The Next Continent (3 page)

Officially, there were two reasons for choosing Gotoba. Because of the islands' stunning coral atolls, many of the proposals related to tourism. But the Gotoba plan was unique in combining surface recreation with an undersea leisure facility. As Gotoba's planning division put it: “Close by the shallow waters surrounding the islands, the continental shelf drops off to a depth of two thousand meters. Along with the coral and aquatic life of the atolls, these deeper waters contain rarely seen abyssal fauna. Research into these little-known life-forms can only be carried out here.”

The second reason was that the undersea facility could be useful for surveying the sea bottom. In addition to the three passenger shuttles, Gotoba's plans for Dragon Palace included a long-range commercial exploration sub. The combination of undersea base and exploration sub would allow detailed exploration of seabed resources, an endeavor difficult to coordinate from the surface.

There was also a hidden agenda behind the Spratly Islands Development Consortium's selection of Gotoba's proposal: the desire to exclude Western companies, which submitted more than half of the proposals, from any involvement. Even if they could no longer rely on military power to help enforce the spread of globalization, the West was still wedded to the old economic strategy: seize any opportunity to tie national markets into a global network for the ultimate benefit of a small number of investors. To combat this, Japan was the perfect partner—a diplomatic superpower that had abandoned its experiment with militarism, had preserved its constitutional commitment to peace, and was strictly neutral. Construction had begun in 2021. The project had three main components. The first, subject to careful environmental assessment, was expansion of the diving resort on Swallow Reef to accommodate more tourists and researchers. The second component was mooring facilities for the shuttle subs, complete with a floating dry dock. Finally, the undersea city: seven thirty-meter domes, two kilometers down on the seabed and five kilometers off Swallow Reef.

Once construction began, another reason for choosing Gotoba Engineering became clear to the consortium: no other company could have handled the job.

Drawing on the expertise of engineers who had precisely positioned the anchorages for the world's longest suspension bridge in the fast-flowing currents of Japan's Inland Sea, Gotoba's engineers placed the six-hundred-ton footing blocks for the domes on the seabed without breaking a single stalk of coral. In a mere six months, they completed the floating dry dock for maintenance and repair of
Leviathan
and her sisters with components and materials sourced exclusively from the consortium partners, accommodating their different languages and commercial customs in the process. To oversee this task, Gotoba tapped a maritime logistics expert who, during the Persian Gulf War, had managed the routing of tankers from the North Sea and the Gulf to Japan without delaying a single liter of oil.

But the real tour de force was the placement of the seven domes on the seabed. The domes were built in Japan, sealed, and towed all the way to the Spratlys. The sight of these enormous concrete structures moving through the ocean like icebergs was unforgettable. But when Gotoba's handpicked team deployed a five-thousand-ton sea crane to place the domes on their footings with an accuracy of fifty centimeters—controlling everything from the end of two kilometers of cable—the consortium knew it had witnessed a superhuman feat of engineering. After the two-week operation was completed, Gotoba's project supervisor just smiled. “The submerged tube tunnels in Tokyo Bay became our reference point. Those tubes were laid over the Yurakucho Layer. That's softer than tofu. We had to take our competitor's senior engineer out to the best club in Ginza. The evening cost us a fortune, but what he told us was enough to tweak our approach.”

Gotoba Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd. What sort of entity was it? How did it assemble such a crack team of engineers? How did it develop its techniques? As the rest of the world began to sit up and take notice, people were astounded at what they discovered.

Gotoba was behind the enormous Sahara Regreening Sector project—complete with an artificial precipitation generator—in a region where year-round humidity stood at zero. Gotoba erected the pitchblende refining facility for uranium extraction on Antarctica's East Ongul Island, where temperatures fell below minus forty degrees. They designed and built the year-round Upper Atmosphere and Cosmic Ray Observation Facility on the Abruzzi Spur of K2—the world's second-highest peak, in the Karakoram—with a twenty-five-kilometer aerial tramway access system that boasted a 4,400-meter free span between ropeway towers, the world's longest. In the field of extreme-environment engineering projects, Gotoba was matched by no organization on earth.

The company's president was fifty-seven-year-old Takumichi Gotoba. Born toward the end of Japan's high-growth era, he majored in earth science at Kyoto University. In the early 1990s, during the heyday of Japan's economic bubble, he joined a top construction firm. After working on planning for some of the futuristic projects that were so commonly proposed in those heady days, he quit and spent the next three years networking a broad range of movers and shakers inside and outside the industry.

In 2000, he founded the company that bore his name. Since then, this brilliant manager had applied his formidable expertise in civil engineering and applied technology, as well as his carefully nurtured personal connections, to build a leading specialist construction company in a mere twenty years.

As Dragon Palace approached completion, it came to light that the Taiwanese representative for the Spratly Islands Development Consortium had known Gotoba well during his days as a foreign student in Japan—they had bunked together in a tiny apartment for two months because the man was penniless. This fact was kept out of the papers, but no one in the consortium viewed it as a conflict of interest. It was obvious that Gotoba Engineering was the only entity capable of carrying the project to a successful completion.

Now Dragon Palace, a symbol of five nations' desire for peace, was about to go into operation far beneath the South China Sea. The next chapter in the Gotoba saga was about to begin.

LEVIATHAN
QUIETLY SETTLED
into the docking trench in the seafloor below Dome I, the gateway to the complex. The sub's two-hour journey ended when sixty air lock bolts snapped into place around its debarkation hatch. Submersible robots moved around the ship, examining the hull. Eventually, shuttles would be able to use an air lock dock in Dome VII, which was still being outfitted. This would allow manned maintenance at normal atmospheric pressure.

Sohya was first off the sub. He hurriedly briefed the waiting hospitality representatives—all in Hawaiian shirts to add to the resort atmosphere—on the unwanted cold shower the guests had just endured and ensured they would have first-class treatment at check-in. Then he quickly left. He had much more on his plate than leis and towels.

First he buttonholed one of the shuttle operations personnel to inform her of the incident. Next he visited the tourism manager to describe the unusual sighting of eel fry on the way to the complex. Then he made his way to the environmental control room to request a manned inspection of
Leviathan
by surfacing the boat ahead of schedule in Dome VII. But he was rebuffed by the supervisor on duty, who objected that there was not enough atmosphere in the dome to carry out the procedure.

All three subs faced the same danger, but the best way to address the problem was to carefully inspect the vessel where the problem occurred. Sohya's background was architectural engineering, but since joining Gotoba, he had been force-fed a wide range of knowledge from other engineering disciplines, and he knew that a submarine was a structure with a far lower safety index than a building. A well-designed building might be immediately usable after a major earthquake, but a submarine was different. He was determined to perform an inspection.

As he argued his case with the Malaysian supervisor, they were joined by Takasumi Iwaki, a short, tough-looking middle-aged man wearing a Gotoba uniform. He said brusquely, “Where've you been, Aomine? I've been looking all over for you.”

“Mr. Iwaki, we have a problem. The water tank design is flawed. I want to do a visual inspection of the hull.”

Iwaki was the head of Gotoba's Special Projects Task Force and Sohya's boss. The task force was a standing unit responsible for assembling and managing specialists from other departments for unusually challenging projects. Though it was small and independent, the task force held division status, and its members were known as Gotoba's “shock troops” for their rapid-response capability. As chief, Iwaki was naturally endowed with formidable intelligence. After hearing the bare details of the problem from Sohya, he nodded and raised his wrist to tap out calculations on the touch panel of his wearable computer. After a few moments he looked up.

“We brought one of the power units down early. The electrolytic oxygen generator is already in place. Use the spare power to generate atmosphere and get the rest of the water out of the dome. Keep the O2 tanks in reserve. It'll take you twelve hours, but the VIPs are spending the night anyway.”

The environmental control supervisor started sputtering. “Are you sure? We aren't scheduled to run the full power output test till just before oil exploration starts. If you do it now, you'll scramble my whole timeline.”

Iwaki stared at him calmly. “Better to get it out of the way. It'll make things easier later. Just move your timeline forward.”

“But that will throw us out of sync with the entire—”

“It's fine. I've already reconciled the plan.” Iwaki held out his wearcom for the supervisor to see. The man groaned.

“Okay, everything fits. But the plan has more than two thousand dependencies. How…?”

“Gotoba knows how to handle changes on the spot. This is routine. Leave it to us. All you have to do is follow the revised master plan and open Dome VII.”

The supervisor pulled out his phone—Iwaki had already emailed him the new timelines—and began contacting his counterparts in Materials Supply and Operations. Iwaki pointed to the exit. “I'll handle this. Better get moving.”

“To Dome VII?”

“No. Dome V, the theater. The president's looking for you.”

“Gotoba?” Sohya gulped. “What does he want with me?”

“I didn't know before, but I do now. It must be about your little incident. Just be careful.”

Sohya gulped again. “Okay.” He hurried toward the tube that gave access to the other domes.

The theater on the first floor of Dome V was the largest single space in the complex. As the name implied, its main purpose was for screening films, but it could also be used for staging plays, as a restaurant, or as an event space.

Today the theater was hosting a party to celebrate the completion of major work on the complex. Sohya and Iwaki still had a daunting amount of work ahead of them, but the hotel dome, deep-sea aquarium dome, and convention dome had already begun operations. As he walked into the theater, Sohya saw more than a hundred guests from the consortium nations enjoying a stand-up meal. Some of the passengers from
Leviathan
were there too. Apparently the hotel's express dry cleaning services were up and running.

Sohya spotted Gotoba almost immediately. He was standing in the center of the room, a broad-shouldered, vigorous-looking man with a drink in one hand. When Sohya saw him with the old man and the little girl from the shuttle, he understood why Gotoba was looking for him.

Since joining the company, Sohya had spoken to the president scarcely half a dozen times. He nervously fastened the top button of his uniform and approached.

“Mr. Gotoba? I'm Aomine.”

“Ah, there you are.” Gotoba smiled at him broadly. Sohya did not relax. The president was known for putting people at ease before suddenly lowering the boom. Rumor had it that real praise was dispensed with a word or two and little expression; that was when you knew he really meant it.

“Mr. Toenji here tells me you showed some quick thinking on the shuttle today. I'm proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Sohya answered.

“Do you have a solution worked out?” Gotoba was still smiling, but Sohya sensed that a casual answer would not do. He paused, then said calmly, “A temporary overflow outlet to limit the level of water in the tank. These will be installed on all three vessels right away. Once the shuttles are on the surface, we'll add proper drain-pipes and pressure gauges, followed by another round of sea trials.”

Sohya thought that would be enough, but Gotoba's expression did not change. He was a scientist as well as a businessman. Clearly Gotoba had an answer of his own already. Sohya hurriedly added, “And before we leave, we'll upgrade all the insulation on the nearby circuits. The water from the overflow outlet could cause a 220-volt short. That would be hazardous.”