Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“Come on in. I’ll see if Pala has the tea ready.” He tilts his head at a low-slung metal trailer propped up on cinderblocks in the corner of the lot. Broadcast needles and receiving dishes cover its roof. A stringy cat uncurls itself from a dish on the roof, hops down, and darts into a hole in some latticework. Two folding chairs sit in front of the trailer, one of them holding the narrow door ajar.

“Got some customers there, Vaish?” A lanky boy lolls atop a sleek, two-engine daytripper in the next lot over.

Rushil stops. “What do you care, Shruti?”

Shruti grins and dangles his legs over the ship’s side. “Just watching out for these ladies.” He eyes me. “You looking for a place to dock, chikni?”

I look at Rushil and shrug.

Shruti shakes his head. “Don’t dock with Rushil Vaish. He’ll chop up your ship and sell its bits.”

Rushil closes his eyes. His jaw tightens. “Shruti, I swear . . .”

Shruti slides down the side of the daytripper and hooks his fingers through the fence. “Dock with me. I’ll make you a much better deal.”

“So?” I spare a quick glance at Rushil.

“Yeah.” Shruti locks eyes with me and gives me a sideways smile. “You can dock with me for nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“That’s right,” he says. “But if we’re doing each other favors . . .” He drops his eyes to my breasts and cocks his head, grinning with all his perfect teeth.

“Satak le, Shruti.” Rushil smacks the fence between them. “Gross. No one’s going to fall for that.”

“She would.” Shruti raises his eyebrows at me. “How about it, chikni?”

“N . . . no,” I stammer. “No.” My skin crawls.

Shruti winks as he backs away. “Open offer. You know where I am if you change your mind.”

“Sorry about him.” Rushil pulls the chair propping the trailer door open out of the way. “Whoever put Shruti together only gave him one setting.”

Inside, every spare surface is crammed with junk. A dozen fans bolted to the ceiling and walls stir the air. At the back of the trailer, a sheet barely covers an alcove with a raised bunk and a window. In the front, I see a cramped kitchen with a portable stove some like the one Perpétue kept, only streaked with grease all over its sides. It looks like no one ever takes it apart to clean it.

“Where’s—” I start to ask, but Rushil pulls back the sheet, waking an enormous white dog with pointed ears. It blinks sleepily at us and thumps its tail on the bed.

“There you are, Pala.” Rushil kneels down beside the dog and ruffles its ears. “Did you make tea for us? No?” Rushil shakes his head. “He’s a terrible housekeeper.”

“Oh,” I say. I’m stretched too thin to laugh. Miyole doesn’t say anything.

The dog stands and jumps down to the floor, and it’s only then that I realize it’s missing one of its back legs. It hobbles after Rushil, wagging its tail, as he scoops a stack of warped paper repair manuals and a battered tablet from the trailer’s one sagging chair, drops them on the bunk, and then pulls the curtain closed to hide the mess.

“I’ll get the tea brewing.” He edges around us. “I think I’ve got some roti in here, too. I can heat it up.”

I circle slowly in middle of the cramped trailer. “You live here alone?”

“Yeah.” Rushil grabs an armful of dirty mugs and cups from a small table by the wall, then hurries into the tiny kitchen. “Well, me and Pala. This place was my uncle’s before he died.”

“Oh,” I say again.

“Sorry about the mess.” Rushil scoops the rest of the junk from the table—connecter lines, coins, a multitool, bits of paper covered with numbers, tacks, an old leather-stitched ball—and dumps everything into a plastic bin half full of snarled cables. “I keep this stuff to reuse, but sometimes I forget.”

He waves a hand at the chair. “Go on, sit down. Tea’s almost on.”

I sit. Miyole crowds into the chair beside me. She leans her head against my shoulder and picks at her bandages.

“Don’t scratch,” I say. Another thing we need. Medicine. Proper bandages for her hands.

Pala limps up to us and snuffles Miyole, then props his head on her knees, giving her a hopeful look.

“Pala, don’t beg!” Rushil comes back with a teapot, some plates of flat, round bread, and three glass cups. “He’s not much of a guard dog, either.”

Rushil hands me a sloshing-full glass of tea. I take a sip. The tea is hot and milky, sweet, but with a bite of something, clove maybe, and something else we never had on the Parastrata. We drink in silence. The tea is perfect, and the bread a little stale, but I swear it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I try to eat slowly, but I can’t keep myself from pushing more and more into my mouth. Miyole is eating, too, thank the Mercies.

Rushil watches us in wonder. “What happened to you two?”

I stop with a scrap of bread halfway to my mouth and lay it down on the plate again. “We were up on a run. Her mother . . .” I look at Miyole. She sits frozen, her eyes glazed over, but I can tell she’s listening to every word.

Nausea fingers the back of my throat. I can’t talk on it now, I want to say. If I start talking on what’s passed, it will turn me inside out. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”

I’m going to be sick. I push myself out of the chair and run outside. I double over behind a pile of rusted metal corrugate beside the trailer. My stomach buckles and heaves, and all the bread I’ve eaten comes up. I spit into the dirt. I wipe my mouth and look out on the roofs of the Salt. Solar panels glare back at me, and laundry hangs stiff on runners. A breeze kicks up a puff of dust, sends it curling.

Rushil stands in the door, looking worried. “You okay?”

“I think I ate too fast.”

Rushil kicks the dirt. “That can happen.”

“Right so.” I catch his eye and a strange, soft feeling passes through me. I want to thank him for acting as if everything is even keel, but I also want to slink under the house with his cat and pretend I’m dead for a little while.

“You need water,” he says. “Come back inside. I’ll get some for you.”

“What about . . . ?” I grimace at the stacks of corrugate.

“Oh, don’t worry. Pala will get that sorted.”

It takes me a moment to realize what he means. “Ew.”

He cracks a smile. “He’s not such a bad housekeeper after all.”

I laugh. A small, brittle thing, but I can’t help myself. I think of Perpétue on the roof. Laugh or cry, is that it, fi?

I drink the water slowly, taking little sips so I’m sure it will stay down. Miyole rubs Pala’s ears absentmindedly, humming to herself.

“Your aunt,” Rushil says. “She lives here in Mumbai?”

“I think so. She works at a university. She’s a so doc—I mean a doctor.” I shrug. “At least, that’s what the feeds say.”

“Maybe . . .” Rushil studies his knuckles. They’re knobby and thick with old scar tissue at the joints. They’ve been broken, I realize.

“I don’t mean this the way Shruti did,” Rushil says, still looking down. “But maybe we could work something out. Maybe you could keep your ship here and pay me back when you find your aunt.” He looks up at me.

I tighten my jaw, wary. The thing that Shruti boy said comes back at me. What if this is some kind of trap?