to the laser comm relay, and the best place to see dinosaurs.

“You know, mom’s going to make you clean the latrines for being up here” She looked round, the raggamuffin outline of her brother Josef was silhouetted against a light in the stairwell that flickered on and off as the tide lapped at the tower.

“What happened to you? Did you crawl up the stairs?” She giggled at him.

The too-large, patched sweater hung off him as he shrugged and made a show of checking the various dark spots and oil stains for new additions.

“Iunno, something’s leaking down below I guess. It’s dark, how was I supposed to know?” He came to sit alongside her and gaze out at where a wall of grey hid the sea. The wind was starting to pick up, another storm. That’s three this week. She’d heard the stories of the old town, when the dykes broke and the rampant sea had laid claim to anything they hadn’t had time to strip out. Even over her lifetime, she knew, the storms had intensified. Today might be the only window for days, and supplies were running short after a vicious wracking winter.

“Won’t be long now” She said, half to herself, and flicked out the telescope to watch the receding fog. She saw shadows in the murk, and squinted.

Too far away to hear right now, they glided out into view. Monsters of the old world, magnificent, and mighty, and so very welcome. Three of them formed a trident of steel as they powered down into the sound.

Josef pointed at the middle ship “Flat top, flat top!” and snatched the telescope as the impossibly broad flight deck loomed over the bow, the last wisps of mystery fleeing from it’s chisel of a prow.

“So, it is Gerry, or Johnny?” She asked, hungrily eyeing the two container ships flanking the carrier, filled with supplies.

“No, the corrosion patterns are wrong …I think it’s Doris.” He exclaimed.

“Oh, I love those guys!” Toby clapped her hands together, remembering the strange gifts that they’d brought before. From all over the world they’d had coconuts, chocolate, even once dates. He mouth watered, she really was hungry. She heard Josef’s stomach rumble too, even over the surf.

“Yep, Doris Miller. And it looks like the Kurin Andropov and the Celestina Heavy” Josef said

“Nerd…” She grinned across at him, and then looked back to marvel at the massive ships as they dropped anchor and started lowering cargo launches in to the smoking sea.

“I think she’s coming out, a- Hey!” Josef had a little awe in his voice that immediately became shrill as Toby grabbed the telescope back and trained it along the dark smooth flight deck to the base of the command island. The tiny figure of commodore Ela Telavi strutted out of a doorway onto the flat deck and began to dance her way to the front. As the cargo lifts aft and starboard began to rise with revealing pairs of heavy lift cargo drones, flight crews began moving them across the deck to their marked take off points, ready for deployment.

It was a long walk from one end of the ship to the other and commodore Telavi took her time, dancing and celebrating with the crew. Sashaying around the bright, angular Tuvaluan patterns marking out take off points. By the time she’d sauntered up to the prow more than 60 of the drones were lined up in rows on the deck. Printed and maintained in the belly of the giant ship, they looked for all the world like giant grey beetles, each hunched over its own brightly coloured brick.

Toby wondered aloud at what bounty might be in each of those bricks. “Food, of course, maybe coconuts again? And printer substrate for the fab-shack, Jonas was running low. Prefabs for the new school house? I wonder if mom asked for some more of that genmod seaweed?” Josef made a face as.

“She’s doing it!” Toby cried delightedly at the sight of the tiny figure standing on the bow of the Doris Miller, staring back at them. This war machine of a lost age become savoir and joy of holdfaster communities up and down the west coast, from Anchorage to Crescent City. They both knew what was coming, but that never stopped it being special.

Ela Telavi produced an old, spikey conch shell, and held it out for the crew to see. They cheered silently through the telescope. On the third cheer, the commodore put the shell to her lips, and blew. The sound, too far away to hear over the sucking roar of the sea in the shoals, was picked up from the ship and broadcast to the comm monitor everyone had attached to their wrists. The long, low note made Josef jump and Toby imagined the ripple that would go through the town, bringing hope and a little magic into everyone’s lives.

“We should go down…” Toby said, knowing it wouldn’t be long until everyone in town was coming out to meet the new bounty from the sea. He was already moving. It would be best to at least pretend they’d just arrived in the shoals.

“Yeh, let’s go meet the bugs. First Coconut’s mine!”

And he was gone, whooping and jumping the stairs a flight at a time. Toby took a last look out at the dinosaurs, and followed him.