Ill Wind

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Crashing through 20-foot waves, the supertanker Zoroaster drove through the Pacific night like a great steel behemoth.

Longer than three football fields and 170 feet wide, the Oilstar supertanker was one of the largest objects ever constructed. Weather and salt water had left a patina of blisters and rust on a deck that had once been painted silver. Behind the ship, the wake looked like a bubbling cauldron of green foam, lit by a wash of moonlight.

Four days earlier, the supertanker had left the Alaskan port of Valdez after filling its twelve massive tanks with crude oil piped from Prudhoe Bay. Fully loaded, the Zoroaster had churned out of the Gulf of Alaska, bound for the Oilstar refineries in the San Francisco Bay.

Oilstar representatives claimed the massive ship could function with a minimal crew of 28 because of highly efficient computer warning and navigation systems. Internal corporate memos included terms like “increased profit margin” and “downsizing.” Only the long, exhausting shifts broke the tedium for the crew.

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