title: Pump Six and Other Stories
author:  Paolo Bacigalupi 
description: Starred Review. Bacigalupi's stellar first collection of 10 stories displays the astute social commentary and consciousness-altering power of the very best short form science fiction. The Hugo-nominated The Calorie Man explores a postfossil fuel future where genetically modified crops both feed and power the world, and greedy megacorporations hold the fates of millions in their hands. The People of Sand and Slag envisions a future Earth as a contaminated wasteland inhabited by virtually indestructible post-humans who consume stone and swim in petroleum oceans. The Tamarisk Hunter deals with the effects of global warming on water rights in the Southwest, while the title story, original to this volume, follows a New York sewage treatment worker who struggles to repair his antiquated equipment as the city's inhabitants succumb to the brain-damaging effects of industrial pollutants. Deeply thought provoking, Bacigalupi's collected visions of the future are equal parts cautionary tale, social and political commentary and poignantly poetic, revelatory prose. <i>(Apr.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: **Death at the Clos du Lac**
  
   **Adrian Magson**
  
  ![](Images/image00172.jpeg)
  
  _For my parents, who showed me France._
  
   _And Ann, of course, who knows where Rocco lives_
  
   **Chapter One**
  
   **Spring 1964 – Picardie, France**
  
  The man was standing on the bottom of the therapy pool in the Clos du Lac
  sanitarium, his white cotton shirt billowing out like gossamer in the clear,
  blue water. Staring up through the glass-panelled roof at a pale, three-
  quarter moon bathing the world in an eerie light, his expression was one of
  deep melancholy. But that may have been because his face was some way beneath
  the surface, and breathing was a thing of the past. _Garde Champêtre_ Claude
  Lamotte’s rubber-soled boots crunched with grit as he moved along the side of
  the pool for a closer look. Behind him a woman in a nurse’s uniform was
  sobbing quietly, reluctant to come closer. Somewhere in the distance a door
  creaked open and shut repeatedly, a lonely drumbeat in the night.
  
  The combination of sounds