Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

O n the morning after we finish refitting the sloop, I rise early. I tug on my canvas trousers, my boots, a Mumbai-style shirt edged with gold embroidery, and the jacket I inherited from Perpétue. I straighten the data pendant on its silver chain at my neck and check to be sure Perpétue’s knife and my crow are secure in my belt. Then I kiss Miyole and Soraya good-bye over their tea, and take the train down to the shipyard to meet Rushil.

I’m shaky at first when I kick in the ship’s burners and lift off from the yard, but by the time Navi Flightport patches in with our exit trajectory, my hands hold the push bars steady. Rushil perches on the edge of the passenger seat so he can take in the view of Mumbai fading to a jeweled thumb of land as the sky grows dark around us. The winds bounce and jog us as we cross their streams.

“Better strap in,” I say, eyes locked ahead. The break in the atmosphere looms before us, growing darker as the wisps of air sweep thin.

We burst through, into the cold stillness of space. Rushil takes in a breath. The stars burn steady, but none so bright as the Earth beneath us. I sneak a look at him.

“Is it how you thought?”

“It’s so much more . . .”

I reach for his hand and push us on to Bhutto station.

We make dock on the commerce tier. Rushil links his fingers through mine as we step down on the docking floor. His eyes fly everywhere, taking in the bustle of passengers from every corner of the world, the holograms and vendors, and the laborers trucking carts of goods through the tight-packed crowds.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” His eyes have a faraway, stunned look, like a bird that’s flown into a window. “It’s just so . . . so . . .”

“It takes some getting used to.” I press my lips together, trying not to laugh.

He remembers to blink and turns to me. “I guess this is how you felt when you first got to Mumbai, huh?”

“Some.” I smile up at him.

My crow pings at my belt. I look down at the time. “Chaila. My appointment’s in fifteen minutes. You have the specs for those air scrubbers?”

Rushil pats his crow.

“I’ll see about the shipping license, then,” I say. The tremor in my voice is half fear, half excitement. “Wish me luck.”

Rushil squeezes my hand tight and laughs. “Stop worrying, okay?” He kisses me quick. “You’ll do fine.”

“I know.” I go up on tiptoe and kiss him back. “Meet me back here?”

“Two hours?”

I nod. “Two hours.”

I stand outside the flight authority office, clutching my tablet to my chest. The forms are all done inside, only waiting to be transferred and accepted, along with a small bribe for the flight officials to keep things moving smoothly. When my turn comes, I step up to the window.

A square-jawed woman wearing the uniform of the Bhutto Station Authority stares dully out at me. I slide my tablet across the counter with the square of pay plastic on top. She pockets the plastic without looking up from my form. “Ava Parastrata?”

“Right so,” I say.

“Ship’s name?”

“The Perpétue.” I’ve whispered it to myself so many times as I lay in bed at night or cold-fused protective insulation between the layers of the ship’s hull, I can say it now without stumbling.

“Sign here.” She flips the tablet around to face me and holds out a stylus.

I mark my first and last name, neat and even. No one would know I couldn’t string together the letters a mere turn past.

The official scans my tablet, and a seal appears over the document on the screen. She stretches out a tired smile for me. “Congratulations, Captain. Make sure you upload that into your ship’s identification signal. Good flying.”

I can’t help but smile back wide. I walk away through the thronging corridor, staring down at the seal on my screen. Captain Ava Parastrata. I could almost skip. Here I am, walking sure and fearless in a place I once thought would swallow me live. From now on, I choose where I want to go.

I don’t notice the woman balancing a baby in one arm and a box in the other, standing in the middle of the corridor, until it’s too late. I knock into her full speed. She manages to hold on to the baby but drops the box of thumb-sized CO 2cartridges. They clatter to the floor.

“Sorry, so missus.” I drop to my knees and grab at them.

The woman doesn’t move. “What did you call me?”

“So missus . . . ,” I begin, and glance up.

A pair of ocean-blue eyes look down at me. She wears her black hair in a messy braid tucked behind her cocked-out ears. She and her baby are both cloud pale, with blue veins branching under their skin. She stares at me.

I stand. “Soli?”

She fixes on the pendant at my neck and frowns, then reaches out a hand to touch it. “Ava?”

“Right so.” My eyes water. “Oh, Soli.”

“Mercies.” She pulls me close with her free arm, the cartridges forgotten. The baby squawks in protest.

She pulls back but keeps a tight grip on my arm. “We thought you were dead. We looked for you such a long time. And then your father said you were dead, that you had fallen down groundways—”

“My father?” I frown. “What are you doing out alone, Soli?”

“Oh, don’t worry on that now.” Soli’s eyes are soft, but new-laid care lines fan out at their corners. She looks as if she’s aged five turns in the time since I saw her last. “They’ll want to see you.”

“Who?”

Soli’s smile creeps in with a touch of mischief. “You’ll see.” She repositions the baby on her hip and grabs my hand. “Everything is different now, Ava. Things have changed, ever since . . .” She closes her mouth as if she’s thought better of what she was about to say.

I pull back. “Ever since what? Different how?”

“It’s better if you see.” She tugs at my hand. “Hurry on. Truly, Ava, they’ll be so glad.”

I shudder with a sudden thought. Luck. Could he . . .

No. Luck is dead. I can’t start spinning wild fantasies, only to have them crushed again. I check my crow. Thirty minutes until I’m supposed to meet Rushil back at the sloop. Bare time, but some. Enough to see what Soli means.

“Right so,” I agree, and Soli’s face lights up.

I follow her through Bhutto station’s corridors, my heart and steps quickening. She chatters on about her baby—Heart, a boy—and marriages and other crewe gossip, and all the while, her son peeks out at me from her shoulder. I remember my first glimpse of Soraya when I was a smallgirl, her certain step and unflinching gaze, how grand and strange she was. I give Heart a small smile. He buries his face against Soli’s neck and stuffs his pudgy finger in his mouth, but then glances back and gives me a gap-toothed smile.We take the lift down to tier twelve and come to the big metal doors of a docking bay. Soli lets go of my hand to open the latchport.

I step back, suddenly flush with worry. What if things aren’t so different? What if her crewemen still despise me? What if this whole thing is a trap meant to lure me back to justice? I watch Soli tap in a code and push the door open.

She glances back. “Come how, Ava? I promise, everything’s fine.”

I search her face, with its tired eyes and knitted brows. Soli would never betray me. No matter what else has changed, I know that. I step through the latchport.