Ship Breaker (11 page)

He dragged everything back to where the hull was cracked. He climbed down carefully, cradling everything in a net bag he found in the galley. The water was getting deeper, all right. It tugged and drew at him as he slogged out of the surf, keeping the food high. After ferrying everything from the ship, he noticed their rescued girl shivering and went back to the ship again. It was almost dark inside now. He found blankets of rich wool, damp but still warm, and dragged them out with the rest of the scavenge.

He crossed with waves at his waist, yanked about by frothing surf, holding the blankets over his head. He stumbled up on shore and dumped his load of blankets. He glanced at where the girl was shivering. “You still didn’t kill her, huh?”

“I told you I wouldn’t.” Pima jerked her head toward the shivering girl. “You got stuff for a fire?”

Nailer shrugged. “Nah.”

“Come on, Nailer!” Pima made a face of exasperation. “She’ll need a fire if you want her to live.” She headed back into the wreck, slogging through the rush of the darkening waves.

“See if there’s fresh water in there, too!” Nailer called after her.

He picked up the load of blankets and started hauling them to higher ground, hunting for something on the hillside that had a semblance of being flat. Eventually he found an area beside the roots of a cypress tree that wasn’t so bad. He started clearing space amongst the rocks and kudzu vines.

By the time he clambered back down to the shore, Pima had returned with a load of the clipper’s cracked furniture. She had also found a store of kerosene and a sparker in the mix of trash in the galley. After a few more times shuttling loads of food and fuel up to their camp, they finally hauled up the drowned girl. Nailer’s right shoulder and upper back burned with all the activity, and he was glad he hadn’t been forced onto light crew today. It was bad enough just doing this little bit of work.

Soon they got the furniture burning merrily, and Nailer cut slices of ham for them to gnaw on. “Good eating, huh?” he said, when Pima held out her hand for more.

“Yeah. Swanks live pretty damn good.”

“We’re pretty swank ourselves,” Nailer pointed out. He waved at the scavenged wealth around them. “We’re eating better than Lucky Strike tonight.”

As soon as he said it, he thought it could be true. The fire flickered before him, casting light on Pima and the drowned girl. Illuminating the bags of food, the sack of silver and tableware, the thick wool blankets of the North, the gold glittering on the drowned girl’s fingers, shining like stars in the crackle of the campfire. It was more than anyone in the ship-breaking yards had. And all of it was just wreckage for the drowned girl. Her wealth was huge. A ship full of food and luxury, her neck and fingers and wrists draped in gold and jewels, and a face more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. Not even Bapi’s magazine girls had been so pretty.

“She’s damn rich,” he muttered. “Look at everything she’s got. It’s more than even the magazines have.” In fact, he was realizing that the magazine pictures were pretending to reach this level of wealth, and yet somehow had no idea how to attain it. “You think she’s got a house of her own?” he asked.

Pima made a face. “Of course she has a house. All rich people have houses.”

“You think it’s as big as her ship?”

Pima hesitated, working over the thought. “I guess it could be.”

Nailer chewed his lip, considering their own rough shelters on the beach: squats made of branches and scavenged planks and palm leaves that blew away like trash whenever storms came.

The fire warmed and dried them and they were silent for a long time, watching as the furniture of the ship crackled and burned.

“Check it out,” Pima said suddenly.

The girl’s eyes, closed for a long time, were now open, watching the fire. Pima and Nailer studied the girl. The girl studied them in turn.

“You’re awake, huh?” Nailer said.

The girl didn’t respond. Her eyes watched them, silent as a child. Her lips didn’t move. She didn’t pray; she didn’t say anything. She blinked, staring at him, but still she said nothing.

Pima knelt down beside her. “You want some water? You thirsty?”

The girl’s eyes went to her, but she remained silent.

“You think she’s gone crazy?” Nailer asked.

Pima shook her head. “Hell if I know.” She took a small silver cup and poured water into it. She held it before the girl, watching. “You thirsty? Huh? You want some water?”

The girl made a weak motion and strained toward the cup. Pima brought the water to her lips and she sipped awkwardly. The girl’s eyes were more focused, watching both of them. Pima tried to give her more water, but she turned her face away and made to sit up instead. When she had pushed herself completely upright, she drew her limbs inward, curling her arms around her legs. The firelight flickered orange and bright on her face. Pima offered the water again, and this time the girl drank fully, finishing it and eyeing the jug wistfully.

“Give her more,” Nailer said, and again the girl drank, this time taking the cup in her own shaking hand. Water spilled down her chin as she drank greedily.

“Hey!” Pima grabbed the cup back. “Watch it! That’s all the water we’ve got tonight.”

She gave the girl a look of annoyance, then turned and rifled through the sack of fruit that Nailer had gathered. She came up with an orange that she sliced into wedges and offered to the girl. The girl took a wedge and ate greedily, then accepted another. She was almost feral in her fascination as she watched Pima slice chunks from the orange. But after another few bites, she lay down again, seeming to fold onto the ground with exhaustion.

She smiled weakly and murmured, “Thank you,” and then her eyes closed and she went silent.

Pima pursed her lips. She got up and pulled the blanket more fully over the girl’s still form. “Guess you’ve got a live one, Nailer.”

“Guess so.” Nailer didn’t know if he was relieved or saddened by the girl’s survival. She lay peaceful now, eyes closed, breathing deeply, asleep it seemed. If she had died, or been crazy, it would have been so much easier.

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” Pima muttered.

I
F HE WAS HONEST
with himself, Nailer could admit he had no idea what he was doing. He was making it up as he went along, some new version of a future, and all he really knew was that this strange swank girl needed to be part of it. This rich girl with her diamond nose jewel and her gold rings and fingers all intact, with her dark glittering eyes alive instead of dead.

He sat on the far side of their furniture fire, arms wrapped around his knees as he watched Pima give her the rest of the orange. Two girls, two different lives. Pima dark, strong, and scarred, tattooed with light crew information and lucky symbols; crop-haired, hard-muscled, and sharply alive. This other one, a far lighter brown, untouched by sun, with long black flowing hair, and movements all smooth and soft, polished and precise, her face and bare arms unmarred by abuse or stray wiring or chemical burns.

Two girls, two different lives, two different bits of luck.

Nailer tugged at his wide-bored earrings. He and Pima both had their share of marks, everything from the tattoos that let them work the crews, to their own carefully worked ink skin scars, showing blessings of the Rust Saint and the Fates. But this girl wasn’t marked at all. No decorative tattoos, no work marks, no light gang tats. Nothing. A blank. He was a little shorter than her, but he knew he could kill her if he had to. He couldn’t beat Pima in a fight, but this one, she was soft.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

Nailer startled. The girl’s eyes were open again, watching him across the fire, reflecting the blaze of shattered ship furniture and picture frames. “Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?” she whispered.

Her words were cultured, exquisite in her mouth, clipped and close and precise. As if she were one of the boss men who came down to watch the work and paid out cash bonus for good salvage. Perfectly formed words, with not a break in them, not a hard edge. She accepted the last of the orange slices from Pima and ate them, taking her time and seeming to savor them. Slowly, she pushed herself upright again.

Her eyes went from Nailer to Pima. “You could have just let me die.” She wiped the corner of her mouth with the palm of her hand, licking at the last of the orange’s juice. “I couldn’t get out. You could have been rich with my gold. Why?”

“Ask Lucky Boy,” Pima said, disgusted. “It wasn’t my idea.”

The girl looked at him. “You’re called Lucky Boy?”

Nailer couldn’t tell if it was an honest question or if she was making fun of him. He stifled his unease. “Found your wreck, didn’t I?”

Her lips quirked. “I guess that makes me a Lucky Girl then, doesn’t it?” Her eyes twinkled.

Pima laughed. She squatted beside her. “Yeah. Sure. Lucky Girl. Damn lucky.” For a moment her eyes lingered hungrily on Lucky Girl’s hands, on the gold glittering against her brown skin. “Damn lucky.”

“So why not take my gold and walk away?” She held up her hand where the thin slivers of their blades had cut. “You could have had my fingers for Fate amulets, right? Could have had my gold and my finger bones, too.”

Her smooth features had hardened. She was clever, Nailer realized. Soft, but not stupid. Nailer couldn’t help thinking that he’d made a mistake letting her live. It was hard to tell when you were being smart, and when you were being too smart for your own good. And this girl… she already seemed to be taking over the space around the fire. Owning it. Asking the questions instead of answering them.

Lucky Strike always said there was a fine line between clever and stupid and laughed his head off every time he said it. Watching this girl across the fire taunt and tease him, Nailer suddenly had the feeling that he understood.

“I think one of my fingers would have made a nice amulet for you,” she said to him. “Would have made you exquisitely lucky.”

Pima laughed again. Nailer scowled. Dozens of futures extended ahead of him, depending on his luck and the will of the Fates… and the variable that this girl presented. He could see those roads spinning away from him in different directions. He was standing at their hub, looking down each of them in turn, but he could see only so far, one or two steps ahead at best.

And now, as he stared at the sharp eyes of this perfectly unblemished swank, he realized that he had missed a factor. He didn’t know anything about the girl. He knew about gold, though. Gold bought security, salvation from the ships and the breaking and light crew. Lucky Strike had gone down that road. Nailer would have been smarter to simply let Pima pigstick the girl and be done with it.

But what if there were other roads? What if there was a reward for this rich girl? What if she could be useful in some other way?

“You got crew who’ll come looking for you?” he asked.

“Crew?”

“Someone want you to come home?”

Her eyes never left his. “Of course,” she said. “My father will be hunting for me.”

“He rich?” Pima asked. “Swank like you?”

Nailer shot her an annoyed glance. Amusement flickered across Lucky Girl’s face. “He’ll pay, if that’s what you’re asking.” She held up her fingers. “And he’ll pay you more than just my jewelry.” She pulled a ring off and tossed it to Pima. Pima caught it, surprised. “More than that. More than all the wealth I’ve got on my ship.” She looked at them seriously. “Alive, I’m more valuable than gold.”

Nailer exchanged glances with Pima. This girl knew what they wanted, knew them inside and out. It was as if she were a beach witch, and could throw bones and see right into his soul, to all his hunger and greed. It pissed him off that he and Pima were so obvious. Made him feel like a little kid, stupid and obvious, the way the urchins looked when they were hanging out behind Chen’s grub shack, hoping he’d toss out bones for them to pick over. She just knew.

“How do we know you’re not lying?” Pima asked. “Maybe you’ve got nothing else to give. Maybe you’re just talking.”

The girl shrugged, unconcerned. She touched her remaining rings. “I have houses where fifty servants wait for me to ring a bell and bring me whatever I want. I have two clippers and a dirigible. My servants wear uniforms of silver and jade and I gift them with gold and diamonds. And you can have it, too… if you help me reach my father.”

“Maybe,” Nailer said. “But maybe all you’ve got is some gold on your fingers and you’re better off dead.”

The girl leaned forward, her face lit by the fire, her features suddenly cold. “If you hurt me, my father will come here and wipe you and yours off the face of the earth and feed your guts to dogs.” She sat back. “It’s your choice: Get rich helping me, or die poor.”

“Screw it,” Pima said. “Let’s just drown her and be done.”

A flash of uncertainty crossed the girl’s face, so quick Nailer might have missed it if he hadn’t been watching closely, but he caught the slight widening of her eyes.

“You should watch yourself,” he said. “You’re alone. No one knows where you are or what happened to you. You could be drowned in the ocean for all anyone knows. Maybe you just disappear and the wind and waves don’t remember you even existed.” He grinned. “You’re a long way from your swank servants.”