Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

His eyes meet mine. They are wide and black-brown, the rich color of the soil where the ther’s lemon trees grew. Something passes between us for half a breath—a flicker of energy. And then it’s gone, leaving me uneasy. What was that? We stare at each other awkwardly under the shipyard’s perimeter lights. I can’t quite grasp the rules here. What is safe? What is proper? Back in the Gyre, I thought I was learning the way this world worked, but things are so different in Mumbai. I have to start all over.

I remember myself, remember his offer. “No. I can do it on my own. Thanks.”

“Oh, come on.” He nudges me, all teasing again. “Don’t be like that. It’d be fun.”

“No, truly. I can’t let you.”

He cocks his head to the side, as if he can’t figure whether I’m joking.

“I mean it,” I say.

“Okay, how about this?” He leans forward in his chair. “I show you where to find a job and you bring home some more of this curry for us to share. Because—chaila—it is the best I’ve had in a long time.”

I bite my lip and look up at the sloop’s wing, thinking. The sooner I find work, the sooner I can pay our own way. And the sooner I fix the ship, the sooner I can make a life for us, Soraya or no Soraya. I guess food would keep us even in the meantime. Besides, tonight marks the first time I’ve smiled since we spotted the storm over the Gyre. It feels good to talk to someone. It feels good to talk to Rushil. I wish it didn’t, but it does.

“Ugh, that was a terrible idea,” Rushil says. “Never mind. You shouldn’t listen to me.”

“No. I mean, I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” A lopsided smile breaks out over his face. It’s an odd thing, that smile. It changes the whole look of him.

“Right so,” I agree.

Rushil drops his spoon in the empty curry container and leans back in his chair. “What kind of work do you want?”

“I don’t know.” I look at the ship again. “Flying, maybe?”

“Sure, as long as you can show your license.”

“License?” I say.

“Your piloting license.”

I shake my head.

“You don’t have a piloting license.” He leans forward in his chair and sighs. “Okay. What else can you do? Bookeeping? Data entry?”

“I can fix things,” I say, uneasy. “And I was on livestock duty.”

Rushil looks at me blankly.

“Chickens and goats,” I explain.

He looks pained. “Anything else?”

“I s’pose . . . I can clean.” I make a face. Who would want to go back to that drudgery after the thrill of flying a ship? “And cook a little.”

“Maybe . . .” Rushil perks up. “There’s a labor placement office near Sion station. All you have to do is show them your ID and . . .” He stops. “You don’t have an ID tag either, huh?”

“Is that the same thing as papers?” I say, thinking back on how expensive it was to get past the flightport without them.

Rushil nods.

“Damn.” I want to kick the empty curry container across the shipyard.

“I’ll take it that’s a no.”

“Isn’t there any way to work without a tag?” I pick at the hem of my shirt. It would be better that way. No records of me, no danger of my father and Jerej finding the smallest thread leading here.

Rushil looks at me, all traces of humor gone. “You don’t want that kind of work. Believe me.”

And I do. The chill that passes his face tells me everything I need to know.

Rushil stands and paces to the nearby fence, and then back again. He frowns, sits down, stands again, and stares out at the street for so long I think he’s forgotten me.

“Rushil?”

He doesn’t answer at first, but when he does, he forces a smile. Not the easy one I saw some minutes ago. This one doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he says, but there’s something in his voice that makes me think I should do exactly that. “I know someone who can fix that for you.”

“W e’ll just go in and out.” Rushil’s eyes dart across the rooftops. Nothing moves up there except laundry baking dry in the midday sun. The buildings in this part of the Salt form a windowless corridor of rusted metal corrugate, splashed with painted words and symbols. The streets are eerily quiet. At a time of day when the rest of the Salt is full of foot traffic and vendors shouting and smallgirls selling flowers at the train station, this neighborhood feels empty.

“In and out,” Rushil repeats. “Simple business.”

I double my pace to keep up with him, sidestepping a gutted street sweeper. A drainage ditch, glassy with sewage, runs along the road beside us. A dozen times now, I’ve started to tell Rushil not to bother, that I don’t want any record of me floating out there, that I’ll find another way to make money and pay him back. But then I think about my choices—the begging man with the sores, the women beneath the streetlamp, the thief—and I clench my jaw shut again.

“How do you know this . . . what’s his name? Panaj?” I ask instead.

“Pankaj,” Rushil says. “I knew him a long time ago. Before . . .” He trails off.

“Before what?”

Rushil doesn’t answer.

I sigh. “You’re being weird again.” A word I picked up from him.

“I know. If I promise to stop being weird as soon as we get out of here, will you stop telling me that?”

“Maybe,” I say.

We stop in front of a gate painted with an interlocking diamond pattern.

Rushil looks up at one of the black spheres mounted on top of the wall. “Pankaj!” He waves. “It’s Rushil Vaish.”

Nothing happens.

“Maybe he’s out working?” I look over my shoulder.

“More like he’s still asleep. Pankaj!” He waves at the spheres again. “Come on, man, I know you can hear me. Open up. I’ve got some business for you.”

A buzzer sounds, then a metallic shriek, and the gate slides open enough for us to pass through single file.

Pankaj’s yard makes Rushil’s look like a neat-raveled piece of work. Tiny plastic bags and other bits of trash litter the tract of mud separating the cinderblock house from the fence. Weeds sprout here and there, partially hiding broken glass bottles and scraps of cellophane. The windows have been boarded shut, and a two-wheeled groundcrawler leans against the side of the house, bulging with fuel tanks and a chrome-plated engine. I haven’t seen anything like it since Mirny. I didn’t think they had them here.

Rushil cuts his eyes to the groundcrawler as we pass it. “We didn’t see that.”

“Right so,” I agree.

The door swings open. “Rushil Vaish.” A wiry man a few turns older than Rushil slouches against the doorway. “I thought we were never going to see you again.”

“Pankaj,” Rushil says.

“What’s this?” Pankaj looks me over. “A peace offering?”

Rushil’s jaw tightens. “A customer.”

Pankaj holds up his hands. “All right, all right. Can’t blame a man for asking. What do you need, chikni?”

I glance at Rushil, suddenly nervous. “An ID tag. For work.”

Pankaj looks to Rushil, too. “Why doesn’t she just work off the books?”