The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (19 page)

“Really?” says Kiz, quite surprised.

“
Oui
,
oui
,” says the captain. “Your PL name is Cassandra Stephens, you live in Rough Rock, Arizona, and you are regarded by the Hopi Indians as something of a shaman.”

Then Cousteau turns to Crystal: “Your PL name is Sonja Jörgensen, you live in Copenhagen, you write, and you work in a library part time.

“Igloo Iceman’s PL identity is none other than the well respected Dr. Conrad Adler from the University of Colorado, though you spend most of your time above the arctic circle researching the effects of climate change.” Cousteau smiles and then observes, “We are also aware that Igloo Iceman is building an Ark. An auspicious undertaking,
monsieur
!”

We are all astonished into silence, but that hardly matters, as Captain Cousteau is happy to maintain the conversation.

“Our friend Omar Paquero from Anapu, Brazil is also known as Dorothy Stang, a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, an international Catholic religious order that works for social justice and human rights on five continents. In Brazil, she works with the Pastoral Land Commission, the Catholic Church’s arm that fights for the rights of rural workers, peasants and defends land reforms.”

“I always thought Omar was a ten-year-old kid from La Paz, Bolivia,” says Igloo.

Captain Cousteau continues: “Crystal Marbella, with the able help of Fizzy Oceans, works in Virtual Life to maintain and preserve the world’s great literature.

“And last but not least, Ego Ectoplasm (Artemis Quinn from Austin, Texas), has invented a brand new species. Congratulations on your vision and your accomplishment!”

“Ha-ha, ho-ho!” cackles Tooltech. (Jeff Beck blues riff on his Les Paul Jr.)

One might think, at the table of a lifelong seafaring man such a Captain Cousteau, that seafood would be the meal of choice, but that is decidedly
not
the case on this night aboard
Calypso
. Instead, a sumptuous vegetarian meal prepared from local recipes collected in Thailand, Madagascar, New Zealand and Libya is presented, and as always I consider it all-too-unfortunate that we are unable to actually taste the food. Nevertheless, Captain Cousteau keeps us utterly absorbed and thoroughly entertained with his ongoing monolog about his experiences exploring the sea and about encroaching environmental issues.

“In the early days, when Émile and I first invented SCUBA (Are you aware of how the term was derived? The now common word ‘scuba’ is actually an anagram for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus), well…the sea was a true frontier. Nobody had explored its depths simply because the equipment to breathe underwater did not exist. But we wanted to dive deeper, to explore the ocean floor, to learn whatever we could learn, so we invented the device now known as the regulator. And our design remains unchanged to this day!

“Invention is nothing more than a tool needed by an explorer that does not exist,” he advises. “So, if you need something, you make it.” His declaration seems as final as a judge’s gavel. He takes a long swallow of his wine and wipes his lips with his napkin. “A very agreeable vintage,
n’est pas
?” he comments to everyone and to no one. Nods of approval circle round the table, but it is obvious that Cousteau is no longer thinking about the Beaujolais; instead he is entrenched in the memory of an early dive undertaken with his friend Didi, and about how it had all gone so very wrong at a crucial moment, and about the greater issue of risk—personal risk and social risk—and when such risk is acceptable, and when it is
not
…

“Didi and I were diving in a region where deep underwater caves and crevices descend hundreds of feet below the greater ocean floor. Stalactites had been photographed on earlier dives, so we wanted to actually penetrate the fissures for a closer look, because we knew that if we could gather geological samples from the stalactites, we could prove that this particular area of ocean floor had once been above the water.

“Due to the extreme depth of the dive, every foreseeable risk was analyzed, and every possible precaution taken. You must understand that when you dive in open sea, all routes lead to the surface, but when you enter an underwater cave the only way out is to follow the path you took to go inside. So we fastened ourselves together with a stout lifeline, in much the same way mountain climbers do when ascending a dangerous peak. Two tugs on the line was the signal for those on board
Calypso
to feed us more rope; four tugs signaled them to pull us out. We understood the risks, but we were accustomed to such risks, because risk is the business of an explorer. Senseless risk, or careless risk, is never acceptable. But we knew our capabilities and understood our limitations. Or so we thought…

“Penetrating the crevice was an inspiring experience, but the deeper we descended, the darker it became. We used phosphorescent lighting to make our way through the caverns, all the while photographing like madmen. Suddenly, catastrophe struck: Didi’s air hose literally exploded from built-up pressure. He signaled to me, and I immediately came to his aid. Once I understood the problem, I began sharing my oxygen with him. We were already very deep, and we knew that we could not ascent too quickly for fear of getting the Bends. I tugged four times on the rope, the signal for those on board Calypso to pull us out. But instead of pulling us out, they fed us even more line.

“Of course, the only way out of the caverns—with their many intersections and twisting divergent tunnels—was to follow the rope. Yet now the rope had gone slack, so backing out of the fissure became a slow and laborious process. Every few moments we had to pause to share oxygen from my breathing apparatus—time that I knew we did not really have because the oxygen in my tank was being depleted at twice the normal rate of consumption.

“To make matters worse, Didi had apparently inhaled too much carbon dioxide before his hose had actually ruptured, so he was not only slow but barely coherent. I had to literally carry his all-but-inert body with me as we made our way painstakingly through the tunnels. At each level of ascent, we waited as our bodies adjusted to the pressure, and still far from the surface I realized that we did not have enough oxygen for both to make it to the surface.

“Here is the essential dilemma,” defines Cousteau as he pauses for the sake of drama and flashes his crooked smile at his longtime friend and diving companion (who was obviously still alive): “What is one to do in the moment that he realizes that he can save himself if he is willing to sacrifice his friend, or that he can remain with his friend to help, in which case both will probably die?”

All eyes are trained upon Cousteau’s fatherly face as each person waits for the captain to finish his harrowing tale, and I can hear Kiz’s anxious breath (as if she—not Didi—is the one in desperate need of a gulp of oxygen from the captain’s regulator), and I can distinguish Crystal’s heart throbbing in her chest (because her heart and mine seem always to beat in unison), and I feel Iggy’s chilly fingers as they tighten around my arm (Why is the Iceman’s touch so very cold?). We wait for resolution just as the two divers had waited for their salvation.

“This unthinkable circumstance, this life-and-death problem without a practicable solution, is one I knew I would someday face,” says Cousteau as he takes a sip of his wine and looks into the eyes of each person at the table to try to glean which might abandon his friend to save his own life, and which might risk his own death in the all-but-impossible chance that both might be saved.

“In that moment of decision, I must confess, my most powerful instinct was for my own survival. Rationally, I knew that remaining there to try to save us both was nothing short of a watery death sentence for me as well as my friend. Yet I chose to remain. Still many meters from the surface and sharing the last of my oxygen, I simply could not abandon my friend.”

“But neither of you drowned,” says Iggy.

“No, we did not drown,” confirms the captain. “Miraculously, and beyond my last hope, the rope tightened as the crew above began to pull us toward the surface. Somehow, the oxygen held out, though when we finally reached the surface we were both so depleted that we had to spend hours in the recompression chamber.

“For many months, and probably to this day, I wonder why I chose to risk my life against nearly impossible odds to save another human being. Certainly logic would have prescribed a different course of action, and even my instinct had to be suppressed to take such a decision. Yet I remained. Some probably thought it crazy; others thought it a gallant and selfless act. But I knew that it was neither. What I learned that day is that some personal risk is acceptable when taken in the service of humanity. And that, my friends, is what makes our species a noble one!

“Yet self-sacrifice to save another is not a singular trait of our species,” Jacques-Ives Cousteau continues. “Dolphins and whales have been known to do the same.”

“
Commandant
, we must not forget the supreme sacrifice made by our savior to cleanse the world of mankind’s sins,” reminds Sister Dorothy Stang.

Simone Cousteau audibly clears her throat, as if making space in a cluttered room, so she can enter the discussion: “
Tout au long de l'histoire du monde
, this theme of sacrifice and salvation has been played out again and again, first in deeds or physical circumstance, then in literature, as a documentation of redemption—until its meaning is systematically diluted and finally lost—then it is enacted yet again in actions and manners. It is an endless wheel, and an immature indulgence.”

“Surely there is a less drastic solution,” suggests Ego through his unlikely interpreter, the Quinngen. “There is little need for risk or for sacrifice, and no need to perish, when we can simply reinvent ourselves.”

“In NL, evolution has been reinventing life’s very composition since the beginning of terrestrial time,” observes Captain Cousteau.

“And some say that that glorious existence—life on this planet—may indeed be a quite limited affair as a result of our short-sightedness,” remarks one hundred-year-old Omar Paquero.

“The certain consequences of the unthinkable plundering of the Amazon Basin’s rain forests are now not only understood, but considered irreversible. This corrupt cataclysm, this wholly unnecessary catastrophe, was brought on us not by need of resources but by our own wanton greed, ant it is surely a stain upon the legacy of our ‘noble’ race,” laments Cousteau.

“But are you sure that it is irreversible?” Crystal asks the captain.

“The Amazon forest is the lungs of our planet. And this is no metaphor. Without the rain forest, the earth cannot breathe. Believe me; I know something about needing oxygen and not knowing from where it will come!”

“Which is why I think that VL is so important,” I affirm. “If the world as we know it is destined not to survive, then it becomes all the more important that we preserve whatever we can of our culture and our history so that someday, somebody…”

“Might learn from our mistakes,” the captain finishes with a hint of melancholy in his voice.

“Some of us might survive,” Iggy postures.

“Perhaps you are right, Iceman,” says Cousteau. “Indeed, I hope you are right. But FL, Future Life, will not resemble life, or civilization, as it exists today. I can’t say what it might look like. I suppose that will be up to those who sail upon your Ark to determine. And, for the record―”

“Yes, that is precisely my point!” I say.

“And a valid one it is, Fizzy Oceans!” says the captain.

Of course such dire prognostications concerning the future of our precious habitat are hard to contemplate. But contemplate them we must! The earth is a glorious place—or at least it once was—and as far as we know, nowhere else in the universe sustains what we define as life, so what are we to think when Captain Cousteau, who is without question the one human being who knows more about the womb of our race, not to mention all other life that exists under the sea and upon dry land, tells us that our fate—even our extinction—is all but inevitable? And still this highly rational, peace loving explorer maintains a degree of optimism…

“As scientists, and as philosophers too, we can analyze and conclude, and we can sound our trumpets of warning. Will our fanfares make a difference? Will they convince mankind to change his ways? I doubt it. Because Simone is correct: human beings, at least in PL, seem to have a profound proclivity to foul the place in which they sleep. It is a matter of deep-seated and abiding guilt, and rather than revel in his existence, and in the existence of the universe, man instead punishes himself, time and again, for his very existence.”

“Which takes us back to the Garden of Eden, the loss of innocence, the emergence of evil, and of course the redemption of the Christ,” says Sister Dorothy.

“And let’s not forget the last Great Flood,” says Iggy. “Talk about cleansing the earth!”

“Perhaps the concept of evil should be replaced by the concept of ignorance,” suggests Kiz.

“Or by lust, or greed, or negligence,” says Crystal.

“At any rate,” says the captain, “it seems all but certain that man has failed once again to care for his terrestrial habitat. The consequences are becoming evermore obvious, if not inescapable. Yet, even in the eleventh hour, we can suggest solutions. Or at least we can record an alternate vision. For the sake of posterity if not for discharge.”

“It’s very sad,” says Kizmet Aurora.

“Needless waste is always sad,” says Cousteau, “but the greater irony is that most of the damage is done in the name of profit. Of course such largesse is fleeting, and the ostensible enhancement of temporary gain is undermined by its ultimate cost.