The martyrdom of Likpato: Page 132

As many gentle boobettes, I do not like the ocean, this vast range of greenish water with unpleasant smell. There is no life in it, no activity, except this dreadful plankton which mercilessly absorbs all the carbon dioxide of our air, so far that it avoids any greenhouse effect and threatens our planet of an ice catastrophe. What a feeling of doom, of failure, of uncompletedness! Sometimes I dream of a limpid and fresh ocean, where strange smooth spindle shaped creatures would swim merrily, among rocks covered with multicoloured submarine flowers... As in the many legends of the occitan likpas which evoke the far paradise island of Haralik.

The ocean is frightening. Its appalling tempests perpetually roar in its far reaches, deadly sentinels forbidding any access to other parts of Likearth. Some years ago, the expedition of the Periwinkle, one of our six war ships which liberated Jamalika (See «The war of the Phallos») ended in a dreadful failure: a crisis of ionosphere yoyoting severed all the radio communication, and it was never possible to regain contact afterwards. Very likely the Periwinkle was crushed under the monstrous waves of the perpetual hurricane.

It is the heat stored in the ocean which produces this climatic violence, which isolates our islands. In former times the ocean was hot. However the difference of temperature still exists, as the climate is also cooling. So, snow fell on the Phallo's town two years ago, a never seen thing in the whole Phallo's History. And there is now snow every winter on the Breasty mount, while in Maggie's time (See «Maggie») there never was. Worse, some kinds of frost sensitive flowers and fruits are now very difficult to find...

It is told that in former times the plankton was so dense that the ocean was looking like soup. And sometimes the wind was pushing on the beaches several metres of this disgusting moss, which then was rotting for several months, with an awful stench.

And there was also the stinking tempests: A rust coloured haze suddenly comes from the far ocean, with such a pungent smell that people were fainting in the Phallo streets. It was then impossible to work and the least effort made people pant. Once, two ships sailing in an expedition toward the hypothetical Haralik island, were taken at the source of a stinking tempest. The rare survivors told a nightmarish story: the sea suddenly becoming red and boiling, the first ship sunk in only five seconds, without any damage, straight down without even overturning. The second ship owe its survival only to its greater distance from the phenomenon. The sailoress on the deck were falling as if thunderstruck, and only some managed to lock themselves in the hold, where they stayed three days before daring to get out. Nowadays, there are not so many stinking tempests, and I felt only once this unforgettable smell, acrid, metallic, chtonian, seeming to fall from the sky and fill the whole universe. The scientilikpaters found that stinking tempests are limnic eruptions, which sometimes release residues of the primitive atmosphere of our planet, still dissolved in the depth of the ocean.

Despite its violence, the ocean fascinates, and numerous gentle boobettes (and before them the scraguns) build ships and travel around our islands, and this explains why our harbour is so active. The scraguns also have a harbour, but they are submitted to restrictions in travelling, to protect the Jamalika and other small islands in the surrounding. The likpas too have their likport, but they cannot build likships large enough, so they prefer submarines.

But the main activity in the harbours is dredging coal. (Note of the author: nowhere on Likearth there is anything like coal mines or oil). The bottom of the ocean is covered with ten to twenty metres of kerogene and peat, residues of the primitive atmosphere of our planet, which eight thousand years ago was hurled down in the bottom of the ocean by the famous plankton. So, since the beginning of the industrial era, many black ships dredge this bad smelling sludge, which is the basis of the phallo's industry, and gentle boobette's and likpa's as well. This coal can be burned as it, but it can also be distilled. It thus gives gasoline for cars, lubricants and other chemical products, tar and coke for iron making. It is a plant of this kind which killed Maggie's husband (See «Maggie»). The iron-making coke does not need adding flux, as it already contains dolomite, remain of the plankton's skeletons. At last everybody thoroughly save the coal cinders, for making cement (Note of the author: there is no limestone on Likearth). To burn coal is also good to reinforce our declining greenhouse effect, but the scientilikpaters say that we should burn thousands times more to avoid the ice catastrophe announced for fifty years ahead.