Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker

Nailer hesitated, then pulled out the wad of red cash.

“Better to save it,” Tool said. “You’ll be hungry later.”

Nailer stared at the brackish water. “I’m pretty thirsty now.”

Nita scowled at him. “Then how are we supposed to get out to the clippers?”

“We could just walk,” Nailer said. Some people were wading out into the water, which seemed only waist deep. They moved slowly through the green and oily murk.

Nita stared at the water with distaste. “You can’t walk there. It’s too deep.”

“Spend your money on water,” Tool said. “There will be a way for the laborers to get to the loading platforms. The poor will lead us.”

Nita reluctantly agreed. They bought brownish water from a water seller, a man with yellow rotting teeth and a wide smile, who swore that his water was salt-free and well boiled, and after they had bought, he cheerfully directed them. He even offered to row them there, but he wanted too high a fee and so instead they went the long way, threading around drowned and rotting streets, down floating boardwalks. The reek of fish and petroleum came in waves, making Nailer’s eyes water and reminding him of ship-breaking yards.

Eventually they reached the shore. A series of buoys stretched out into the placid water.

Nita stared at the water with distaste. “We should have taken a boat.”

Nailer grinned at her. “Afraid?” he asked.

She gave him a dirty look. “No.” She stared at the water again. “But it’s not clean. The chemicals are poisonous.” She sniffed. “There’s no telling what’s in there.”

“Yeah, well, that’ll kill you tomorrow, not today.” He waded out into the gunk and slime of the water. A thin, jewellike oil sheen covered it. “It’s better than around the ship yards. This is nothing at all in comparison to that. And it hasn’t killed me yet.” He grinned again, enjoying taunting her. “Come on. Let’s go see if there’s a clipper waiting for you.”

Nita compressed her lips but followed. Nailer wanted to laugh at her. She was smart, but it was weird how damn prissy she was. He watched as she waded deeper into the water, enjoying the fact that the swank was about to drag herself around in the filth like a normal person for once. As soon as Lucky Girl was in, Tool waded after her, his huge form pressing a ripple in the lily pads and petroleum murk. They all started forward, walking slowly. The water deepened, rising to their chests.

Ahead of them, someone had tied plastic buoys, marking a lane for people without boats. One of them was orange, another white. As Nailer passed one, he spied the faded image of an apple stamped on its surface along with letters. Another had an ancient automobile embedded on its face. The path of discarded containers led them out to where the last portions of housing foundations disappeared and where much of the wreckage was gone, and still the path went on.

They waded carefully through the waters, following a stream of struggling bodies that waded, swam, and splashed forward toward the far docks. At one point, Nita lost her footing and went under. Tool grabbed her and pulled her up and set her back on the careful path that everyone else followed.

She pushed long wet strands of hair off her face and stared to the distant ships and their docks. “Why don’t they just use boats?”

“For these people?” Tool looked around at their fellow waders. “They are not worth it.”

“Still, someone could make a boardwalk. It wouldn’t even cost that much.”

“Spending money on the poor is like throwing money into a fire. They’ll just consume it and never thank you,” Tool said.

“But it would probably save money, for people to have easy access.”

“The water doesn’t seem to stop them.” And indeed, there was a steady stream of people ahead of them; a few of them had scavenged plastic bags wrapped around some possession that they wanted to keep dry, but mostly the stream of people seemed unconcerned that they were forced to swim through the brown waters and green algae. Nita waded on, grimly determined, Nailer thought, not to show how disgusted she was by her circumstance.

Every time Tool spoke, his words were like a whip, lashing her. Nailer wasn’t sure why, but he liked to see her embarrassed. Part of him sensed that she thought of him as something like an animal, a useful creature like a dog, but not actually a person. Then again, he wasn’t too sure that she was a person either. Swanks were different. They came from a different place, lived different lives, wrecked whole clipper ships just so one girl could survive.

“Why are you even here, Tool?” Nita asked suddenly. “You aren’t supposed to be able to just walk away from your patron.”

Tool glanced at her. “I go where I please.”

“But you’re a half-man.”

“Half a man.” Tool looked at her. “And yet twice the size of you, Lucky Girl.”

“What are you talking about?” Nailer asked.

Nita glanced at Nailer. “He’s supposed to have a patron. We take them on their oaths. My family imports them from Nippon, after training. But not without a patron.”

Tool’s eyes swung to focus on her fully. Yellow dog eyes, predatory, examining a creature he could destroy in a moment if he chose. “I have no patron.”

“That’s impossible,” Nita said.

“Why’s that?” Nailer asked.

“We are known to be fantastically loyal,” Tool said. “Lucky Girl is disappointed to discover that not all of us enjoy slavery.”

“It can’t happen,” Nita insisted. “You’re trained-”

Tool’s huge shoulders rippled in a shrug. “They made a mistake with me.” He smiled slightly, nodded to himself, enjoying a private joke. “I was smarter than they prefer.”

“Oh?” Nita challenged.

Again the yellow eyes evaluated her. “Smart enough to know that I can choose who I serve and who I betray, which is more than can be said of the rest of my… people.”

Nailer had never thought to wonder why Tool was amongst the ship breakers. He had just been there, much as the boat refugees had been. The Spinoza clan and the McCalleys and the Lals had all come to work, and so too had Tool. They were there for the work.

But it was true what Lucky Girl said. Half-men were used for bodyguards, for killing, for war. Those were the stories he had heard. He’d seen them with Lawson & Carlson’s bankers. Seen them clustered around the blood buyers when they came to inspect the yards. But always with others. Swanks. People who could afford to buy creatures mixed from a genetic cocktail of humanity, tigers, and dogs. And they were expensive. The human eggs that jump-started their development were always in demand, and commanded a high price. The Life Cult often supported itself on the ovum of its devotees, and the Harvesters were always buying.

“Where’s your master, then?” Nita asked. “You’re supposed to die with your master. That’s what ours always say. That they’ll die when we do, that they will die for us.”

“Some of us are astonishingly loyal,” Tool observed.

“But your genes-”

“If genes are destiny, then Nailer should have sold you to your enemies and spent the bounty on red rippers and Black Ling whiskey.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No? But you descend from Patels, and so you are all intelligent and civilized, yes? And Nailer, of course, is descended from a perfect killer and we know what that means about him.”

“No. I didn’t mean that at all.”

“Then do not be so certain of what my kind can and cannot do.” Tool’s eyes bored into her. “We are faster, stronger, and whatever you may think, smarter than our patrons. Does it worry the swank girl to run across a creature like me, running free?”