Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“Right so . . . yes.” It seems a safe thing to say, since she’s smiling.

She makes for her desk. “I can contact one of our student ambassadors, have them give you a guided tour, if you like.”

“No!” The word comes out louder than I mean. I lower my voice. “I mean, thank you, so, I’m fine on my own.”

“All right, but if you change your mind . . .” She waves a hand at her desk. “If you go out the back entrance, through the rose gardens, and then turn right past the new biophysics labs, you’ll find the Wadla Building. It’s the yellow one, three floors.”

“Thank you, so missus.” I hurry away before she can salt me with more questions and offers to help.

The back entrance opens up on blinding sunlight and a smell so sweet I can near taste the air. I’ve seen flowers before—beans have them, and squash, some of the crops we grew in hydroponics aboard the Parastrata—but they were always delicate things that withered away in service of their fruits. The ones overflowing their beds before me are lush, layers and layers of thick, velvety petals bursting from their stems in showy reds and soft pinks, and even yellow. Fat bees buzz around them.

I put out a hand to the warm stone wall to keep myself from sinking down to the thick carpet of grass. To have such beauty around you all the time—and to have the luxury to waste soil and light and water on something meant only to please. It fills me with awe and anger. How do some people live this way when their neighbors go without food or water? Do they not care? Or do the flowers simply help them forget what they can’t change?

I pace the garden slowly. This is Soraya’s world—flowers and books and decorative glass. Why should she care about anything outside it? Would she even understand what it has taken to come this far, to find her? Why should she help me?

I hurry from the garden. Better to finish this, once and for all. Better to get it over with and go back to Miyole. I walk fast, head down, avoiding the gazes of students passing me on the path. I look up only to check for the yellow building the woman in the book room told me about.

As I round a corner, I nearly collide with a pale-skinned, sandy-haired boy.

He darts out of the way just in time. “Oh. Sorry.”

I think nothing of it, forge ahead with my head down, but then he calls to me from behind.

“Hey, um . . . miss? Excuse me?”

I turn.

He holds something cradled in his palm. “I think you dropped this.”

My pendant? But no, it’s still fast around my throat.

“I don’t think—”

But he’s already walking to me. My hand opens without me, and he drops two round metal coins into it.

I look down at them in confusion. “I don’t think these are mi—”

“Hey, a rupaye’s a rupaye, right?” He winks at me and shrugs. “Bad luck to leave them lying around.”

“You don’t want them?”

He laughs. “What am I going to do with that? Buy a cheap curry?” He shakes his head turns to walk away.

I stand frozen in the middle of the path, not understanding. Is this enough to buy a meal? Who would sniff at that? But I know, don’t I? The same kind of people who would use their precious ground for roses.

The Wadla Building sits solid and plain faced at the end of the path, its only decoration the shimmering solar panels on its roof. I skirt the cluster of students in the foyer and duck down the nearest hallway. Blue glass doors look in on rooms full of tables with tablets built into them. I check the plaques beside the doors. Room 124, 126, 128 . . . the hall ends in a stair.

Room 203, I remind myself, and climb.

Quiet reigns on the second floor. I try to walk softly, but the soles of my shoes beat out a heavy rhythm. Room 226, 224, 222. My breath comes shallow.

What if she doesn’t believe me about who I am? What if she doesn’t want me?

Why should she care for you? Even if she does believe you, she’ll know what a nothing you are. She’ll know your own crewe cast you off. She’ll know you must have done something terrible to deserve such a fate.

I try to push Modrie Reller’s voice to the back of my mind, but it follows me down the hallway. My heart beats faster with every step.

Room 216, Room 214, Room 212.

You’re nothing. You’re muck. You’re dead to us.

Room 210, Room 208, Room 206.

You don’t deserve grace. You don’t deserve mercy. You’re worthless.

Room 204. I stop. Room 203 stands across the hall, its door open. A woman wearing a blue headscarf sits at a desk with her back to me, staring into a wide, bright screen. My breath comes loud and harsh. I try to swallow it, but that only fills my lungs with fire.

Room 203, Wadla Building for Linguistic Sciences. This is it. All I have to do is reach out and knock on the doorframe, speak her name.

So why can’t I raise my hand?

Soraya pushes back her chair and stands. Any breath now she’ll turn around. She’ll see me. My modrie Soraya, she’ll see me, and then I’ll have to explain. I’ll have to spill everything out to her—my crimes, my shame, my failure. I can’t do it. I spin on my heel and flee, down the hall and the stairs, through the foyer, past the buildings new and ancient, and the beautiful, useless roses.

T he sky has gone purple by the time I make it back to the Salt. Soft orange lights buzz on above me, one by one, as I thread my way through the patches of people drinking on street corners and leaning against storefronts, tinny music blaring from the bright, wide-open doors. My stomach growls. I haven’t eaten since sunrise. I’ve spent most of the day riding the trains, too shamed to go back to the shipyard and face Miyole, too fearful to return to Kalina and try again with my modrie. But now the sun is setting, and I have no room for shame. Miyole will be hungry and worried, waiting for me. I dodge a man riding a bicycle one-handed while talking on his handheld, and duck into the nearest doorway that smells of food.

A line of people wait by the serving counter. The rest of the small room is crammed with families and workers squashed together around tables, all shouting to be heard over the din. I take my place in the line and close my hand tight around the coins the boy at Kalina gave me.

The glow board above the serving counter crawls with cramped letters and prices, but everyone seems to be asking for the same thing, anyway.

“A curry, please,” I say when I reach the counter, parroting what I’ve heard from the people ahead of me.

The woman behind the counter drops my coins in a jar and fills the bottom of a container with rice, then slops in a delicious-smelling mixture of meat, vegetables, and yellow-gold broth after it. She folds the container closed and pushes it across to me.

“Next!” she shouts.

As I step out of the shop, a boy shoots by, nearly knocking into me and dodging around a crushed ice vendor. I flatten myself against the building.

“Stop him! Thief!” a woman shouts as she puffs after him. “Rukho! Chor!”

The entire street pauses as she barrels after the boy, skirt hiked up around her knees, dust flying in her wake. They both disappear around a corner, and the street jostles into motion again.

I walk the rest of the way to the shipyard with the food held tight. If someone snatched it from me, I don’t think I’d have enough fight in me to chase him. I might just sink down in the dirt and stay there. As I push the gate closed behind me, I spot Rushil up on his roof doing something with one of the receiver dishes. He waves, and then goes back to whatever fix he’s trying to make. Pala gallops up to me, sniffs at the curry, and licks his chops.