The Adventures of Anna Atom

PART I

ANNA ATOM AND THE ADMIRAL’S ARK

Chapter 1

THE PIRATE’S DAGGER

Sometimes the smallest decision can change the way things turn out. For example, one afternoon a hammerhead shark decided to visit the reef around Monpetit Island. If its instinct had led it to find dinner elsewhere, the world might now be a cold, dark place with very little life on it.

As it happened, we had a narrow escape. But for the shark, it turned out to be a very bad choice.

The warm water of the Indian Ocean is home to all kinds of creatures.

Almost exactly in the middle of this great mass of water just south of the equator, a group of tiny green islands basked in the sun. The sea here was shallow and still. If you were standing on the deck of a passing ship – sailing, say, from Madagascar to India – you’d find water so clear that you could see the world beneath. You’d see shadows of large creatures making their way over the veiled sea floor, like planes crossing the skies of the world above. Maybe a school of flying fish would pierce the surface to surprise you, and leap up into the air before they disappeared again into the mysterious depths.

Where it was shallower, coral reefs formed dark patches and sandbanks turned the water a brighter blue. Dolphins played in the waves, and sometimes you could spot the reef’s colourful fish swimming below.

If you were lucky enough to live on one of those beautiful little islands, as Anna did, you’d have summer throughout the year – you wouldn’t even need to keep winter clothes. You’d never have to be careful crossing a busy street in peak traffic, and you’d never run out of games to keep you busy on lazy afternoons.

On just such a Thursday afternoon, Anna had gone swimming in the shallow water surrounding Monpetit Island. She was inspecting her collection of sea slugs, which she kept in a natural aquarium on a coral reef. It was already late and she’d only just returned from school after a long, boring day.

Sea slugs are beautiful snails without shells, and some of them are more colourful than butterflies. Like miniature dancers, they twirl their bright, frilly skirts over the reef. Anna collected different kinds of sea slugs from all over the islands and kept them in her submerged sea garden, where they grazed on sea sponges and anemones, content in their small world.

Even in the fading light, the coral reef was colourful – the last beams of the setting sun sifted through the clear water and brushed the backs of bright tropical fish. Anna always felt at ease in the ocean. She felt the heat of the day leaving her skin as she glided through the cool water. Here, she could forget the voices of her teachers and school friends. This was her world, a space of filtered light and muted sound.

Anna slowly kicked her flippers and gracefully propelled herself through the warm water. She knew the names of most of the creatures that lived here. As she swam through a school of small fish, she counted their stripes: five dark horizontal stripes, and a yellowish hue over their backs. These were called sergeant majors, and there were a lot of them around. To her left, a long yellow trumpet fish floated lazily over a giant anemone, and a cloud of small Blue Petes patrolled a rock covered in bright sponges and sea stars.

She didn’t spot him, but from his resting place under a huge mushroom-shaped coral, a sleepy hawksbill turtle watched Anna with hooded eyes. She didn’t look hungry or dangerous, he decided, and slid back to his lazy dreams of lady turtles and long voyages through the open sea.

Anna had learnt to swim before she even could walk. She knew how to use sea currents and her own natural buoyancy to glide as gracefully as any fish. But there was something unusual about this girl swimming along just under the surface of the tropical ocean: she had no snorkel or scuba gear, but she never broke the surface to breathe.

How was she doing it?

To answer this question, we need to understand a bit about Anna’s family. Her parents especially. They were no ordinary parents: they were scientists. And they were no ordinary scientists: they worked for a society that controlled the most advanced technology in the world, ever.

Because of a few of her scientist parents’ clever gadgets, Anna didn’t need bulky diving gear to see and breathe underwater. Instead, she was wearing a pair of purple waterspecs that fitted snugly around her eyes. The mask was much lighter and smaller than an ordinary diving mask, and it gave her a perfect 180-degree view of the underwater seascape. She also had a small aquabreather in her mouth. Her father had developed the aquabreather years before, when he still lived on Earth. It worked in the same way as the gills of a fish, allowing her to suck breathable oxygen directly from the seawater, and letting the oxygen-stripped water out again through two small vents at the side of her mouth.

She didn’t need any tanks to be refilled. This way of breathing automatically equalised the pressure in her inner ears, and as long as she didn’t go too deep, she didn’t even need to make decompression stops when she returned to the surface.

She could stay underwater for hours!

Monpetit Island is just eight degrees south of the equator. In the tropics, the days are always the same length of time. The sun always seems to be right above your head until just around six o’clock, when daylight suddenly fades. The sun dives quickly towards the horizon, its last rays painting the sky orange and pink.

And that is exactly what was happening now. As the sun set, the reef’s bright colours faded into soft blue shadows.

It is not such a clever idea to be in the water at early dawn or at dusk. This is the time when hungry sharks often come from the great depths beyond the reefs to hunt in the shallow water close to the shore. Anna knew this, but she had a problem: annoyingly, during the week she had to go to school for most of the day. And so on most afternoons, as soon as Ton had brought her home in the small motorboat, she would rush out to the water to enjoy a long-awaited swim.

Ton knew there was no use in arguing with her and trying to stop her from swimming when it got late. The only thing he could do to keep her safe was to fashion a special shark alarm for her, which she wore strapped to her wrist like a watch. The alarm worked like miniature sonar, warning her if any large creature swam too close. It sent out ultrasonic sound waves into the water, and beeped if it sensed something approaching. A small, luminescent picture of the detected creature would then flash on the screen. Usually it was a ray, or sometimes just a turtle.

Ton was good at making clever things like that. Although he had been working on the island ever since Anna could remember, he’d actually only arrived after the admiral’s accident. Anna’s mother had realised that she would need help raising the children, and she had placed an advertisement for a general manager in the local newspaper.

Ton had been the first person to respond.

Ton was almost seven foot tall, and he was incredibly strong. His shoulders were like the granite rocks some islands are made of, and his arms were as thick as the trunks of the takamaka trees. His head was shaved, and the skin of his scalp was as shiny as a cannon ball. Despite the tropical heat, he always dressed himself in a black suit, a crisp white shirt and a tightly knotted tie, but he kept his feet cool by wearing blue-rubber slip-slops, each one as big as a small boat.

Right from the start, Ton had proved to be efficient and very clever. He was a great cook, and often used the coconut from palm trees in his cooking and baking, and he grew his own vegetables. The children loved the way he could create a solution to every problem. One might not suspect that such a big and intimidating man would be able to make something as small and complicated as Anna’s shark alarm, but Ton had delicate fingers. He could build or repair even the most sensitive electronic equipment – things that couldn’t be bought in shops.

He also played the violin.

No one knew where he had learnt all these skills, and Ton avoided answering questions about his past.

Anna peered into a dark crevice at the bottom of a staghorn coral, where a grumpy old moray eel lived. He knew her well, but didn’t welcome her visits. Anna liked to tease him, but she knew better than to poke her fingers into his cave. His mouth was full of small, sharp teeth, ready to snap.

Suddenly the shark alarm on her wrist began to beep urgently.

But at the same moment, Anna’s eye caught the glimmer of something shiny on the sea floor, and she decided to ignore the alarm.

Probably just those rays I saw just now, she thought, swimming towards the shiny object.

A piece of metal was sticking out from underneath some broken coral. It was wedged firmly into the sea floor, and she could see that the tide had worked the sand loose around it.

I must have swum over it a hundred times, she thought, and never noticed it. She tugged at the coral-encrusted metal.

The smooth blade of a dagger slid out of the sand, a final ray of the sinking sun glinting on the metal.

The huge hammerhead shark rushed towards her.

As it passed over her like a deadly black submarine, its charging body created an underwater current that lifted Anna’s short, dark hair from her scalp. The shark turned and circled back.

Hammerhead sharks are ugly. Their eyes bulge from the sides of their T-shaped heads and rows of vicious triangular teeth protrude from their mouths. They are dangerous and vicious.

Anna knew that, and her blood turned to ice. This one was big, and it looked hungry.

The shark aimed its attack at the glint of sunlight in the girl’s hand. Anna lost her grip on the dagger as the shark bumped her arm, its great mouth closing on the blade.

That was a stupid mistake, even for a dumb shark. The sharp metal edge cut deeply into its lower jaw. The hammerhead shook its head in frustration and pain, and spit out the dagger in disgust. Trailing blood, it slunk away to look for more harmless prey.

Through a wave of relief, Anna realised that she was yet not out of danger: the blood in the water would attract more sharks. Already the alarm on her arm was beeping.

Despite her fear, she darted over to pick up the dagger from where it was resting on the sea floor.

You’re not going to let me lose this, mister shark! she thought as she tucked the hilt of the dagger into the neckline of her swimming costume. Then she turned and swam towards the shore as fast as her fins could propel her.

Mutt was waiting for her on the beach. He barked excitedly and hopped around, making triangular footprints in the sand. His steel paws had rubber soles for better traction and to make less noise when he ran along the wooden-floored corridors of the Atom family house.

The little robotic dog was crammed with sophisticated hardware and advanced computer programmes. His manufacturers may have had a spaniel in mind when they designed him: he had long rubber ears that flopped down around his round silver body, and his glass eyes seemed to droop just right.

Anna loved Mutt. For her, he was better than any real puppy.

Just like a real dog, Mutt sniffed at the coral-encrusted dagger Anna was holding. His electronic sensors detected the smell of seawater mixed with a faint trace of shark blood, so he growled. The dagger also had a strong scent of his favourite person, Anna. The familiar smell made him wag his rubber tail with joy.

Anna was feeling shaky after her encounter with the shark. With Mutt at her feet, she sat down on a rock and watched the daylight drain from the sky. The sea shimmered like molten lead as the first stars pierced the sky. Soon, the tiny island would be covered by the ink-black blanket of night.

Anna fingered the cold metal dagger. What a treasure – and it had saved her life! Excitement flood over her, quickly erasing the memory of the shark.

As she walked home with Mutt, the Milky Way turned the dark sky into a blaze of starlight. Nowhere on Earth are the heavens so beautiful as over a tiny island in the middle of a great ocean, far away from the constant flickering lights of big cities.

Behind them the sea, now dim and mysterious, heaved a low sigh.

Chapter 2

TROUBLE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC

In her laboratory in a cave deep under Monpetit Island, Professor Sabatina was staring at a spot in the South Pacific Ocean on the enormous hologram of the earth. She frowned. Something was wrong.

The 3D globe projected by the Global Environator was as tall as a house and took up most of the space of the subterranean laboratory. A hologram may be nothing but a dazzling display of laser light, but the projection of Earth looked very real as it floated above a silver platform. It was wonderful to see! The ice cap of the North Pole almost touched the dark ceiling above. In real time, the pale blue-and-green globe slowly spun on its axis. One half glowed with sunlight, and on the dark side bright lights sparkled from the positions of large Northern-hemisphere cities like clusters of diamonds.

Professor Sabatina hovered over the shimmering globe like a giant in space. Then her seat slid gracefully sideways along a circular tract: by swivelling a lever on the control panel in front of her, she could adjust her position towards any point on the hologram that she wanted to inspect more closely.

The deep shadow of night crept slowly across the Indian Ocean towards the Horn of Africa. As it crossed the little island of Monpetit, a row of small porthole windows high in the northern wall of the laboratory also turned dark. But the professor was too busy with her work to notice. On the sunny side of the planet, the dry red sand of a great desert covered the northern part of the African continent, snow-white clouds were being driven by an invisible wind over the Atlantic Ocean, and the rough ridges of the Andes Mountains gave way to the rainforests of Bolivia and Brazil in South America.

Sabatina spent most of her days in the laboratory, working tirelessly with this great invention, the Global Environator. And she loved every moment. Nowhere else in the world was there a piece of equipment as sophisticated or as wonderful.

The purpose of the Environator was to monitor the environmental conditions of the earth. It could give early warning of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis or floods. The Global Environator was controlled by a supercomputer that was fed data by satellites orbiting in space, and weather stations from Arkansas to Antarctica, from Berlin to Beijing, and from Cuba to Cairo contributed to this great project. The international network of collaboration extended to zoologists counting elephants in Africa, entomologists looking for new insect species in the deepest jungle of the Amazon, and marine scientists measuring the pollution levels of the Red Sea. The great computer used all of this data to keep track of the state of the planet.

The supercomputer was so enormously intelligent that it had a personality all of its own. Not only could it figure out almost anything, and find solutions to the most complex of problems, but it also communicated to Sabatina by speech. The only problem was that its grammar circuits were a bit neglected: it muddled the plural with the singular, and jumbled grammatical rules of various languages to create a language all of its own. The result was that when it talked, it didn’t sound very clever at all.

Professor Sabatina was employed by an organisation called United Surveillance, better known as US. It was an international network of scientists that combined their efforts to monitor the planet’s ecology. The Global Environator on Monpetit Island was one of their most important projects. Guarding the earth was a very demanding job, and on top of this, Sabatina also had to look after her children. She had also been part of the team that had built the Environator years before. She had named the computer controlling it Max, in memory of a faithful German shepherd she’d had as a child.

She enjoyed gliding her seat around the magnificent hologram of the earth, discussing the weather with Max as if he was a close friend and colleague (which he was, in a way, because she spent more time with him than with anyone else.) She especially loved to watch the huge sea currents draw patterns on the surface of the oceans, even if she was irritated by the signs of environmental damage by a growing human population. The rain forests were shrinking rapidly and the cities were expanding, creeping like a rash across the surface of the beautiful planet.

Now, as she pushed her nose closer to the spot that had caught her attention on the surface of the South Pacific Ocean, a frown creased her brow. She pressed a dial on the keyboard and with an electronic beep, a datascriber popped up in front of her. A 3D image displayed current information about temperatures and wind speeds in the area.

It all seems normal enough, but still … Sabatina mumbled to herself, gliding towards a spot a little bit further to the south. Something there was definitely not as it should be.

What’s going on, Max? she asked.

Ah, we be talking. I thoughts you would never asks! the metallic voice of Max answered grumpily.

We really should do something about your grammar circuits, Max. You have some of the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world, but you sound like an idiot. But it seems we don’t have time for that today.

Sabatina ignored the long sigh that escaped from Max’s speakers, which were concealed somewhere in the roof above her head. It was followed by what sounded like the squeaking of a poorly oiled bicycle, and then a drawn-out twang, as if a rusty spring had been released somewhere in his intricate machinery.

Stop fooling around, Max! There’s no time for theatrics today. Get on with it! What’s happening between 20° and 30° south, just east of the Pitcairn Islands? Sabatina’s eyes were focused on the spot, the silver frame of her spectacles sliding down to the tip of her nose. It looks as if there’s an unnatural disturbance in the ocean, and an unusual low-pressure system is building up in the atmosphere. What on earth is happening there?

Aha, so you be not just asleeps! You notices! Max’s circuits were well versed in sarcasm, and now it was the professor’s turn to heave a long sigh. Max could be grumpy. Maybe one day, when she got around to it, she could reprogramme him to be a little bit more cheerful and optimistic.

The hologram was now displaying an image of seawater slowly churning in the South Pacific Ocean. A darker spot developed, with a circle of white foam swirling in its centre.

Suddenly a red light on the wall of the laboratory began to blink, and an alarm buzzed. Another holographic image popped up. Sabatina sighed again – this was no time for a virtual visit from her boss!

Mr Amsterdam reclined comfortably in an overstuffed chair as he floated at a slightly lopsided angle, about two metres above the floor of the laboratory. His image was slightly out of focus – it looked transparent and grey, and flickered occasionally as if he was about to burst like a bubble of soap. Sabatina knew that in real life he also looked sickly, and that the bluish tint to his long face was probably caused by smoking too many cigars and never sleeping for more than two hours at a stretch.

Even as a hologram, the director of US was not a welcome visitor to her laboratory: he was forever meddling, and Sabatina was annoyed to be interrupted in her work.

Wringing his pale fingers on his lap, he spoke with a frog-like voice. Professor, there’s some form of havoc in the ocean somewhere to the West of South America. I presume you’ve a report ready on this, and I would like to know why you are not keeping US informed.

Sabatina’s nostrils flared slightly. Max and I have noticed the disturbance. It only started two minutes and fourteen seconds ago – a bit early to expect a full report, don’t you think? But as you are here, I can already tell you that the disturbance appears to be originating from the sea floor itself, and it is causing high-frequency waves to pulse towards the surface. She tapped a few keys on the datascriber to produce some intricate graphs. See for yourself. It doesn’t have the characteristics of an ordinary earthquake. Max is monitoring weather patterns as we speak, and we’re also trying to ascertain if there is stratospheric turbulence caused by these abnormal oceanic conditions.

"Trying to? Mr Amsterdam asked dourly. With all of the equipment at your disposal, you should already have all the facts!"

From his speakers in the roof Max gave a soft snort, while silently feeding more information to the datascriber’s screen.

Sabatina continued to talk as she read from the screen. Have you received any reports of distress signals from sea traffic? Luckily there are very view ships in the vicinity, but shouldn’t you be tending to that rather than disturbing our work? She turned in her seat to fix an icy stare on the snail-like old man. Her eyes were an unusual shade of blue, almost purple, and although she had perfected the art of that cold stare, she had little hope that it would have an effect on the shaky hologram of her boss.

Mr Amsterdam lifted one corner of his long upper lip in a sneer. Then, with a short electronic snap, his image vaporised and vanished.

Well! Sabatina said in exasperation. So much for formalities! Really, Max, the society magazines need to come up with a new etiquette for virtual visits. Not even a ‘Goodbye, dear lady, and good luck with your relentless efforts to solve yet another environmental mystery!’ Well, at least we’ve got rid of him. She turned back to her work. So, what else can you tell me?

The computer remained silent for a while, as if in deep thought, and Sabatina could feel her stomach tightening – the great supercomputer never hesitated like that. With her long fingers, Sabatina nervously ruffled the spikes of her snow-white hair.

Max, the disturbance seems to be fading, and so is your attention, she urged. The data indicates that the shock waves, if that’s what they were, are rapidly losing amplitude. A large circle of high-frequency waves is now pulsing through an area stretching 1 000 kilometres from the epicentre. It looks like they’re high above the auditory limit. Is this dangerous?

Again, there were a few moments of silence as Max processed millions of megabytes of data. At last he spoke: Ha, apart from ticklings the gills of some little fishes, they may perhaps affects large rock formations and tectonic vaults. However, I doubts if the signal is strong enough.

Sabatina was not sure what to make of that – were the waves dangerous or not?

I looks in my data files about the possible effects of waves of such a frequency on sea life, he continued. You has to wait.

I’ve done enough waiting, Max! Sabatina replied impatiently. The whole thing, whatever it was, seems to be fading now …

The Environator was again projecting a placid scene over the South Pacific Ocean, and the flickering figures on the datascriber had also calmed down. Whatever it was, it had disappeared as quickly and unexpectedly as it had started.

Max, give me an update, Sabatina commanded.

Yes, boss. Of course, boss. Everything you says, boss!

But just before Sabatina lost her patience, Max started spurting out figures on the datascriber in front of her. She studied the details of the mysterious event. The disturbance had lasted precisely three minutes and five seconds, and had left no after-effects at all.

Sabatina slowly began to relax – it was as if nothing had ever happened, and to her relief, Mr Amsterdam didn’t make another appearance either. Yet she was still uneasy.

What had it been? What had caused it? Why had it happened?

The professor mulled it over with Max, checking and rechecking the data against his enormous memory banks. They could find no similar recorded episodes from anywhere else in the world, at any time. They could also find no natural explanation. They also double-checked all possible effects that the waves may have had on the earth’s ecosystems.

They worked until dusk had settled over the little island, and the time for the children’s supper was long past.

Chapter 3

MONPETIT ISLAND

Admiral Atom and his wife, Sabatina, had bought Monpetit Island just before Anna was born. It was one of the smallest of a group of beautiful tropical islands scattered almost in the middle of the Indian Ocean, just south of the equator. Their island was one of the many peaks of a mountain range that had disappeared under the sea millions of years ago. It was now covered with coconut palms and takamaka trees.

In the middle of the island, in the shade of some huge granite boulders, the admiral had built a house in the traditional Creole style. The roof was thickly thatched with dried palm leaves that shaded the interior from the harsh tropical sun. A broad veranda circled the house, and bamboo shades rolled down around its edges to keep out the tropical rain. Inside, huge fans whirled over all the rooms, stirring the air into a gentle breeze that always kept it cool.

A forest of breadfruit, mango and avocado trees surrounded the house. Wild vanilla and passion-fruit blossoms added their fragrance to the scent of the bark of an old cinnamon tree marking the footpath down to the sea. The beach was made of powdery white sand, and coral filled the shallow water around the island with life and colour. A myriad of fish and other creatures frolicked in the clear, warm water, and turtles came ashore at night to lay their eggs.

Next to a wooden jetty stood a small hut, and that was where the boat Ton used to take Anna to school and to run errands on the main island was moored. From the air or the deck of a passing ship, the little island may have looked like just another pretty picture on a travel agent’s website.

But this was no ordinary leisure island, because the beach hut also marked the entrance to Monpetit’s secret underground facilities, dug deep into its granite belly. Concealed inside the hut was the air-conditioning plant, and a trapdoor covered the stairs down to Professor Sabatina’s subterranean laboratory. In another part of the underground cavern, the family kept their more unusual vehicles, which were intended mainly for scientific purposes. The Jetcopter was seldom used, but when Anna was little, Sabatina had often taken her on scenic cruises in the Submarine Explorer, to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the island’s underwater world.

On an island like this, Anna’s life might have seemed perfect, except that these days Anna’s mom was always busy, and there wasn’t a lot of time for leisure. That, and the fact that an accident with an atom-displacement ray had confined her father to living in space. His molecules had become unstuck, and the earth’s gravity was too much for him: in his current form, he could only survive in zero gravity, at least until somebody figured out how to cure him. She missed her dad so much that it sometimes felt as if a dark shadow edged the bright tropical sun.

Anna’s little brother Pip wasn’t of much use to her either. Half-human, half-machine, he was the prototype of a new kind of biotron the US scientists were developing. He could run exceptionally fast and appeared to be inhumanly strong, amongst other things. But Anna understood little of all of that – she only knew that five-year-old biotron brothers are exceedingly annoying. Pip didn’t talk much, and when he did, he made no sense to her. He was clumsy and he broke her things.

So Anna played mostly by herself, with Mutt as her one constant companion.

Chapter 4

THE CREST OF THE