The Complete Short Stories

‘A few other things?’ Dr Christine lowered her voice. ‘Look, Johnson, you’re sitting in the middle of an amazing biological experiment. No one would allow it to happen anywhere in the world — if they knew, the US Navy would move in this afternoon.’

‘Would they take away the ship?’

‘They’d take it away and sink it in the nearest ocean trench, then scorch the island with flame-throwers.’

‘And what about me?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say. It might depend on how advanced…’She held his shoulder reassuringly, aware that her vehemence had shocked him. ‘But there’s no reason why they should find out. Not for a while, and by then it won’t matter. I’m not exaggerating when I say that you’ve probably created a new kind of life.’

As they unloaded the stores Johnson reflected on her words. He had guessed that the chemicals leaking from the Prospero had set off the accelerated growth, and that the toxic reagents might equally be affecting himself. In Galloway’s cabin mirror he inspected the hairs on his chin and any suspicious moles. The weeks at sea, inhaling the acrid fumes, had left him with raw lungs and throat, and an erratic appetite, but he had felt better since coming ashore.

He watched Christine step into a pair of thigh-length rubber boots and move into the shallow water, ladle in hand, looking at the plant and animal life of the lagoon. She filled several specimen jars with the phosphorescent water, and locked them into the cabinet inside the tent.

‘Johnson — you couldn’t let me see the cargo manifest?’

‘Captain… Galloway took it with him. He didn’t list the real cargo.’

‘I bet he didn’t.’ Christine pointed to the vermilion-shelled crabs that scuttled through the vivid filaments of kelp, floating like threads of blue electric cable. ‘Have you noticed? There are no dead fish or crabs — and you’d expect to see hundreds. That was the first thing I spotted. And it isn’t just the crabs — you look pretty healthy…’

‘Maybe I’ll be stronger?’ Johnson flexed his sturdy shoulders.

‘…in a complete daze, mentally, but I imagine that will change. Meanwhile, can you take me on board? I’d like to visit the Prospero.’

‘Dr Christine…’ Johnson held her arm, trying to restrain this determined woman. He looked at her clear skin and strong legs. ‘It’s too dangerous, you might fall through the deck.’

‘Fair enough. Are the containers identified?’

‘Yes, there’s no secret.’ Johnson did his best to remember. ‘Organo..

‘Organo-phosphates? Right — what I need to know is which containers are leaking and roughly how much. We might be able to work out the exact chemical reactions — you may not realise it, Johnson, but you’ve mixed a remarkably potent cocktail. A lot of people will want to learn the recipe, for all kinds of reasons..

Sitting in the colonel’s chair on the porch of the beach-house, Johnson gazed contentedly at the luminous world around him, a fever-realm of light and life that seemed to have sprung from his own mind. The jungle wall of cycads, giant tamarinds and tropical creepers crowded the beach to the waterline, and the reflected colours drowned in swatches of phosphoresence that made the lagoon resemble a cauldron of electric dyes.

So dense was the vegetation that almost the only free sand lay below Johnson’s feet. Every morning he would spend an hour cutting back the flowering vines and wild magnolia that inundated the metal shack. Already the foliage was crushing the galvanised iron roof. However hard he worked — and he found himself too easily distracted — he had been unable to keep clear the inspection pathways which Christine patrolled on her weekend visits, camera and specimen jars at the ready.

Hearing the sound of her inflatable as she neared the inlet of the lagoon, Johnson surveyed his domain with pride. He had found a metal card-table buried in the sand, and laid it with a selection of fruits he had picked for Christine that morning. To Johnson’s untrained eye they seemed to be strange hybrids of pomegranate and pawpaw, cantaloupe and pineapple. There were giant tomato-like berries and clusters of purple grapes each the size of a baseball. Together they glowed through the overheated light like jewels set in the face of the sun.

By now, four months after his arrival on the Prospero, the one-time garbage island had become a unique botanical garden, generating new species of trees, vines and flowering plants every day. A powerful life-engine was driving the island. As she crossed the lagoon in her inflatable Christine stared at the aerial terraces of vines and blossoms that had sprung up since the previous weekend.