176 The Mystery of Angel Island (1/2)

The captain of the boat they were sailing on attempted a smile, It wasn't a successful attempt.

”It's a ship,” he said weakly.

”I can see it's a ship! I'm asking once again: what is this? You told me no one had any ships!”

”I am sure no other colony has managed to build a ship. It must be a government ship.”

”Government? What are you talking about?”

”I meant the colonial administration. Everyone calls them the government.”

”Turn around. We're going home.”

”But you said - ”

”Turn around! It doesn't matter what I said earlier. This ship changes everything.”

”You'll have to move, senor. The sail - ”

”Yes, yes,” Morales said irritably. Keeping a hand on the gunwale to steady himself, he followed the captain to the rear of the boat.

The boat was a large pirogue outfitted with a single, triangular sail and crab claw rigging: two spars joined to form a V. The sail was huge, and could be turned almost through a complete 360-degree circle thanks to the rigging, originally invented by Polynesian sailors in prehistoric times. It made the pirogue a very agile vessel: it was capable of sailing almost directly into the wind while maintaining respectable speed.

The sail was more than just a means to propel the boat. To Arturo Morales, it was a symbol of his own ingenuity and ability to get things done.

Just a little over three months earlier, Arturo Morales was visiting a recycling facility he owned in California. Back in his native Mexico, Morales was known as the King of Trash. He had very consciously chosen that career path upon graduating, with some difficulty, from a rural secondary school.

His graduation difficulties weren't caused by a lack of intelligence on his part. While his peers threw themselves into looking for jobs, Arturo spent a full month thinking about his next move. He wasn't satisfied with flipping hamburgers to become, one day, an area manager for a fast food chain. In past days, he would have seriously considered a career as a narcotraficante. However, the widespread legalization of most drugs had seriously eroded the profit potential of all drug businesses while maintaining, even increasing, the unpleasantly high mortality rate that went with the job.

The secret to a profitable career was finding a service or a product which would be always in demand, more - a service or a product for which demand would grow and grow as time went by. After a month of hard thinking, Arturo Morales decided he would focus on trash.

Arturo Morales focused on recycling electronic equipment. Every piece of electronic equipment, even the cheapest mobile phone contained precious metals. Gold was a better electricity conductor than silver, and silver was a better conductor than copper. A computer could contain up to quarter gram of pure gold. The combined value of gold, silver, copper, and platinum in an average cellular phone was well over half a dollar.

After many years of effort, Mr Morales owned a string of companies specializing in the disposal of electronic trash. He was paid to take it away, and the second payoff came when the valuable metals were extracted in furnaces that pumped toxic smoke into the atmosphere. But truly, the amount of pollution they caused was next to nonexistent when compared to the pollution created by tourism.

A single jet full of holidaymakers en route to an exotic destination produced more pollution than a furnace burning plastic around the clock. And this was just the top of the iceberg. For most people, a holiday involved an orgy of consumption in all of its shapes and forms. Popular tourist spots employed armies of garbage collectors that were always falling behind with their work. It just wasn't possible to keep up with the trash output of someone on a holiday.

Compared to all that, Mr Morales' chosen business was saintly in its care for the environment. Mr Morales was the proud recipient of many environmental awards, and the happy recipient of numerous government grants and subsidies that allowed him to operate at minimal cost. He was performing a community service! And at the very end of the process, he was paid in silver and gold.

When the catastrophe struck, Arturo Morales was visiting the recycling plant he owned in California. It was located in a former gravel pit just east of Vallejo, on the northern coast of the long, multi-named bay that stretched between the Pacific Ocean and the mouth of Sacramento River. Some of the plant's imported, Mexican workers were living in shacks erected along the bank of Sulphur Springs Creek east of the plant. They reported a glowing cube had appeared atop one of the hills surrounding the creek. Some babbled about aliens, others - about the second coming of Christ.

Morales was quick to investigate the cube, and reported it to the authorities after a day's delay. During that 24-hour period, he helped himself to several thousand implant kits from the cube along with hundreds of hiber beds and documentation scrolls. He instantly saw that he had been offered the business opportunity of a lifetime. All the top economic thinkers said that 'crisis' and 'disaster' were just different names for 'opportunity', and they were right!

By January 10th, Arturo Morales had a fifty-strong colony going in the New World. By January 20th, he had implanted over a thousand plant seedlings, and exported them to the New World. The seedlings mostly included food crops: corn, onions, potatoes and tomatoes. They also included one of the most versatile, most useful plants in existence.