Lake Baikal

Polly woke up on the fifth morning and the world had become water.

Polly vågnede på den femte morgen, og verden var blevet til vand.

The train was running along the southern shore of Lake Baikal. The lake filled the entire window: not a lake so much as a sea, except for the perfect stillness and the impossible clarity of the colour, which was a blue that seemed to start somewhere deep below the surface and rise up.

Toget kørte langs den sydlige kyst af Bajkalsøen. Søen fyldte hele vinduet: ikke så meget en sø som et hav, bortset fra den perfekte stilhed og den umulige klarhed i farven, som var en blå, der syntes at starte et sted dybt under overfladen og stige op.

Igor, the fisherman, had been awake for two hours. He was at the window with a small notebook.

Igor, fiskeren, havde været vågen i to timer. Han stod ved vinduet med en lille notesbog.

"Baikal," he said. "It is the deepest lake in the world. One thousand six hundred and forty-two metres at its deepest point. It is also the oldest lake. Twenty-five million years old. Most lakes fill in with sediment over time. Baikal is in a rift valley that is still growing. The bottom drops faster than the sediment can fill it."

"Bajkal," sagde han. "Det er den dybeste sø i verden. Et tusind seks hundrede toogfyrre meter på det dybeste punkt. Det er også den ældste sø. Femogtyve millioner år gammel. De fleste søer fyldes med sediment over tid. Bajkal ligger i en rift dal, der stadig vokser. Bunden falder hurtigere, end sedimentet kan fylde den."

The water outside was so clear that Polly could see boulders on the lake floor in the shallow areas. The clarity is up to forty metres in the right conditions.

Vandet udenfor var så klart, at Polly kunne se klippeblokke på søens bund i de lavvandede områder. Klarheden er op til fyrre meter under de rette forhold.

"It also holds," Igor said, "twenty-three percent of all the unfrozen fresh water on Earth. More than all the North American Great Lakes combined."

"Den indeholder også," sagde Igor, "trefirs procent af alt det ikke-frosne ferskvand på Jorden. Mere end alle de nordamerikanske store søer tilsammen."

Polly looked at the lake. It did not look like twenty-three percent of anything. It looked like a single still blue thing.

Polly kiggede på søen. Den lignede ikke trefirs procent af noget som helst. Den lignede en enkelt stille blå ting.

The train stopped at Slyudyanka station. Igor got off. He shook Polly's wing tip with two fingers, gravely. "Three days fishing. Then home." He waved through the window and was gone.

Toget stoppede ved Slyudyanka station. Igor steg af. Han rystede Pollys vingespids med to fingre, alvorligt. "Tre dages fiskeri. Så hjem." Han vinkede gennem vinduet og var væk.

For three more hours, the train ran the shore. A group of Baikal seals popped their heads above the surface a kilometre offshore. They are the world's only purely freshwater seal species.

I tre timer mere kørte toget langs kysten. En gruppe af Bajkalsæler poppede deres hoveder op over overfladen en kilometer ude. De er verdens eneste rent ferskvandssæler.

Polly thought about scale. Below her was water older than her species. Inside that water was a tiny pink shrimp called Epischura that did not exist anywhere else on Earth. It kept the lake clear. It had been keeping it clear for twenty million years.

Polly tænkte på skala. Under hende var vand ældre end hendes art. Inde i det vand var en lille lyserød reje kaldet Epischura, der ikke fandtes andre steder på Jorden. Den holdt søen klar. Den havde holdt den klar i tyve millioner år.