Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker

If anyone cared about the loss of crewmen ashore when they sailed, no one said anything. The captain muttered that a few of the crew still on board would probably have preferred another master, but that hardly mattered now. They were on the waves and if they had a grumble they kept it to themselves. Candless’s core of loyal followers kept everyone in line and so Dauntless surged through the waves of the Gulf, patrolling and waiting for its target.

On the first night, Nailer had slept in a soft bunk and woke with his back aching from it, unused to sinking into a mattress instead of lying on sand or palm ticking or hard planks, but by the second day he felt so spoiled that he wondered how he would sleep when he went back to the beach.

The thought troubled him: when he went back?

Was he going back?

If he went back, his father or his father’s crew would be waiting for him, people who would look for payback. But no one on the ship was indicating that he would be able to stay on Dauntless , either. He was in limbo.

A splash of water shook him from his reverie. The ship plunged through another wave crest, dousing him and shaking him from his perch. He skidded across the deck until his life line caught him short with a jolt. He was hooked to the rail to keep himself from washing overboard, but still the huge blue-green waves that surged over the bow and poured off the sloped deck were astonishingly powerful. Another wave rushed over them. Nailer shook seawater out of his eyes.

Reynolds laughed as she saw him climbing to his feet again. “You should see what it’s like when we’re really going fast.”

“I thought we were.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Someday, if we use the high sails, you’ll see. Then we don’t sail, we fly.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “We truly fly.”

“Why not now?”

She shook her head. “The winds have to be right. You can’t fire the Buckell cannon unless you understand the high winds. We send up kites first to test, to make sure, and then if the water’s right and the high winds are right.” She pointed at the cannon. “Then we fire that bad baby and she jumps out of the water like she’s been shot.”

“And you fly.”

“That’s right.”

Nailer hesitated, then said, “I’d like to see it.”

Reynolds gave him a speculative look. “Maybe you will. If we have to run, maybe we’ll all be skating the ocean.”

Nailer hesitated. “No. After we save Lucky Girl, I mean. I want to come with you. Wherever you go. I want to go, too.”

“Careful what you wish for. We’d work you.”

“Is that all?” Nailer made a face. “I’m not afraid of work.”

“All I see you doing is standing on a deck and riding waves.”

Nailer locked eyes with her. “I’ll do anything you want, if you take me on. You just say it. I’m not afraid of any work.”

Reynolds grinned. “Guess we’ll have to send you up the mast and see.”

Nailer didn’t blink. “I’ll go.”

The captain came up behind her. “What’s all the conversation?”

Reynolds smiled. “Nailer here wants a job.”

The captain looked thoughtful. “A lot of people want to work on the clippers. There are whole clans dedicated to it. Families who buy the right to get on as deckhands and hope to move up. My own family has worked clippers for three generations. That’s a lot of competition.”

“I can do it,” Nailer insisted.

“Hmm,” was all the captain said. “Perhaps this is a conversation better saved for after we’ve located our Miss Nita.”

Nailer wasn’t sure if Candless was trying to put him off or if he was just saying no in a polite way. Nailer wanted to press the issue, but didn’t know how without angering the captain. “You really think you can find Lucky Girl and get her back?” he asked instead.

“Well, I’ve got some tricks,” Candless said. “If the captain of the Ray is still Mr. Marn, then we’ll be over their gunwales before they know what’s hit them.” He smiled, then sobered. “But if it’s Ms. Chavez, then we’re in for a rare fight. She’s no fool and her crew is hard and all our decks will be bloody.”

“It won’t be Pole Star ,” Reynolds insisted.

“Do they both use half-men?” Nailer asked.

“Some,” the captain answered. “But Pole Star has almost half its crew staffed with augments.”

“Augments?”

“Your half-men. We call them augmented because they’re people-plus.”

“Like Tool.”

“A strange creature, that one. I’ve never heard of a salvage company that would bond that sort of muscle.”

“He wasn’t with Lawson & Carlson. He was on his own.”

The captain shook his head. “Impossible. Augments aren’t like us. They have a single master. When they lose that master, they die.”

“You kill them?”

“Goodness no.” He laughed. “They pine. They are very loyal. They cannot live without their masters. It comes from a line of canine genetics.”

“Tool didn’t have a master.”

The captain nodded, but Nailer could tell he didn’t believe. Nailer dropped the subject. It wasn’t worth making the captain think he was crazy.

But it did make him wonder about Tool. Everyone who was familiar with half-men and their genetics said that Tool was an impossible creature. That no independent half-men existed. And yet Tool had walked away from many masters. He had worked for Lucky Strike and Richard Lopez, had worked for Sadna, had worked to protect him and Lucky Girl, and then had simply walked away when it no longer suited him. Nailer wondered what Tool was doing now.

Nailer’s thoughts were broken by Captain Candless drawing a gun. “I almost forgot,” the captain said as he handed it to Nailer. “I promised you this before. Something for when we find our ship. You’re going to need to practice with it. Cat will be drilling the crew, and you will drill with them. Boarding actions and the like.”

Nailer held the lightweight thing in his hand, so different from the sorts of pistols he had seen others use. “It’s so light.”

The captain laughed. “You can swim with it even. It won’t drag you down. The ammunition is a penetrator. It doesn’t use weight to enter the body-well, not as much-it uses spin from the barrel. You’ve got thirty shots.” He offered Nailer a fighting knife as well. “You know how to cut someone?” He indicated the soft parts. “Don’t worry about a killing blow and don’t go for the head. It will extend you. Go low and hit them in the belly, the knees, behind the legs. If they’re down…”

“Cut their throat.”

“Good boy! Bloodthirsty little bastard, aren’t you?”

Nailer shrugged, remembering Blue Eyes’s blood hot on his hands. “My father is pretty good with a knife,” he said. He forced the memory away. “When do you think we’ll fight?”

“We’ll patrol here. We should get a visual on anyone within fifteen miles. We’ve got the scopes to get a good look at them, and then we can decide if we want to chase or play friendly.” He shrugged. “We don’t know what they’re up to. Maybe they’re going to stay for a little while, lie low down south while they wait out the boardroom tactics up north, but I doubt it. They’re going to run north and try to make contact with Pyce.”

The captain turned and headed for the conning deck. As he departed, he nodded at Nailer’s pistol. “Practice with it, Nailer. Make sure you can hit what you aim at.”

Nailer nerved himself up and called after the man. “Captain!”

When Candless turned, Nailer said, “If you trust me with a gun, maybe you could trust me with some work, too.” He waved at the busy ship. “There must be something you can use me for.”