Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker

“Yeah, I’m up.”

“Get over your beauty sleep, Nailer,” Pima called. “It’s breakfast time.”

“Yeah?” Nailer pushed himself upright and forced through the ferns to where the girls crouched around a newly built fire. Down on the water, the ship was still there, shifted by the tide, but so tangled in the rocks that it hadn’t fled down the coast. Luck was holding, he supposed, especially if they wanted Lucky Girl’s people to find her quickly.

He looked around for whatever they were eating. He didn’t see anything prepared. “What’s for breakfast?” he asked, puzzled.

“Whatever you make,” Pima said, and she and Lucky Girl laughed.

“Ha ha.” Nailer made a face. “Seriously, what you got?”

“Don’t look at me.” Pima leaned back on the sandy ground. “I made the fire.”

Nailer gave her another dirty look. “We’re not on light crew here. You’re not the boss of me.”

Pima laughed. “Guess you’re going to be damn hungry, then.”

Nailer shook his head. He started rifling through the sacks of food they’d pulled off the ship the night before. “Don’t be surprised when you find snot in yours.”

Pima sat up. “You spit in my food, I’ll spit in your mouth.”

“Yeah?” Nailer turned around. “You wanna try?”

Pima just laughed. “You know I’d kick your ass, Lucky Boy. Just make breakfast and be glad we let you sleep.”

Lucky Girl interceded. “I’ll help.”

Nailer shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Pima doesn’t cook because she’d screw it up. All muscle, no brains.” He started pulling fruit from a sack, digging through the rest of the food. “Check it out.” He pulled out a pound sack of grain.

“What is it?” Pima sat up, interested.

“Wheat berries.”

“They good?”

“Pretty good. They chew better than rice.” He paused, thoughtful. “You swanks have sugar?” he asked Lucky Girl.

“Down on the ship,” she answered.

“Really?” Nailer looked down to the water. He didn’t want to have to climb all the way down and come back up. “Can you get some sugar and some fresh water?”

Lucky Girl nodded, surprisingly eager. “Sure.”

Nailer kept rifling through the food as Lucky Girl disappeared down the hillside. “Man, I can’t believe how much food they have.”

“Regular feast every day,” Pima said.

“Remember that pigeon Moon Girl brought me for a luck gift?”

“Good eating.”

Nailer jerked his head toward Lucky Girl, scrambling into the ship. “Bet she wouldn’t think so.”

“Is that why you want to leave with her?”

Nailer shrugged. “Never really thought about it until last night…” He trailed off, trying to explain what was in his mind. “You saw her cabin, right? All the scavenge? It’s nothing to her. And look at all her rings. Take that diamond out of her nose and you or me, we’re rich. But she doesn’t even notice.”

“Yeah, she’s rich all right. But she’s not crew. No matter what you say. And I don’t trust her. I asked her about her family, who they were…” Pima shook her head. “She ducked and dodged like Pearly when you ask him why he thinks he’s Krishna. She’s hiding stuff. Don’t be fooled just because she looks so sweet.”

“Yeah. She’s smart.”

“More than smart. Sly. You know all that gold on her fingers? Some of it’s missing today. Don’t know where she hid it, but it’s gone now. She’s saying all kinds of things about us being crew, but she’s running her own game, too.”

“Like we aren’t?”

“Don’t blow me off, Nailer. You know what I mean.”

Nailer looked up at the tone in Pima’s voice. “I hear you, Boss Girl. We’ll watch her close. Now lemme cook.” He found a sack of some kind of small dried red fruits and tasted one. They were tart and sweet in a mix. Pretty damn good. He tossed one to Pima. “You know what this is?”

She tasted. “Never had it.” She held out her hand. “Gimme some more.”

He grinned. “No way. I’m using them. You’ll just have to wait.”

He set the sack out beside the wheat berries and stared at all the food, so casually kept in the ship. “I never really thought about how bad it is here. Not until yesterday. Not until her.” He paused. “But you got to think, if she’s that rich, there’s other swanks out there. There’s money out there. And it ain’t here. Even Lucky Strike’s a joke, in comparison to what she’s got.”

“So you think you can just go live with her or something? Happily ever after?”

“Don’t make fun of me. Even the people on her crew are richer than Lucky Strike.”

“If she’s telling the truth.”

“You know she is. And you know if we stay here, we never get anything.”

Pima hesitated. “You think we can take my mom?” she asked.

“Is that what you’re worrying about?” Nailer smiled. “We saved the swank’s life. She owes us big-time blood debt. ’Course we can take her.”

“What about Moon Girl? Pearly? Rest of light crew?”

Nailer paused. “Lucky Strike didn’t share,” he pointed out finally. “He worked his own deal.”

“Yeah…” Pima didn’t sound convinced, but her next words were interrupted by Lucky Girl scrambling back up out of the greenery and vines.

“Got it!” she panted, smiling.

“Nice.” He grinned at Pima. “She’d be good on light crew when work starts up again, huh?”

Pima didn’t smile. “She’d sell pretty good to the nailsheds, too.” She turned away.

Lucky Girl frowned. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing,” Nailer said. “She just gets moody when she’s hungry.”

As he took the jar of water that Lucky Girl had carried up, he gasped. His shoulder was on fire. He almost dropped the water.

Pima looked up. “What’s wrong with you?”

“My back,” Nailer said through gritted teeth. “It hurts like a snake bite.”

“That means it’s infected,” Pima said. She hurried over.

“No.” He shook his head. “We cleaned it.”

“Lemme see.” She pulled off the bandaging and sucked in her breath. Lucky Girl took one look and gasped.

“What the hell did you do to yourself?”

Nailer craned his neck around, but he couldn’t see. “How bad is it?”

Lucky Girl said, “It’s really infected. There’s pus everywhere.” She came closer, businesslike. “Let me take a look. I’m trained in first aid. From my school.”

“Swanky,” Nailer muttered, but Lucky Girl didn’t respond. Her fingers probed and pressed against the wound. He flinched at the searing fire.

“You need antibiotics,” she said. “This smells awful.”

Pima shook her head. “We don’t have those here.”

“What do you do when you’re sick?”

Nailer grinned weakly. “Let the Fates decide.”

“You’re insane.” Lucky Girl stared at his wound again. “I should have something on the Wind Witch ,” she said. “There’s a whole medical closet. There ought to be some kind of ’cillin.”

Nailer shook her off. “Let’s eat first.”

“Are you crazy?” Lucky Girl looked from him to Pima. “You don’t wait on something like this. You take care of it now.”

Nailer shrugged. “Now or later, what’s the difference?”

“Because it just gets worse and worse.” Her face hardened. “And then you die from it. This looks like you’ve got a superbacteria. We need to do something fast, or you’re not going to make it.”

Without warning, Lucky Girl shoved her thumb into his back, into the heart of the wound. Nailer screamed and scrambled away. He clutched at his shoulder, gasping. The pain was so bad he thought he’d black out.