The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

I nodded a yes and he convinced me to tell him about ‘our’ games in Nairobi.

‘Two things were important for me: surviving and playing soccer… then it became only one when men from al-Shabaab came to the fields where my brother Noor and I played. They scolded us because we wore short socks and played with a ball. Soccer was a decadent pastime for them… like alcohol, cigarettes or film. But Noor and I played it just the same, hidden. Our games ended when the bombs dropped.’

I took the Ike Kamau jersey from my backpack.

‘Here you can play without anyone saying anything to you.’

I gave him the empty coffee cup. ‘This ship is really odd.’

It was his turn to tell me something.

‘According to international law, it’s not a ship, but a micronation. First it was a bioconservation project funded by the United Nations, a bit like the seed deposits in the Norwegian Svalbaard Islands. Ever heard of it?’

I shook my head.

‘Then it was converted to manage the immigrant crisis in the Mediterranean.’

Three hills, in the middle of which ran a stream, recreated microclimates: temperate, desert and Mediterranean. My gaze wandered to the Mediterranean habitat where tens of drones hurried around like birds that watered leaves, cut branches, checked flowers and collected pollen, while some gardeners oversaw the operations to maintain everything green. Then, in the middle of the eucalyptus grove, I saw an impressive sequoia, its fronds shading half of the ship.

‘The habitats,’ Sergio continued, ‘are protected by geodetic cupolas one-hundred-fifty meters tall. Fresh water comes from a desalinator powered by solar energy.’

In the meantime, Billai had woken up and joined us.

‘How did you manage to create… all of this?’ she asked as if she’d woken into a dream. While I translated, Sergio showed us along a path.

Professor Kysmayo noticed us and joined up. His background as a radio journalist got the better of his sleepiness. When he wasn’t on the air with ‘Indie Reggae, Beats & Rock’, he edited a feature on technology.

‘We bought an abandoned aircraft carrier, and we modified it through a crowdfunding project. The hull belonged to Variago, an aircraft carrier in the same class as Admiral Kuznetsov launched in 1988 in Russia. In 2004 it was rebaptized Liaoning and sold to China to become a floating theme park, like Disneyland, but luckily it didn’t happen. We bought it for a token price to make a botanical garden. Ours is a scientific project approved by the United Nations, though now we’re more public transit for migrants,’ Sergio said with a laugh.

The ship flew its own flag: a sequoia styled green on a hull over a white background.

‘We can host seven thousand people. We grow crops and raise livestock. We have internet and 3D printers for any needs.’

‘Do you want to bring all refugees aboard?’ I asked, jokingly. ‘Like Noah’s Ark?’

‘Impossible. You’d need a hundred ships,’ Billai added, ‘and that only to evacuate the camp in Dadaab.’

‘In fact, we have another plan. When the time is right, we’ll head towards India and the southern seas.’

‘Somebody won’t like that solution,’ Kysmayo said.

Haziz and some other guys had boarded reluctantly. They’d continued to complain about wanting only Europe.

‘Once they feel better, they have to decide whether or not to retry their journey. We had to save them and let them know the risks.’

*

Streaks of lightning invaded the northern sky. From the Indian hinterlands the cloudy front advanced slowly, like a wounded animal with its head swaying. The weather warped ahead, rumbling and hiding every ray of sun. Lights descended on the water after flashing along incandescent segments.

Many of us retreated to the tents to safely enjoy this spectacle of light, water and wind, while others ran through the torrential rain to refresh themselves in song and laughter. Muna played with her son, alive thanks to the fact that he’d never been removed from his mother’s breast, from which he managed to suck every drop of milk she managed to produce without dying from dehydration.

But the celebrations were interrupted when a man came down from the bridge with a megaphone in hand.

‘Attention! Attention! They’ve detected a seaquake. Time of impact is four minutes.’

A sinister light whitened the sea. Billai curled into me.

‘It’ll never end… even the sea has it in for us.’

‘Would you have preferred to do as Haziz and his friends did?’

‘No, they’re crazy to return to Somalia and retry that hopeless journey. But what end will we meet?’

‘They say they wanted to retry, but their eyes said otherwise. We’ll meet a better end. I’m sure of it.’

In the middle of rolling waves four meters tall that battled the ship’s hull, another one appeared: it occupied all of the horizon, and judging by the distance, it must’ve been three times as high. Visibility lowered and a wall of water, misty with the gusts of wind, rustled the branches of the floating forest.

The pitch, already agitated every time the ship sank into the gulch of the waves, became insupportable. Songs and screams became complaints and curses. Those who danced before now grasped onto something, trying not to vomit.

The clamor escalated, an uproar of wind, pounding of water, a vibration like a drumroll beating the charge. Despite the five-hundred meter length and its scary tonnage, even the Green Ship suffered from the force of Nature.

When the tsunami washed over us, into every pore, nerve and muscle of our bodies, Billai, her lips trembling with fear and emotion, kissed me on the lips.

*

Once the storm ended, lights appeared on the horizon.

When we were closer, I made out numerous boats linked together by a series of ropes and jetties: together they all formed a type of flotilla.

None of us had any idea where we’d arrived, even though that assembly in the high sea didn’t seem to be our final destination. To find an answer, I went to Sergio, who was on the phone.

‘Where and when did it happen?’ he was asking someone. A