Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker

“You gonna cut her fingers off while she’s still breathing?”

“She’s not breathing for long.” Pima pointed at the bed and sea chests and debris piled on top of her. “She’s a goner. If I slit her throat, I’m doing her a favor.” She crept close and prodded the girl’s hand. The drowned girl didn’t respond. “She’s dead now, anyway.” Pima pressed the knife to the girl’s finger again.

The girl’s eyes snapped open.

“Please,” she whispered.

Pima pressed her lips together, ignoring the words. The girl’s free hand brushed at Pima’s face and Pima swatted it away. Pima leaned on the knife and blood welled up. The girl didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away, just watched, black eyes begging as the knife cut into her brown skin.

“Please,” she said again.

Nailer’s skin crawled. “Don’t do it, Pima.”

Pima glanced up at him. “You going to get squeamish on me? You think you’re going to save her? Be her white knight like in Mom’s kiddie stories? You’re just a beach rat and she’s a swank. She gets out of here, this ship’s hers and we lose everything.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Don’t be stupid. This is only scavenge if she’s not standing on it saying it’s hers. All that silver we found? All this gold on her fingers? You know this boat’s hers. You know it. Look at the room she’s in.” Pima waved a hand at the wreckage around them. “She’s no servant, that’s for sure. She’s a damn swank. We let her out, we lose everything.”

She looked at the girl. “Sorry, swank. You’re worth more dead than alive.” She glanced at Nailer. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll put her down first.” She moved the knife to the girl’s smooth brown throat.

The girl’s eyes went to him, starving for salvation, but she didn’t speak again. Only stared.

“Don’t cut her,” Nailer said. “We can’t make a Lucky Strike like this… It would be like Sloth was with me.”

“It’s not the same at all. Sloth was crew. She swore blood oath with you. She didn’t have morals. But this swank?” Pima tapped the drowned girl with her knife. “She’s not crew. She’s just a boss girl with a lot of gold.” She made a face. “If we pigstick her, we’re rich. No more crew for life, right?”

The gold glittered on the girl’s fingers. Nailer struggled with his conflicting emotions. It was more wealth than he had ever seen. More wealth than most of the crews collected in years off the ships, and yet it decorated this girl’s fingers as casually as Moon Girl pierced her lip with steel.

Pima pressed her case. “This is once in a lifetime, Nailer. We play it smart, or we’re screwed for life.” She was shaking and a glitter of tears showed in her eyes. “I don’t like it either.” She looked down at the girl. “It’s not personal. It’s just her or us.”

“Maybe she’ll give us a reward for saving her,” he said.

“We both know that’s not the way it works.” Pima looked at him sadly. “That’s for fairy tales and Pearly’s mom’s stories about the rajah who falls in love with his servant girl. We either get rich, or we die on heavy crew-if we’re lucky. Maybe we walk oil scavenge until our legs get sores and your dad beats your head in. What else? The Harvesters? The nailsheds? We can always run red rippers and crystal slide out to the wrecks until Lawson & Carlson string us up. That’s what we get. And swanky here? She goes right back to her rich girl life.”

Pima paused. “Or we get out. With this gold, we get out for good.”

Nailer stared at the girl. A few days ago, he would have cut her. He would have apologized to those desperate eyes, and put the knife in her neck. He would have made it a fast kill so she wouldn’t suffer-he wouldn’t hurt her the way his dad liked to hurt people-but still he would have cut her dead, and then he would have stripped that gold off her waterlogged corpse and walked away. He would have felt sorry, sure, would even have put an offering on the Scavenge God’s scale to help her get on to whatever afterlife she believed in. But she would have been dead and he would have called himself lucky.

Now, though, the dark reek of the oil room filled his mind-the memory of being up to his neck in warm death staring up at Sloth high above him, her little LED paint mark glowing-salvation if only he could convince her, if only he could reach out and touch that part of her that cared for something other than herself, knowing that there was a lever inside her somewhere, and if only he could pull it, she would go for help and he would be saved and everything would be fine.

He’d been so desperate to get Sloth to care.

But he hadn’t been able to find the lever. Or maybe the lever hadn’t been there after all. Some people couldn’t see any farther than themselves. People like Sloth.

People like his dad.

Richard Lopez wouldn’t hesitate. He’d slash the rich girl’s throat and take the rings and shake the blood off them and laugh. A week ago, Nailer knew for a fact that he could have done the same. This swank girl wasn’t crew. He didn’t owe her anything. But now, after his time in the oil room, all he could think of was how much he’d wanted Sloth to believe that his life was just as important as hers.

The gold on the drowned girl’s fingers glittered.

What was wrong with him? Nailer wanted to punch a wall. Why couldn’t he just be smart? Why couldn’t he just crew up and cut the girl and take the scavenge? Nailer could almost hear his father laughing at him. Mocking him for his stupidity. But as Nailer stared into the drowned girl’s pleading eyes, they might as well have been his own.

“I’m sorry, Pima,” he said. “I can’t do it. We got to help her.”

Pima slumped. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Hell.” Pima wiped her eyes. “I should pigstick her anyway. You’d thank me later.”

“Don’t. Please. We both know it’s not right.”

“Right? What’s right? Look at all that gold.”

“Don’t cut her throat.”

Pima grimaced, but she withdrew her knife. “Maybe she’ll let us keep the silverware.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Already he was regretting the choice, watching his hopes for a different future fall away. Tomorrow he and Pima would be ship breaking again, and this girl would either live and walk away, or she’d alert the rest of the Bright Sands ship breakers to the scavenge, and either way, he was out of luck. He’d been lucky, and now he was throwing it away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and he wasn’t sure if it was Pima he was sorry for, or himself, or the girl who blinked at him with wide black eyes, and who, if he was very lucky indeed, might not make it through the night. “I’m sorry.”

“Tide’s coming in,” Pima said. “If you’re going to be a hero rescuer, you’d better do it quick.”

The girl was stuck under all sorts of junk, a wealth of sea chests and the big four-poster bed. It took them almost an hour to pull all the stuff free. The girl didn’t say anything more as they worked. Once she gasped as they shifted a chest off her, and Nailer worried that they’d perhaps crushed her in the shifting wreckage, but when they finally pulled her body free, soaked and shivering in the failing light, she seemed whole. Her skin was bloody and her clothes were torn and sopping, but she was alive.

Pima inspected her body. “Damn, Nailer, she’s almost as lucky as you.” And then she made a face of disgust when she realized that with Nailer’s bad arm, Pima was going to be the rescuer after all.

“She’s not going to kiss you for a thank-you if you don’t crew up.” She smirked.

“Shut up,” Nailer muttered, but he was suddenly aware of the girl’s slim form under her wet clothes, the curve of her body, the flash of thigh and throat that showed in the torn fabric of her skirt and blouse.