Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker

“Luckier than Lucky Strike?” Nailer teased.

“Not after you lost all that oil,” Moon Girl said. “If you were Lucky Strike, you’d have figured out how to sneak it out, instead of wasting it. Be a big rich man now, owning the beach.”

The others grunted agreement, but Pima had gone still, her black skin a shadow. “No one’s that lucky,” she said bitterly. “Everyone daydreaming about being the next Lucky Strike is what made Sloth go bad.”

“Yeah, well”-Nailer shrugged-“I still feel lucky today.”

Pima made a face. “You weren’t just lucky,” she said. “You were smart. And Lucky Strike, he was smart, too. Half the crews out here find some cache of oil or copper or whatever and none of them figure out what to do with it. Crew boss grabs it in the end, and they get bumped off the wrecks. Shit.” She took another swig from the bottle and wiped her lips on her arm before passing it on to Moon Girl, who drank and coughed. “Luck isn’t what you need out here,” Pima said. “Smarts is what you need.”

“Luck or smarts, I don’t care, long as I’m not dead.”

“Cheers to that. Still, we get all excited about being like Lucky Strike and we lose our heads. We waste all our money throwing dice, trying to get close to Luck, trying to get the big win. We pray to the Rust Saint to help us find something we can keep for ourselves. Hell, even my mom puts good rice on the Scavenge God’s scale for a luck offering, and we just end up like Sloth.”

Pima nodded down the beach to where men from the heavy crews had started their bonfires. Nailshed girls were with them, laughing and teasing them, twining slender arms around the men’s waists, urging them to drink and spend. “Sloth’s down there now. I saw her. Dreaming about a Lucky Strike got her nothing except shame cuts through her crew tattoos, and a whole lot of bad company.”

Nailer studied the men’s bonfires. “You think she’ll come after me?”

“I would,” Pima said. “She’s got nothing to lose now.” She nodded at Nailer’s luck gifts. “You better find a good place to stash all that. She’ll probably try to steal it. Maybe she finds some sugar daddy down there to take her under his wing, but no one else is going to deal with her. Grub shacks won’t take her because the ship breakers won’t buy anything from someone with slashed crew tats. Smelter clans definitely won’t touch an oath breaker. Liar like that, she’s out of options.”

Moon Girl said, “She could sell off a kidney. Maybe tap out a couple pints of blood for the Harvesters. They’re always buying.”

“Sure. She’s got those pretty eyes,” Pearly said. “Harvesters would take those in a second.”

Pima shrugged. “Medical buyers can slice and dice her like a side of pork, but after a while everyone runs out of pieces. Then what?”

“Life Cult,” Nailer suggested. “They’d buy her eggs.”

“Just what we need.” Moon Girl made a face. “Bunch of half-men that look like Sloth.”

“Dog DNA would be a step up for her,” Pearly said. “At least dogs are loyal.”

They all laughed darkly. Started joking about which animals would enhance Sloth’s genetic makeup: Roosters at least woke up early, crawdads were good eating, snakes were perfect for duct work, and they didn’t have hands, so they couldn’t stab you in the back. Every animal they considered was an improvement over the creature who had betrayed them. Ship breaking was too dangerous to not have trust.

“Sloth’s about to hit a dead end,” Pima said, “but we’ve got the same problem. Maybe not this year, but soon.” She shrugged. “My mom’s feeding me extra, trying to get me so I can compete into heavy crew.” She hesitated, looked down the beach again to the bonfires and the men. “I don’t think I’m going to make it. Too big for light crew, too small for heavy crew, what happens then? How many clans are taking kids who aren’t their own?”

“It’s bullshit,” Pearly said. “You shouldn’t have to quit light crew. You do better scavenge than anyone on the ship. You could take Bapi’s job in a second, take out slack and double quota.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. You could take Bapi’s job for sure.”

Pima smiled. “There’s a long line for that job, and it don’t start with us. You’ve got to buy in big-time, and none of us has that kind of cash.”

“It’s stupid,” Pearly said. “You’d be a better crew boss.”

“Yeah.” Pima grimaced. “That’s where the luck comes in, I guess.” She looked around at them seriously. “You should remember that, all of you. If you’re just smart or just lucky, it’s not worth a copper yard. You got to have both, or you’re just like Sloth down at those bonfires, begging for someone to find a use for you.” She took another swig from the bottle and handed it back. Stood up.

“I got to get some sleep.” She headed down the beach, calling back over her shoulder to Nailer, “See you tomorrow, lucky boy. And be on time. Bapi will cut you for sure if you don’t show up and sweat with the rest of us.”

Nailer and the rest of the crew watched her go. The last log in the fire crackled, sending sparks. Moon Girl reached into the flame, quickly turning the log deeper into the coals. “There’s no way she’ll make heavy crew,” she said. “No way any of us do.”

“You trying to spoil the night?” Pearly asked.

Moon Girl’s pierced features glittered in the firelight. “Just saying what we all know. Pima’s worth ten of Bapi, but it don’t matter. Another year, she’s got the same problem as Sloth. It’s luck or nothing.” She held up a blue glass Fates amulet she kept around her neck. “We kiss the eye and hope things turn out, but we’re all just as screwed as Sloth.”

“No.” Tick-tock shook his head. “The difference is that Sloth deserved it, and Pima doesn’t.”

“Deserving doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Moon Girl said. “If people got what they deserved, Nailer’s mom would be alive, Pima’s mom would own Lawson & Carlson, and I’d be eating six times a day.” She spit into the fire. “You don’t deserve anything. Maybe Sloth was an oath breaker, but she was smart enough to know you don’t deserve things, you gotta take them.”

“I don’t buy that.” Pearly shook his head. “What have you got without your promises? You’re nothing. Less than nothing.”

Nailer said, “You didn’t see that oil, Pearly. It was the biggest Lucky Strike I ever saw. We can all pretend like we aren’t like Sloth, but you never saw so much oil for the taking in all your life. It would turn anyone into an oath breaker.”

“Not me,” Pearly said vehemently.

“Sure. None of us,” Nailer said. “But you still weren’t there.”

“Not Pima,” Tick-tock said. “Never her.”

And that killed the discussion, because whatever other lies they told themselves, Tick-tock was right. Pima never wavered. She never broke and she always had your back. Even when she was bitching at you to make quota, she always kept you safe. Nailer suddenly wished he could give all his luck to her. If anyone deserved something better, it was her.

Depressed by the turn of conversation, people started gathering the leavings of their meal, dousing the beach wood with sand, and getting ready to return to whatever families or caretakers or safe flops they had.

The wind blew over them and Nailer turned into the freshening breeze. The storm was coming, for sure. He had enough experience on the coast to have the sense of it. It was out there, coming in. A good big blow. It could shut down work for a couple days at least. Maybe give him a chance to rest up and heal.

He inhaled the fresh salty air as it poured over him. Other campfires were dousing out, and there was an increasing scurry of activity as the beach residents started tying down meager belongings in preparation for changing weather.