Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker

Nailer didn’t answer. He stared at the rocks beyond. Between them, something reflected like glass, glinting and white.

“Hey, Pima.” He tugged her shoulder. “Look at that.”

Pima straightened. “What the hell?”

“That’s a clipper ship, isn’t it?” He swallowed, took a step forward. Stopped. Was it a mirage? He kept expecting it to evaporate. The white boards and fluttering silk and canvas remained. “It is. It has to be. It’s a clipper.”

Pima laughed softly behind him. “No. You’re wrong, Nailer. That’s not a clipper ship at all.” Suddenly she dashed past him, sprinting for the ship. “That’s scavenge!”

Her laughter floated back to him on the wind, teasing him. Nailer shook himself from his stupor and dashed after her. A whoop of joy escaped his lips as he ran across the sand.

Ahead, the gull-white hull of the wreck gleamed in the sunlight, beckoning.

THE SHIP LAY on its side, swamped and broken, its back snapped. Even destroyed, it was a beautiful thing, utterly unlike the rusting iron and steel hulks they tore apart every day.

The clipper was big, a ship used for fast transit and freight on the Pole Run, over the top of the world to Russia and Nippon. Or else across the rough Atlantic to Africa and Europe. Its hydrofoils were retracted, but with the carbon-polymer hull shattered, Nailer could see into its workings: the huge gears that extended the foils, the complex hydraulics and precision electronic systems.

The ship’s deck was tilted toward them, showing a Buckell cannon and the high-speed reels for the parasails. Once, when Bapi was in a good mood, the man had told Nailer that the big cannon could send a sail thousands of feet into the air to catch high winds that would then yank the ship up onto its hydrofoils and take it skimming across the waves at speeds faster than fifty knots.

Nailer and Pima stopped short, staring at the looming wreckage. “Fates, it’s beautiful,” Pima breathed.

Even dead it looked like a regal hawk, cracked and shattered, but with a beauty still inherent thanks to the feral grace of its lines. It had the sleek, aerodynamic design of a hunter, every angle purpose-built to reduce drag to the merest fraction. Nailer’s eyes swept over the broken clipper’s upper decks, the pontoons and stabilizers and the cracked remains of the fixed-wing sails, all of it white, almost blazingly white in the sun. Not a bit of soot or rust anywhere. There wasn’t a drop of oil leaking, despite the shattered hull.

Back at the ship-breaking yards, the old tankers and freighters were nothing in comparison, just rusting dinosaurs. Useless without the precious oil that had once fueled them. Now they were nothing but great wallowing brutes leaking their grime and toxins into the water. Reeking and destructive when they’d been created in the Accelerated Age and still destructive even after they were dead.

The clipper was something else entirely, a machine angels had built. The name on the prow was unreadable to either of them, but Pima recognized one of the words below.

“It’s from Boston,” she said.

“How do you know?” Nailer asked.

“One of my light crews worked on a Boston Freight ship, and it had the same word. I saw it on every single door in the whole damn wreck while we were taking it apart.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“It was before you got on crew.” She paused. “The first letter’s B, and it’s got the S-the one like a snake-so it’s the same.”

“Wonder what happened?”

“Had to be the storm.”

“They should have known better, though. They have satellite talkies for those ships. Big eyes down on the clouds. They should never get hit.”

It was Pima’s turn to look at Nailer. “How would you know?”

“You remember Old Miles?”

“Didn’t he die?”

“Yeah. Some kind of infection got into his lungs. He used to work galley on a clipper ship, though, before he got thrown off. He knew all kinds of stuff about how clippers work. Told me they’ve got hulls made of special fiber, so they slide through the water like oil, and they use computers to keep level. Measure water speed and wind. He definitely told me they talk to the weather satellites, just like Lawson & Carlson do for when a storm’s coming.”

“Maybe they thought they could outrun the storm,” Pima guessed.

Both of them stared at the wreckage. “That’s a lot of scavenge,” Nailer said.

“Yeah.” Pima paused. “You remember what I said a couple nights ago? About needing to be lucky and smart?”

“Yeah.”

“How long you think we can keep this a secret?” She jerked her head back to the beach and the ship-breaking yards. “From all them.”

“Maybe a day or two,” Nailer guessed. “If we’re really lucky. Then someone comes out. Fishing boat or a trader will spot it, even if the beach rats don’t.”

Pima’s lips compressed. “We got to claim this for us.”

“Fat chance.” Nailer studied the broken ship. “No way we can defend a claim like this. Patrols will be looking for it. Corporate goons. Lawson & Carlson will want a piece, if it’s full salvage-”

“It’s salvage all right,” Pima interrupted. “Look at it. It’s never going to move again.”

Nailer shook his head stubbornly. “I still don’t see how we can keep it to ourselves.”

“My mom,” Pima suggested. “She could help.”

“She’s got heavy crew. If she disappears to come down and work on it, people will notice.” Nailer glanced back toward the beach. “If we aren’t back for light crew tomorrow, people are going to wonder where we are, too.” He massaged his aching shoulder. “We need goons. And even if we got thug muscle, as soon as they knew about the ship, they’d take it for themselves, too.”

Pima chewed her lip, thoughtful. “I don’t even know how to register scavenge.”

“Trust me, no one’s going to let us register this.”

“What about Lucky Strike? He’s got contacts with the bosses. Maybe he could do it. Keep Lawson & Carlson off us.”

“And he’d take it away from us, too. Just like everyone else.”

“He’s giving out food right now,” Pima pointed out. “No one else is doing that. Advances for anyone who can bring two friends to vouch they’re good for it once work gears up again.”

“We’re just licebiters to him. He doesn’t need rust from us. Food’s one thing…” Nailer stared at the wreck in frustration. So much wealth, if only they could lock it down. “This is stupid. We’re just weighing copper in the ducts. We have no idea what’s on board. Let’s go in and see what we’re talking about.”

“Yeah.” Pima shook her head. “You’re right. Maybe there’s something good and light we can hide. Then we’ll decide about the rest.”

“Yeah. Maybe there’ll be a reward for the ship, if we report it.”

“A reward?”

Nailer shrugged. “I heard about it on a radio play once, at Chen’s noodle shack. You get bounty for helping someone out.”

“Why don’t you just call it bounty, then?”

Nailer made a face. “ ’Cause they called it a reward.” He spat. “Come on. Let’s check it out.”

They made their way over the last rocks to the ship. At low tide, the hull was surrounded by ankle-deep water. A few fish sat in pools, others lay beached on the sand, rotting with streamers of seaweed. Up close the ship got bigger. Not like the rusting monoliths of the Accelerated Age, but still, it loomed over them. Pima clambered up the shattered edge of the clipper and slipped inside, her hands fast and accomplished from years on wrecking crews. Nailer followed more slowly, hoisting himself aboard with his one good hand.