Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

I mean to ask if they work, but Earth swells in the viewport and my mouth goes dry.

“Buckled in?” the captain asks. And then an afterthought. “You ever been planetside?”

I shake my head.

She casts a worried look at me, but it’s too late. We’re going in. “Hold tight,” she says. “The gravity’s going to hit you bad.”

Vibrations pick up all along the sloop’s body as we breach the atmosphere, building until the ship rocks beneath us. I cling to my crossed shoulder straps with both hands.

A flare of light explodes across the viewport, and something kicks me in the chest, hard, knocking all the wind out of me. I try to draw breath, but my lungs won’t listen. They hang heavy, as if they’ve been dipped in lead. The ship plummets, speed pushing me into the seat. Darkness speckles my vision. I gasp. Is this it? Is this what the oldgirls meant when they warned us of the Earth’s touch? Is this how it feels to have your soul shucked from your body? The muscles in my legs, my hands, my head, my eyelids, all of them weigh on me. My skin has turned to a shell. My heart labors against my chest, aching with every ragged beat.

“Hang in there,” Captain Guiteau shouts over the clamor. “I’m taking us lower. Once we’re down, we can drop speed and lose a few Gs.”

I can’t make sense of her words. Everything moves slow, slow, with the beat of my heart. I don’t know this woman. She could do anything to me and no one would ever hear of it. Panic pierces my fog, pulls me up sharp enough to force my eyes open on the blazing white cloud tops.

“Close your eyes,” the captain says. “Keep your mind on your breathing. We’re almost there.” As she says it, the burners whine back and the rattling steadies to a soft chak-a-chak-a-chak. The weight on my body eases some, enough to let me breathe shallow and clear the spots from my eyes.

Captain Guiteau snaps several switches on the console. “What was your ship’s gravity rating?” she asks, not looking at me.

Gravity rating?

“I don’t . . .” But then I remember the training room and how the men on groundways duty prepare themselves before they go down. They strap on weighted belts and run to keep their hearts and bodies used to the strain of the Earth’s pull.

“Long-range ships mostly don’t go below point six-eight Gs,” the captain says, thinking aloud. “You’ve really never been planetside before? What were your people, traders?”

“Merchant crewe.” I stop, breathe. The effort of talking is burning through all my energy.

“I know folk buck that ninety-days regulation, but I’ve never heard of anyone going their whole life without touching down planetside unless their ship’s rated a full one G,” the captain mutters. “Your people kept you on a cardiovascular conditioning regimen at least, right?”

I don’t know what she’s saying, but it doesn’t matter. “Women of the air, stay aloft,” I whisper, and smile bitterly to myself.

The captain shoots a glance at me. “You okay, fi?”

I shake my head and let my eyes close. My body feels old and crushed with pain. “I’m dead.”

“Dead?” she asks carefully, as if she thinks I might be dream talking, half gone with pain and fatigue.

I nod. The sun’s glare sweeps over my face as the ship ducks out from beneath a cloud, turning the world inside my eyelids red. “Dead.”

H eat. Clinging, humid, the kind that leaves my lungs boiled and limp. The kind I woke to each newday on the Parastrata. For a moment, I think I’m back, back home, with Lifil curled beside me, Iri and Luck both safe. But then I work my eyes open and the light floods in, heavy and gold, like the whole world is drowned in cooking oil. A smallgirl of maybe eight turns leans over me. Short black braids spring out below her ears. She looks at me with wide eyes a deep honey-amber, some shades lighter than her dark brown skin.

She breathes in sharp. “Manman, she opened her eyes!”

I close them again and try to remember. The world bobbing up and down, a violently blue sky. My hair soaked in sweat. Shouting and hands on my arms, lifting me. A glimpse—water all around and a . . . a . . . what’s it called? A boat, painted deep purple and pink and yolk yellow, its roof stacked high with parcels and riders, cutting away through deep water. Then patchwork walls and tin roofs baking under the sun’s glare. The smell of fuel smoke soaking the air, and everywhere constant, baking light and voices.

And then shade. The tik-tik-tik of a fan spinning lazily overhead. A man’s hand, large and cool and dry, resting on my forehead. “Li fret . . .” His voice, rustling soft like the papery skin of his hand. “Ki sa li genyen?”

The captain, speaking low in the same language, folding something into his hand. The man’s fingers pressed to the pulse below my jaw and something fitted over my nose, piping cool, sweet oxygen to my aching lungs. A needle prick at the inside fold of my arm, and the drop into nothingness.

Until now. I try to push myself up, but my muscles quake with the effort and I fall back on the cushioned pallet, covered in sweat. It feels as though someone is digging his thick, clumsy fingers into my muscles, pulling them apart thread by thread. All I can do is lie still and wait for my limbs to unlock.

The smallgirl stares at me in fright. “Manman!”

Captain Guiteau sticks her head into the room. She’s shed her jacket and beaded belt in favor of a heavy leather mechanic’s apron and welding goggles.

She kneels by my side. “Hand me one of those calcium packs, Miyole.”

Captain Guiteau hangs a floppy bladder full of chalk-white liquid from a metal hook above my bed and connects it to a small plastic something sticking out of my arm.

“Give it a minute, fi.” Captain Guiteau brushes the damp hair from my forehead.

The cramps pulse and fade. My muscles unlock, but my body feels shattered. I lie back, breathing hard. A streaky painting of a pink woman with a fish tail covers the wall above me. A whirring fan balances in one of the room’s high windows. I look around. Captain Guiteau and Miyole crouch by my head, watching me anxiously. A wall of green-painted shelves stands behind them, bowed in the middle by the weight of food and mechanical parts stacked ceiling high.

“There now.” Captain Guiteau helps me push myself up until I’m leaning against the wall. The glass in me grinds against my bones as I move, but when I look down, my skin is smooth as ever. How can the captain and this smallgirl move so quick and easy under the Earth’s grip?

Another wave of nausea ripples over me. I close my eyes, breathing hard despite the thin, flexible tubes pumping air into my nose. I finger the gummy piece of tape bound around my elbow. My own clothes are gone, replaced by a white, wash-worn shift that barely covers my knees. I clutch at my neck for the data pendant. It still hangs there, warm against my skin.

“W-Where am I?” My throat feels burned and raw; my stomach tender and empty, as if someone’s been kicking my middle with a hard boot. The smell of sick lingers in the air.

“East Gyre,” the captain says. She must see the look on my face, because she continues. “In the Pacific. You’re Earthside, fi.”

Earthside. I lean forward and try to push myself to my feet, but my legs give out. I slump back against the wall. “Iri . . .” It’s as if my tongue has become mud. I can’t make the rest of it come out.