Through the narrow tank he studied the blurry forms of other bar-goers busy in pantomimes of leisure. A circle of dogs sniffed one another’s ears and asses. On a carved fake branch two eagles groomed themselves, pausing after every few strokes of beak through feather to stare at each other. Beside a potted palm stood a motionless horse. The plant seemed to be its own kind of captive creature, one whose body was a single leg topped by a head of green frond hair. Just another transplant. Alfonzo caught himself in a mirror as the dark blue fish in the aquarium jerked down through the water and into a fake rock crevice.

In the last few years, animal society had exploded with furious debates about the ethics of aquariums, and of the question of sea-life sentience in general. What are sea creatures? Are they animals like us, or are they different? What do we owe them, if anything? This unsettled conflict between land and sea had a history that stretched back to ancient times, but it had been newly stirred up by Hurricane Sparky. The arguments were furious and had far-reaching implications. There were many factions. Alfonzo tried to follow the subject by reading The Atlantic and Barker’s, but sometimes he found it too depressing.

Some animals became entrenched in the position that aquariums were harmless, even kind institutions. These animals contended—in letters to the editor and in quasi-academic treatises—that they were motivated by the pure and altruistic desire to keep fish and other “lower beings” safe. They on the land should act as caretakers for those aquatic animals who were capable only of drifting through existence. This position had powerful backers, including the city’s own Mayor Shergar. He was known to be a great aquarium lover. So much so that he had installed luxury aquariums in his many residences and in his office in City Hall. When he was first campaigning, Shergar chose to stand beside a tank with a few small sharks for his first magazine photo spread.

Then there were others who made no claims to altruism. Scientists who devoted themselves to testing whether sea creatures could even feel pain. Philosophers who argued that even aquatic mammals weren’t deserving of respect, being turncoats who’d abandoned the true struggle on land. The sea was a maternal embrace, and so they were eternal infants: only those on land had grown up.