Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

I rub the spot between my eyebrows. “I don’t know.” I look toward the green door. An idea strikes me. “Could I talk to the boys?”

It’s a risk but a small one. None of them should be able to figure out who I am by my looks, and if they piece it together, who would they tell?

“The boys?” Vina’s smile fades. She places a cup on the edge of the desk before me and fills it with amber tea. “Why would you want to speak to them?”

“Maybe one of them knows something.” I pick up the cup. “About what happened to Luck.”

“Perhaps.” She pauses, filling her own cup, and her smile creeps back. “Yes, I think that could be managed. In fact, why don’t you stay here tonight?”

I stiffen. “I have to get back. The train—”

“The next train leaves in . . .” Vina checks her crow. “Ninety minutes. I thought you wanted time to speak with the boys?”

“I do, but—”

“Well, then, stay the night.” Vina gives an elegant little shrug that says simple. “Howe will drive you back to the the station tomorrow. And who knows, maybe after you’ve rested, you’ll feel more like talking.”

I grit my teeth. “Right so.” I put my teacup back on her desk, untouched. “I think I’d like to see them now.”

Vina arches an eyebrow. “I have to warn you. They don’t fancy talking to women much.”

I almost laugh. “I think I can handle it.”

“Of course.” Vina nods and picks up her crow. “Howe?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Will you escort Miss Parastrata down to the vocational workshop? She’d like to interview some of our charges.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “On my way.”

“See?” Vina says. “I told you we could help each other.”

H owe opens the door to the vocational workshop—a long, windowless room, bright with artificial lights. Sallow-skinned boys with hair of black and red and white-blond sit at tables spread across the room, each intent on a different task. Two scrawny boys hunch over welding pens, fixing electronics, while others peer into tablet screens or sit in small groups, talking. It takes me a slip or two to figure what’s wrong with the scene. I can’t hear anything. Not the whine of the welding pen or the soft tapping of fingers on a trackboard, or the murmur of voices. The room must have a sort of sound shield, some like the one what protects Soraya’s house from the city noise.

“What crewe was your guy again?” Howe asks.

I walk forward. “ ther,” I say, craning my neck to check the faces of the boys at the tablets. As we draw nearer, the sound shield fades and I can hear their fingers clicking. “His name is ther Luck.”

“I think we have a few ther kids over in the socialization workshop.” Howe nods at the group slouched around a table in the corner. Another man with a neat-trimmed black beard, maybe a teacher of some kind, sits at the head of the table, gesturing and talking to them.

The teacher looks up and smiles at us as we approach. “Ah, look everyone. We have visitors. You all know Instructor Howe.” He turns his smile to me. “And what a perfect opportunity to practice our conversation skills. Who would like to ask this young lady her name?”

The boys cut looks at me, but none of them answer.

“Keep? Darrad?” The instructor looks from a skinny, dark-haired boy to a slightly older boy with close-cropped hair the color of a persimmon.

Darrad. For half a breath, I’m sure he’ll recognize me. He belonged to one of the dyegirls. Four turns ago they said he was dead—killed in an accident on his first trip groundways. All the wives held his mother’s hands while she wept.

The boys stay silent, arms folded, eyes on the table. None of them so much as look at me.

The instructor sighs. “Amon?” He looks to the frail, white-haired boy beside him, who is chewing on a nail. He’s young, younger than all the others around him.

Amon glances nervously from the instructor to the other boys. He looks in my direction, but his gaze floats somewhere over my head. “Pleasetomeetyoumiss.”

“Very good,” the instructor says. “And now, what’s next?”

“I’mAmonNauwhat’syourgoodnameplease?”

“Ava,” I say.

Darrad’s head snaps up, his face a mix of confusion and suspicion, but he doesn’t say anything.

“How can we help you, Ava?” the instructor prompts. He smiles too wide.

“I’m looking for someone.” I turn from one boy to another, but they all keep their eyes down, even Amon now. “His name is ther Luck. He’d be about nineteen turns now. Black hair, blue eyes.”

None of them answers me, although I can tell from the way the dark-haired boys shift in their seats and dart furtive looks at me they know exactly who I mean. Luck was their captain’s firstborn son, after all. And who am I? A stranger. A girl.

The instructor scratches his chin. “We don’t have anyone that old here right now.” He looks at Howe. “Have you taken her to look at the records up Vina’s?”

“First thing. She—”

“Please,” I break in, addressing the boys. My search can’t end here. This can’t be it. “If any of you know anything . . . if you’ve ever heard anything of Luck . . . I’m begging you, please tell me.”

The boys exchange looks and go back to staring at their hands or the tabletop. None of them says anything.

I stare at the ther boys, my eyes burning. “Please.”

One of them shakes his head ever so slightly.

“Come on.” Howe touches my shoulder. “They’re not feeling talkative today.”

I back away.

“See you in biome five this afternoon, guys,” he calls as he leads me toward the door.

The sound shield closes behind us. Some months earlier, I might have left steaming with anger that the boys clung so hard to their crewe ways, that they wouldn’t deign to talk to me. But now, looking at them, I only feel sad. How will they ever make their way in this world if they can’t bring themselves to talk to anyone but men? And how alone they are. At least I have Miyole and Soraya, and maybe Rushil.

I lie awake in the seed bank’s guest quarters, worrying the edge of the scratchy blanket. Some hours ago, Howe’s voice came over the coms. Ten o’clock. Lights out.

Was there something the ther boys weren’t telling me? Was there something I missed?

Blue eyes, dark hair, I tell myself. But I can’t make Luck come alive in my memory the way I used to. I can’t make myself believe he’s lying beside me.

I roll out of bed and pace the small room. Maybe there’s something more in Vina’s files. Maybe she overlooked something. Or chose not to tell me. Maybe she wants something out of me first, some trade. My face, the story of my life, for news of Luck? But if so, why wouldn’t she come out and say it?

I chew on my lip. Perpétue would have tried to get Vina talking with a flash of her knife and an arched eyebrow. Rushil would bribe her. Soraya would appeal to her reason or, failing that, call in her lawyer. But what can I do? I don’t have Soraya’s lawyer or her way with words, I don’t think the knife would work this time, and the one thing Vina seems to want from me is the last thing I want to give.

I pull on my boots and go to the door. It whisks aside for me, revealing the darkened hallway. No locks for me here. Moonlight slants up the walls and silvers the pear trees on the other side of the glass.