Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“I hear you,” Jerej shouts into the handheld. “I’m on it.

“Damn,” he says again, once the alarm has shut off. He runs a hand through his hair and kicks the boom. “Worthless. How am I supposed to do a proper fix with scrap for a seal?”

I bite my lip. “Maybe . . .”

Jerej frowns at me. “What?”

“What if you made it so it didn’t push so hard?”

“You mean decrease the pressure?” Jerej shakes his head. “That seal’s so bust, Lifil could break it.”

I reach past him and finger the seal’s frayed edge. It’s not the center that’s weak, only the outer rim. It’s like trying to keep the top on a jar of preserves without a ring.

“What if you had something . . .” I trail off and hurry to the supply shelves. I rummage through until I find what I need—a round rubber belt with enough give to fit over the mouth of the piston.

Jerej makes a face. “What’s that for?”

“To keep it in place,” I explain. “You lower the pressure, see? Then you put the seal back on and put this over it, around the sides.”

“I don’t know.” He takes the belt from me. “I guess . . . it might do. The casing wouldn’t fit back over it, though.”

A moment of doubt creeps up on me. “That won’t hurt it, will it?”

Jerej frowns in thought. “Not in the short run. I s’pose no casing’s better than no boom at all.”

I hover near the stairs as Jerej tries my fix. When it’s in place, he calls up to Balab again.

“You’d better have it this time,” the head Fix grumbles.

The hum starts back up. Slowly, the boom moves back on track, clicking as each section snaps into place. I hold my breath. It’s slower this time with the pressure turned low, but the seal holds. The last length of the arm clicks home, and the machinery powers itself down with a sigh.

“It worked!” Jerej grabs my shoulder and lets out a short laugh.

I laugh with him, and for a span of breath, we are those children again, running free across the bay.

Then suspicion chills Jerej’s features. He steps away from me and narrows his eyes. “How . . . how did you know that fix?”

“I didn’t,” I say. My mouth has gone dry. “Just a lucky guess.”

We stare at each other in uncomfortable silence. The other Fixes would never let him hear the end of it if they found out a girl had made the fix for him.

“I only wanted to help,” I say. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Jerej’s mouth sharpens into a line. “No. You won’t.”

I catch my breath, stung. Jerej is right. He’d be teased, sure, but we both know I’d have more to lose if it came out I was the one to find the fix. Even so, it hurts to hear him say it.

“You should go,” he says. “You’ve got your own chores.”

“Right so,” I agree. And without another look at him, I flee up the stairs.

The girls my age are still off on their duties, so most of the women bathing themselves are wives, some only a few turns older than me, their bellies big with child. They smile on me and whisper to their neighbors as I kneel on the cleanroom tile beside them. The word I’m to be a bride must be making the rounds.

I cover my hands and arms with oil and try to ignore the leaden feeling in my stomach.

Never let them see you doubt, I hear Modrie Reller say. A so girl is a beacon to her people. She is our mother Saeleas reborn in virgin glory.

I lift my chin and concentrate on wicking away the day’s flour and dirt with the dull, curved blade of my strigil. Let them talk. As gossip goes, it isn’t the bad kind. Far better than any rumor about my unnatural interest in fixes. Maybe it’s better to be remembered this way, the dutiful daughter, not anyone extraordinary. I will be like Saeleas. I will be a story my crewemates tell their smallones of how a woman may be raised high by virtue and obedience.

I find Modrie Reller waiting for me back in the women’s quarters, Llell at her side. I stop dead. Llell’s arms are full of copper bands and quilted cloth, her eyes fastened to the floor. By all rights, she should be the one being washed and prepared for betrothal, since she’s near a full turn older than me, and we both know it. Modrie Reller knows it, too. It’s pure cruelty to make her attend another bride. I flash a look at my stepmother, but her face is serene.

“You’re leaving us a bride.” Modrie Reller motions Llell forward with a clipped wave. “We have to be sure you arrive looking like one.”

Llell and I can barely meet each other’s eyes as she helps me into fresh skirts, my good, dark-green ones with tiny mirrors surrounded by pale green starbursts. Why is Modrie Reller doing this? Llell can’t have wanted to be my handmaid. She tugs too hard at my skirt ties. The cords dig into my skin, but I bite my lip and keep my tongue still.

Llell finishes with my skirts and laces me into a sleeveless quilted shirt with inlaid copper disks. Afterward, she holds up a mirror while Modrie Reller carefully combs and braids my hair. The dye leaves it shiny, but still some brittle, even after the cooling cloth.

“Hold out your arms,” Modrie Reller says when I am brushed and braided.

I do. She has Llell kneel and wind the copper wire around my ankles and forearms. I try to hold still as she wraps me with practiced, pinching efficiency, but I can tell from the flush along her hands and downturned cheeks that shame is burning her up inside. Meanwhile, the copper weighs heavy on me, making my every move graceful but achingly slow.

Llell narrows her eyes to see better as she doubles the last of the wire into a tiny loop and secures it in place.

“Heavens, Llell.” Modrie Reller rolls her eyes. “Don’t squint. No one wants a squint-eyed wife.”

“Modrie,” I mumble in protest.

“Modrie nothing.” She waves a hand, dismissing me. She flicks out the tip of her fan at Llell. “Now the mirror.”

I try to catch Llell’s eye, but she lifts the heavy mirror again, hiding her own face behind the reflection of mine. Modrie Reller grips my chin as she paints pale shine onto my cheeks.

“There now,” she says when she finishes. “At least you don’t look so Earth bred.”

I can’t see myself, only some other girl. A bride in her thick green skirts and heavy copper wristlets, face shimmer-pale beside her deep red braids. Is that me? I feel as if I’m only a passenger in this body.

“That will do, Llell.” My stepmother flaps open her fan and waves it to cool her neck. “Have your mother bring those tapestries to the bay, the ones for the bride gift.”

Llell slinks from the room. Maybe I can find her before the visiting party leaves, explain how I didn’t ask Modrie Reller to pull her from her duties, didn’t want her forced into being my handmaid . . .

But then Modrie Reller takes my face in her hands and presses a rare kiss on my forehead. The shock of it sinks everything else to the back of my mind. The only other time I’ve ever seen Modrie Reller give a kiss was to my mother’s head as the women dressed her body in her old bridal finery for burial.

“Aren’t you coming with us on the visiting party?” I ask. It’s custom for a girl’s mother and modries to prepare her for her husband on her binding day.

Modrie Reller shakes her head. “Not with the smallone coming so soon.”