Ship Breaker Read online

  Tool paused. He scanned the crew, then turned his fierce one-eyed gaze on Nailer. “I told Sadna I would protect you. But I will not protect you from foolishness. If you choose to risk yourself on the sea, it is nothing to do with me. You have a new crew, I think. My debt to Sadna is repaid.”

  “But what about Lucky Girl?”

  Tool looked at Nailer. “She is just one person. These people think she is infinitely valuable. But she is just one more who will die, if not now, then later.” He nodded at the bustle of the ship. “Come with me, or stay and risk yourself with these ones. It’s your choice. But you should know that they are fanatics. They will die for their Miss Nita. If you go with them, be sure you are willing to do the same.”

  Nailer hesitated. With Tool, he could be safe. They could go anywhere.

  Nita’s face intruded on his thoughts, her smug look when she teased him about not eating with a fork and knife and spoon. Contrasted with that, her frantic urging that he get medicine for his shoulder when he was still nothing but a ship breaker to her. And then, finally, the look in her eyes when they hid beside the boardwalk. Her hand on his cheek…

  “I’m going,” he said firmly.

  Tool studied him. “So. You bite like a mastiff and never let go. Just like your father, then.” Nailer started to retort, but Tool waved him silent. “Don’t argue the obvious. Lopez never let anything stand in his way, either.” Tool’s teeth showed briefly. “Be certain that you aren’t biting something bigger than you, Nailer. I have seen hunting hounds corner a great Komodo dragon, and they died as a pack because they didn’t have the sense to retreat. Your father is more than a dragon. If he catches you, he will slaughter you. And this merchant vessel is no warship, no matter what its captain foolishly believes.”

  Nailer started to answer, tried to say something full of bravado, but something in Tool’s eyes stopped him. “I understand. I’ll be careful.”

  Tool nodded sharply and turned away, but then he paused. He crouched down, his great head leaning close. His remaining eye regarded Nailer, and his breath was laced with the stench of combat and blood.

  “Listen to me, boy. Scientists created me from the genes of dogs and tigers and men and hyenas, but people always believe I am only their dog.” Tool’s eyes flicked to the captain, and his sharp teeth gleamed in a brief smile. “When the fighting comes, don’t deny your slaughter nature. You are no more Richard Lopez than I am an obedient hound. Blood is not destiny, no matter what others may believe.” Tool straightened again and turned away. “Good luck, boy. And good hunting.”

  The captain watched the half-man limp down the gangplank. “A strange creature, that one.”

  Nailer didn’t answer. The anchors were rising. The gangplank reeled inward and sealed itself into a compartment in the side of the clipper. Already Tool was disappearing down the dock. Nailer felt suddenly alone. He wanted to call after Tool. To run after him… He looked around at the bustling crew, all of them working at jobs he didn’t understand, all of them crew, all of them knowing one another and familiar with one another’s work. He felt terribly out of place.

  Pale sails unfurled, rippling in the breezes. The ship’s boom swept across the deck and crewmen ducked under its swing. The sails filled with air and the ship heeled slightly under their pressure. It began to move, urged forward by the increasing breezes of the dawn.

  The captain motioned at Nailer. “Come below, boy. I want a look at you.”

  Nailer wanted to stay on deck, to watch the activity, to see if he could still spy Tool on the docks, but he let the captain guide him down the narrow steps to the cramped interior of the ship.

  The captain opened a door to his own cabin. A small bunk filled most of the space. A window peered out the stern. In the increasing light, the ship’s wake curled white behind them, a spreading vee in the still gray water of morning. The captain nodded to Nailer that he should fold down a bench. He released a seat of his own, nearly filling the room.

  “Space is at a premium,” he said. “We’re for cargo. Not a lot of comfort.”

  Nailer nodded, even though he didn’t know what the captain was talking about. The ship was divine. Everything was clean and ordered. No one seemed to sleep in a room with more than three other people. The hammocks were all strung tidily. Nothing was out of place. It wasn’t like the ship that Lucky Girl had come off, but it was damn close.

  “Tell me, Nailer, where did you come from, originally?”

  “Bright Sands Beach.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s up the coast,” Nailer said. “A hundred miles, maybe.”

  “There’s nothing up there…” The captain frowned. “You’re a ship breaker?” When Nailer nodded, the captain made a face. “I should have guessed from your ribs and work tattoos.” He studied Nailer’s marked skin. “Ugly work, that.”

  “It pays, though.”

  “How old are you? Fourteen? Fifteen? You look so starved, I can’t tell.”

  Nailer shrugged. “Pima was sixteen, I think. And she was older than me…” He shrugged.

  “You don’t know?”

  Nailer shrugged again. “Doesn’t really matter. Either you’re small enough for light crew, or you’re big enough for heavy crew, and either way, if you’re too stupid or lazy or untrustworthy, then you’re neither, because no one will vouch for you. No. I don’t know how old I am. But I made it onto light crew, and I made quota every day. That’s what matters where I come from. Not your stupid age.”

  “Don’t be testy. I’m just curious about you.” The captain seemed about to say something more on the topic, but instead turned to the subject of Richard Lopez.

  “The half-man said your father was hunting you?”

  “Yeah.” Nailer described the beach and his father, the way things ran on the wrecks. Described how his father dealt with people who opposed him.

  “Why didn’t you just go along?” the captain asked. “It would have been easier for you. More profitable, certainly. Pyce has no hesitation about buying loyalty. You would have been rich and safe if you’d just sold Miss Nita.”

  Nailer shrugged.

  The captain’s face turned hard. “I want an answer,” he said. “You’re going against your own blood. Maybe you’ve got second thoughts. Maybe you’d like to work out a truce with your father.”

  Nailer laughed. “My dad doesn’t give anyone a chance for second thoughts. He cuts you first. He talks about family sticking together, but what he really means is that I give him money so he can slide crystal, and make sure he’s okay on his binges, and he hits me when he wants.” Nailer made a face. “Lucky Girl’s more of a family than he is.”

  As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. Despite the short time he’d known her, Nailer was sure of Nita. He could count the people on one hand who were like that, and Pima and Sadna were the ones who topped that list. And surprisingly, Lucky Girl was there, too. She was family. An overwhelming sense of loss threatened to swallow him.

  “So now you want revenge,” the captain said.

  “No. I just—” Nailer shook his head. “It’s not about my dad. It’s Lucky Girl. She’s good, right? She’s worth a hundred of some of my old crew. A thousand of my dad.” His voice cracked. Nailer took a breath, trying to master himself, then looked up at the captain. “I wouldn’t leave a dead dog with my dad, let alone Lucky Girl. I have to get her back.”

  The captain studied Nailer thoughtfully. Silence stretched between them.

  “You poor bastard,” the captain murmured finally.

  “Me?” Nailer was confused. “Why?”

  The captain smiled tightly. “You understand that Miss Nita belongs to one of the most powerful trading clans in the North?”

  “So?”

  “Eh. Never mind.” The captain sighed. “I’m sure Miss Nita would be pleased to know she inspires such loyalty from a ship breaker.”

  Nailer felt his face turn hot with embarrassment. The captain made him sound like
a starving mongrel, tagging at Lucky Girl’s heels, hoping for scraps. He wanted to say something, to change the captain’s impression of him. To make the man take him seriously. The captain saw a ship breaker, tattooed with work stamps and scarred with hard labor. A kid with his ribs showing through. That was all. A bit of beach trash.

  Nailer stared at him. “Lucky Girl used to look at me the same way you’re looking at me. And now she doesn’t. That’s why I’m going with you. No other reason. Got it?”

  The captain had the grace to look embarrassed. He glanced away and changed the subject. “Lucky Girl. Again with the nickname,” the captain said. “Why that?”

  “She’s got the Fates with her. She came through a city killer and everyone else on that ship was dead. Doesn’t get much luckier than that.”

  “And your people value luck,” the captain said.

  “My people. Yeah, ship breakers like the lucky eye. Not much else to hang on to when you’re on the wrecks.”

  “Skill? Hard work?”

  Nailer laughed. “They’re nice. But they only get you so far. Look at you. You got yourself a swank ship and a swank life.”

  “I’ve worked very hard for what I have.”

  “Still born swank,” Nailer pointed out. “Pima’s mom works a thousand times harder than you and she’s never going to have a life as nice as what you got on this boat.” He shrugged. “If that ain’t being born with the lucky eye, I don’t know what is.”

  The captain started to answer, then stopped and nodded shortly. “I suppose even our bad luck looks good to you.”

  “Unless you’re dead,” Nailer said. “That’s about it, though.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t plan on being dead quite yet.”

  “No one does.”

  The captain grinned. “I’ve got myself a regular oracle here.” He stood. “I’ll have to ask you to throw bones for me sometime. In the meantime, I can at least foretell that I’m willing to keep you aboard.” He looked Nailer up and down. “We’ll need to get you cleaned up and find some clothes and a decent meal for you.” He urged Nailer out the door and into the squeezeway beyond. “And then we’ll see about getting you trained with a pistol.”

  “Yeah?” Nailer tried to hide his interest.

  “Your half-man Tool was correct in one thing. If we’re going to bring Miss Nita back to us, there will be a fight. Pyce’s people won’t let her go easily.”

  “You think you can take them?”

  “Of course. Pyce took us once unawares, but we won’t make the mistake of underestimating him again.” He clapped Nailer’s shoulder. “With a little luck, we’ll have Miss Nita back and safe in no time.”

  The ship was starting to dip into deep water, the waves churning under it as it made its way out of the safety of the bay. Nailer swayed unsteadily in the passageway, trying to keep his footing. The captain watched him. “You’ll get your sea legs soon, don’t worry. And when we’re up on the hydrofoils, it’s almost like standing on dry land.”

  Nailer wasn’t so sure of that. The deck came up under his feet and sent him stumbling into a wall. The captain watched amused, then strode down the corridor, untroubled by the surge and roll of the deck.

  Nailer staggered after. “Captain?”

  The man turned.

  “Your guy Pyce might be bad, but don’t underestimate my dad, either. He might look just like me, all skinny and cut up, but he’s deadly. He’ll kill you like a cockroach if you don’t watch him.”

  The captain nodded. “I wouldn’t worry too much. If Pyce’s people haven’t killed me yet, your father won’t either.” He turned and led Nailer up onto the deck.

  Wind ruffled Nailer’s face as they came up into the dawn. The sun’s light increased, a golden wave reaching across the ocean. Dauntless buried herself in the glittering waves, slicing for deeper waters.

  Hunting.

  20

  WHITE SPRAY EXPLODED over Dauntless’s prow and showered Nailer in cool shimmering drops. He whooped and leaned far over the rail as the ship plunged into the next wave trough, then surged skyward again.

  What had always looked so smooth and sleek on the horizon was a rough adventure when experienced from the prow of the Dauntless. Waves flew toward him, huge surges that exploded in spray as the low-density hull slashed through. All across the decks, crewmen called and labored under the hot sun, orienting sails, drilling for fire attacks, clearing deck materials as they readied for the fight that they hoped would come.

  Dauntless was patrolling the blue waters just a few miles off the Orleans, hoping for a glimpse of their potential quarry. Everyone hoped it would be the Ray holding Nita. Dauntless was more than a match for that soft target, but the other ship, Pole Star, everyone feared. Even the captain was worried about that one. Candless was too good a leader to admit that he was frightened, but Nailer could tell from the way his face turned stony at the mention of the cross-global schooner that it represented an unequal fight.

  “She’s fast, and she’s got teeth,” Reynolds said when Nailer asked about the ship. “She’s got an armored hull, she’s got missile and torpedo systems that can blow us right out of the water, and we’d hardly have a chance to pray to God before we died.”

  She explained that Pole Star was a trading vessel but also a warship, accustomed to fighting Siberian and Inuit pirates as it made the icy Pole Run to Nippon. The pirates were bitter enemies of the trading fleets and perfectly willing to kill or sink an entire cargo as revenge for the drowning of their own ancestral lands. There were no polar bears now, and seals were few and far between, but with the opening of the northern passage a new fat animal had appeared in the polar regions: the northern traders, making the short hop to Europe and Russia, or over to Nippon and the wide Pacific via the top of the melted pole. And with the disappearance of the ice, the Siberians and the Inuit became sea people. They pursued their new prey the way they had once hunted seals and bears in the frozen north, and they hunted with an implacable appetite.

  Pole Star was a vessel that relished these encounters, baited them even.

  Still, despite Nailer’s warnings, Reynolds said they would most likely encounter the Ray. “Pole Star is on the far side of the world,” she said.

  “But Lucky Girl—”

  “Miss Nita could have been mistaken. In a storm, under pursuit, anyone could make a mistake.”

  “Lucky Girl’s not stupid.”

  Reynolds gave him a hard look. “I didn’t call her stupid. I said she could have made a mistake. Pole Star’s shipping schedule puts her just out of Tokyo, and that’s assuming the winds have been favorable. No closer.”

  The work on the decks continued. An astonishing amount of the ship ran on automation. They could raise and lower the sails on winches electronically with power from solar batteries. The sails themselves were not canvas at all, but solar sheets, designed to feed electricity into the system and add to the power available already from roof skin solar cells. But even with the electronics and automation, still Captain Candless drilled everyone on how to reef a sail if everything was dead and how to work the hand pumps if the ship was sinking and the power failed. He swore that all the technology in the world wouldn’t save a sailor if he didn’t use his head and know his ship.

  The crew of the Dauntless knew their ship.

  Sailors clambered up the masts, checking winch hooks and loop points for rust or repair. Near Nailer, Cat and another crewman were loading the huge Buckell cannon that was set near the prow, fitting the parasail into its barrel and checking the monofilament tether line—gossamer thin and steel strong—that sat in a shining reel beside the gun.

  If anyone cared about the loss of crewmen ashore when they sailed, no one said anything. The captain muttered that a few of the crew still on board would probably have preferred another master, but that hardly mattered now. They were on the waves and if they had a grumble they kept it to themselves. Candless’s core of loyal followers kept everyone in line and so Dauntless su
rged through the waves of the Gulf, patrolling and waiting for its target.

  On the first night, Nailer had slept in a soft bunk and woke with his back aching from it, unused to sinking into a mattress instead of lying on sand or palm ticking or hard planks, but by the second day he felt so spoiled that he wondered how he would sleep when he went back to the beach.

  The thought troubled him: when he went back?

  Was he going back?

  If he went back, his father or his father’s crew would be waiting for him, people who would look for payback. But no one on the ship was indicating that he would be able to stay on Dauntless, either. He was in limbo.

  A splash of water shook him from his reverie. The ship plunged through another wave crest, dousing him and shaking him from his perch. He skidded across the deck until his life line caught him short with a jolt. He was hooked to the rail to keep himself from washing overboard, but still the huge blue-green waves that surged over the bow and poured off the sloped deck were astonishingly powerful. Another wave rushed over them. Nailer shook seawater out of his eyes.

  Reynolds laughed as she saw him climbing to his feet again. “You should see what it’s like when we’re really going fast.”

  “I thought we were.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Someday, if we use the high sails, you’ll see. Then we don’t sail, we fly.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “We truly fly.”

  “Why not now?”

  She shook her head. “The winds have to be right. You can’t fire the Buckell cannon unless you understand the high winds. We send up kites first to test, to make sure, and then if the water’s right and the high winds are right.” She pointed at the cannon. “Then we fire that bad baby and she jumps out of the water like she’s been shot.”

  “And you fly.”

  “That’s right.”

  Nailer hesitated, then said, “I’d like to see it.”

  Reynolds gave him a speculative look. “Maybe you will. If we have to run, maybe we’ll all be skating the ocean.”

  Nailer hesitated. “No. After we save Lucky Girl, I mean. I want to come with you. Wherever you go. I want to go, too.”