74 THE FLEET

CHAPTER 74 THE FLEET Island animals were hiding and looking out to sea at a fleet of ships. Dozens of ships, in various shapes and sizes, were sailing together in a line that stretched for miles. But as the fleet drew nearer, the animals slowly realized that they weren't ships at all. They were robots. The mining station manager had promised to clean up the poison tide, and she was keeping her word. Specialized robots had been sent to follow the poison tide's path and to remove the toxic dust as they went. Different robots worked in different ways. Some had wide spinning drums that skimmed dust from the surface of the ocean. Others roamed the depths, using magnets to collect the metallic particles. Drones hovered in the sky and scanned for patches of gently shimmering water. Farther out, enormous robotic barges plowed through the waves.

There was movement in the shallows, and up climbed a swarm of small robots. Hundreds of them scuttled along the coast, removing any toxic dust they found. They crawled over rocks and down into tide pools and through the dead fields that ringed the island. The coastline was long, but there were so many small robots that they cleaned it in only a day. When the job was finished, they scuttled back into the ocean, and the entire fleet of robots continued south.