The Book of Strange New Things(43)

As if alerted by the sounds of dispute, BG abruptly hove into view.

‘Hey, Peter! How’s tricks, bro?’ The white woman was no longer at his side.

‘Excellent, BG. And you?’

‘On top of it, man, on top of it. We got the solar panels putting out two hundred and fifty per cent of our electric power now. We’re ready to pump the surplus into some seriously smart systems.’ He nodded towards an invisible location somewhere beyond the mess hall, on the opposite side from where Peter had explored. ‘You seen that new building out there?’

‘They all look new to me, BG.’

‘Yeah, well, this one is real new.’ BG’s face was serene with pride. ‘You go out there and look at it sometime, when you get the opportoonity. It’s a beautiful piece of engineering. Our new rain-collecting centrifuge.’

‘Otherwise known as the Big Brassiere,’ interjected Roussos, mopping up the sauce with a fragment of bread-crust.

‘Hey, we ain’t looking to win no architecture prizes,’ grinned BG. ‘Just figuring out how to catch that water.’

‘Actually,’ said Peter, ‘now that you mention it, it’s just occurred to me: Despite all the rain . . . I haven’t seen any rivers or lakes. Not even a pond.’

‘The ground is like a sponge. Anything that goes in, you don’t get back. But most of the rain evaporates in, like, five minutes. You can’t see it happening, it’s constant. Invisible steam. That’s a oxymoron, right?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Peter.

‘Anyway, we got to grab that rain before it disappears. That’s what me and the team been designing. Vacuum nets. Flow concentrators. Big, big toys. And what about you, bro? You got yourself a church yet?’

The question was asked lightly, as if churches were tools or other necessary supplies that could be requisitioned – which, on reflection, they were.

‘Not the physical building, BG,’ said Peter. ‘But that’s never been what a church is about. A church is made of hearts and minds.’

‘Low-budget construction,’ quipped Roussos.

‘Show some respect, *,’ said Mooney.

‘Actually, BG,’ said Peter, ‘I’m kind of in a state of shock – or happy astonishment would be a better word. Last night . . . uh . . . this morning . . . earlier today, Grainger took me to the Oasan settlement . . . ’

‘The what, bro?’

‘The Oasan settlement.’

The three men laughed. ‘You mean Freaktown,’ said Roussos.

‘C-2,’ corrected BG, abruptly serious. ‘We call it C-2.’

‘Anyway,’ Peter continued, ‘I got the most amazing welcome. These people are desperate to learn about God!’

‘Well, ain’t that a lick on the dick,’ said BG.

‘They already know about the Bible!’

‘This calls for celebration, bro. Lemme buy you a drink.’

‘I don’t drink, BG.’

BG raised one eyebrow. ‘I meant a coffee, bro. If you want alcohol, you’re gonna need to set up your church real fast.’

‘Sorry . . . ?’

‘Donations, bro. Lotsa donations. One beer will set you back a loooong way.’

BG lumbered towards the coffee bar. Peter was left alone with the two fat guys, who took synchronised sips from their plastic mugs.

‘It’s extraordinary the way you can be driven through a landscape for hours and yet not notice the most striking thing about it,’ reflected Peter. ‘All that rain, and none of it collected in lakes or reservoirs . . . I wonder how the Oasans cope.’

‘No problem,’ said Roussos. ‘It rains every day. They get what they need when they need it. It’s like, on tap.’ He held up his plastic mug to an imagined sky.

‘In fact,’ added Mooney, ‘it would be a problem if the ground didn’t soak it up. Imagine the floods, man.’

‘Oh!’ said Peter, suddenly remembering. ‘Have you heard about the Maldives?’

‘The Maldives?’ Roussos looked wary, as though suspecting that Peter was about to launch into an evangelistic parable.

‘The Maldives. A bunch of islands in the Indian Ocean,’ said Peter. ‘They got wiped out by tidal waves. Almost everyone who lived there is dead.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Mooney, impassive, as though Peter had just imparted a fragment of knowledge from a branch of science outside his own.

‘Wiped out?’ said Roussos. ‘That’s bad.’

BG returned to the table with a steaming mug of coffee in each fist.

‘Thanks,’ said Peter, taking hold of his. There was a jokey message printed on it: YOU DON’T NEED TO BE HUMAN TO WORK HERE, BUT IT HELPS. BG’s said something different. ‘Hey, I’ve just realised,’ said Peter. ‘These mugs are real plastic. I mean, er . . . thick plastic. I mean, not Styrofoam, not disposable . . . ’

‘We got better things to transport halfway across the universe than disposable cups, bro,’ said BG.

‘Yeah, like Hershey bars,’ said Mooney.

‘Like Christian ministers,’ said BG, without a hint of mockery.

My dear Bea, wrote Peter an hour later.

No reply from you yet, and maybe it’s a bit soon for me to be writing you another letter. But I couldn’t wait to tell you – I’ve just had a MOST eye-opening conversation with some of the USIC guys. It turns out I’m not the first Christian missionary that’s been sent here. Before me, there was a man called Marty Kurtzberg. A Baptist apparently, despite the Jewish name. His ministry was welcomed by the natives, but then he disappeared. That was a year ago. No one knows what became of him. Of course the men joke that the Oasans probably ate him, like in those old cartoons of missionaries tied up & getting boiled in a pot by hungry savages. They shouldn’t talk like that, it’s racist, but anyway I know in my heart that these people – the Oasans, that is – aren’t dangerous. Not to me, anyway. Maybe that’s a rash assessment, since I’ve only met one so far. But I’m sure you recall the times when you & I were witnessing for the Lord in some unfamiliar place/context, and we suddenly sensed that we should beat a hasty retreat if we wanted to stay alive! Well, I don’t get that feeling here.