Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  “Careful what you wish for. We’d work you.”

  “Is that all?” Nailer made a face. “I’m not afraid of work.”

  “All I see you doing is standing on a deck and riding waves.”

  Nailer locked eyes with her. “I’ll do anything you want, if you take me on. You just say it. I’m not afraid of any work.”

  Reynolds grinned. “Guess we’ll have to send you up the mast and see.”

  Nailer didn’t blink. “I’ll go.”

  The captain came up behind her. “What’s all the conversation?”

  Reynolds smiled. “Nailer here wants a job.”

  The captain looked thoughtful. “A lot of people want to work on the clippers. There are whole clans dedicated to it. Families who buy the right to get on as deckhands and hope to move up. My own family has worked clippers for three generations. That’s a lot of competition.”

  “I can do it,” Nailer insisted.

  “Hmm,” was all the captain said. “Perhaps this is a conversation better saved for after we’ve located our Miss Nita.”

  Nailer wasn’t sure if Candless was trying to put him off or if he was just saying no in a polite way. Nailer wanted to press the issue, but didn’t know how without angering the captain. “You really think you can find Lucky Girl and get her back?” he asked instead.

  “Well, I’ve got some tricks,” Candless said. “If the captain of the Ray is still Mr. Marn, then we’ll be over their gunwales before they know what’s hit them.” He smiled, then sobered. “But if it’s Ms. Chavez, then we’re in for a rare fight. She’s no fool and her crew is hard and all our decks will be bloody.”

  “It won’t be Pole Star,” Reynolds insisted.

  “Do they both use half-men?” Nailer asked.

  “Some,” the captain answered. “But Pole Star has almost half its crew staffed with augments.”

  “Augments?”

  “Your half-men. We call them augmented because they’re people-plus.”

  “Like Tool.”

  “A strange creature, that one. I’ve never heard of a salvage company that would bond that sort of muscle.”

  “He wasn’t with Lawson & Carlson. He was on his own.”

  The captain shook his head. “Impossible. Augments aren’t like us. They have a single master. When they lose that master, they die.”

  “You kill them?”

  “Goodness no.” He laughed. “They pine. They are very loyal. They cannot live without their masters. It comes from a line of canine genetics.”

  “Tool didn’t have a master.”

  The captain nodded, but Nailer could tell he didn’t believe. Nailer dropped the subject. It wasn’t worth making the captain think he was crazy.

  But it did make him wonder about Tool. Everyone who was familiar with half-men and their genetics said that Tool was an impossible creature. That no independent half-men existed. And yet Tool had walked away from many masters. He had worked for Lucky Strike and Richard Lopez, had worked for Sadna, had worked to protect him and Lucky Girl, and then had simply walked away when it no longer suited him. Nailer wondered what Tool was doing now.

  Nailer’s thoughts were broken by Captain Candless drawing a gun. “I almost forgot,” the captain said as he handed it to Nailer. “I promised you this before. Something for when we find our ship. You’re going to need to practice with it. Cat will be drilling the crew, and you will drill with them. Boarding actions and the like.”

  Nailer held the lightweight thing in his hand, so different from the sorts of pistols he had seen others use. “It’s so light.”

  The captain laughed. “You can swim with it even. It won’t drag you down. The ammunition is a penetrator. It doesn’t use weight to enter the body—well, not as much—it uses spin from the barrel. You’ve got thirty shots.” He offered Nailer a fighting knife as well. “You know how to cut someone?” He indicated the soft parts. “Don’t worry about a killing blow and don’t go for the head. It will extend you. Go low and hit them in the belly, the knees, behind the legs. If they’re down…”

  “Cut their throat.”

  “Good boy! Bloodthirsty little bastard, aren’t you?”

  Nailer shrugged, remembering Blue Eyes’s blood hot on his hands. “My father is pretty good with a knife,” he said. He forced the memory away. “When do you think we’ll fight?”

  “We’ll patrol here. We should get a visual on anyone within fifteen miles. We’ve got the scopes to get a good look at them, and then we can decide if we want to chase or play friendly.” He shrugged. “We don’t know what they’re up to. Maybe they’re going to stay for a little while, lie low down south while they wait out the boardroom tactics up north, but I doubt it. They’re going to run north and try to make contact with Pyce.”

  The captain turned and headed for the conning deck. As he departed, he nodded at Nailer’s pistol. “Practice with it, Nailer. Make sure you can hit what you aim at.”

  Nailer nerved himself up and called after the man. “Captain!”

  When Candless turned, Nailer said, “If you trust me with a gun, maybe you could trust me with some work, too.” He waved at the busy ship. “There must be something you can use me for.”

  Reynolds shook her head. “You’re like a tick on a dog. Just won’t stop trying to latch on.”

  “I just want to help.”

  The captain studied him thoughtfully, then nodded at Reynolds. “Fair enough. Get him unclipped and make him useful.”

  Reynolds gave Nailer an appraising look. “Nicely done, boy.” Then she smiled. “I think I’ve got just the job for you.”

  She led him down into the hold of the clipper, to where the hydraulic systems of the ship lay exposed. It was gloomy. Maintenance panels were pulled up out of the deck and stacked in bins. Huge gears lay exposed under the floor, wicked teeth intertwined, gleaming with oily coatings. Small LED indicators glowed beside control decks. The air reeked with grease and metal. Nailer felt vaguely sick. It reminded him of being back on light crew.

  A huge form crawled out from within the gearing system, hoisted itself out. It stared at the two of them with bestial yellow eyes. Knot.

  Reynolds said, “Nailer says he wants to be useful.”

  Knot examined him, his doglike muzzle sniffing the air with questions. “So.” He nodded shortly. “He’s small enough. I have a use for him.”

  When Reynolds was gone, he gave Nailer an oiling can and spray applicator that Nailer strapped to his back, and then Knot put Nailer to work lubricating the gearing systems that extended the hydrofoils. Knot indicated where the massive gears, some of them with wheels more than a meter in diameter, sat in the flooring.

  “Make sure each gear is degreased, then reoiled. Be thorough. We don’t want rust getting into the systems. But don’t take long, either. The captain knows we’re servicing the system and we’ve already set the overrides.” Knot indicated a row of levers and LED indicators beside the gears. “Technically, no one can extend the hydrofoils as long as we have them locked down, but”—he shrugged—“accidents happen. I’ve seen crewmen lose an arm because someone forgot to recheck the lockdowns, so even if you think no one’s going to run out the foils, don’t dawdle.”

  Nailer studied the wicked-looking gear systems. The teeth glinted dully, looking like they wanted to chew him up. “That bad, huh?”

  “The hydrofoils extend very quickly. You would have no chance to react or pull away. They start spinning and they suck anything in, even from a short distance away. Thousands of pounds of pressure running through them. You’d be nothing but ground meat.”

  “Nice.”

  “You asked for work.” Knot looked at him steadily. “This is the work I have.”

  Nailer got the message. He crawled down into the maintenance compartment, threading through the gears. Knot watched him for a moment, then said, “You should also lubricate the break valve joints for the monofilament feed.”

  Nailer craned his neck around. “Which ar
e those?”

  The half-man gave him an irritated look. “The ones that are labeled as such.” He waved at peeling greasy tags that were stuck to various components of the system.

  Nailer stared at the unintelligible words. He looked from the labels to the half-man, then back at the labels. “Sure. Okay.”

  The half-man made a face of contempt. “You can’t read?”

  “I can make my mark. I know numbers. Stuff like that.”

  Knot blew out an exasperated breath. “Your ship-breaking company has a great deal to answer for.” He shook his head. “You will need to be taught, then.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Nailer asked. “Just show me which things you want oiled. I’ll remember. If I can remember the quota count, I can remember this.”

  Knot made a face of disgust. “You will be useless to me if you cannot read.” He waved a hand at a series of levers. “How will you know which of these disengages the gears from the foil and which will allow you to test the lubricants? How will you know which fires the drive system and which reengages the foils?” Knot slapped a lever and tapped a button inside the service hole. He reached down and yanked Nailer out of the guts of the gears. “Stand back!”

  A red light burned bright and Knot yanked another lever. The gears screamed alive, blurring wheels. An oily breeze blew over them as teeth bit against one another and spun up to their maximum speed. The entire maintenance compartment had become a vortex of whirling gears that seemed to want to suck Nailer in. If he’d been down in there, he would have been nothing but a fine spray. Nailer’s skin crawled as he fully understood the work Reynolds had given him.

  “How will you know what to do?” Knot shouted over the gear scream. “How will you know how to stop it?” He slapped another button and braked the system. The blurring gears slowed, came to a smooth stop, returning the room to silence.

  “I need someone who will not make a mistake and tear their own arm off because they pushed the wrong button,” he rumbled. “I will inform Reynolds of your deficiency.”

  “Wait!” Nailer hesitated. “Can’t you just teach me? If you don’t tell Reynolds, I’ll learn whatever you want. Don’t cut me off your crew before I have a chance to start.”

  Knot’s yellow dog eyes regarded Nailer. “You wish me to keep a secret from my patron?”

  “No.” Nailer’s voice caught as he realized how uncertain the ground was between himself and the half-man. “I’m just saying I can learn anything you throw at me. Just give me a chance. Please.”

  Knot cocked his head and smiled. “We’ll see if your words match your performance, then.”

  “So you won’t tell her?”

  Knot laughed, a low rumble. “Oh no. We don’t keep secrets on this ship. But perhaps Lieutenant Reynolds will give you a grace period… assuming you stay motivated.”

  “I’m motivated. Trust me.”

  Knot’s teeth showed in the dimness, bright and sharp. “It’s always a pleasure to see the young take an interest in learning.”

  21

  THEY CAUGHT THE LUCKY EYE on their eighth day of sailing. The Ray, out in the deeps, was skating for the Florida cut and the open Atlantic beyond. The news ran through the ship like an electric wire. Soon everyone was up on deck. Captain Candless allowed himself a smile at their good fortune.

  “The Ray,” he said. “Not Pole Star at all.”

  Nailer could tell he was relieved. Nailer strained to see the speck on the horizon where Lucky Girl was running, but it was impossible. The captain saw him straining, grinned, and took him up to the con where a scope and photograph system shot distance pictures of the horizon and then magnified them. Blurs on the horizon became ships, became bow and stern and the smears of faces. All from fifteen miles away. Nailer stared at the images, awed.

  “We’ll close on them and get some more shots,” the captain said. “We’ll want to know who’s on deck.” He nodded to his own decks. “And we’ll want to keep our own clear now as well.” He paused. “You’ll be staying below until we’re ready to engage. If Miss Nita gives you away or if your father catches sight of you, they’ll be ready for us. We don’t want that.” The captain looked out at the horizon again, thoughtful. “No. We certainly don’t want that.”

  “Can you catch them?” Nailer asked. They seemed impossibly far away.

  Reynolds, who was at the ship’s wheel, grinned. “We’re a fast ship and they’re a luxury wallower.”

  “So we can?”

  “Oh yes. We’ll catch them and we’ll board them. And we’ll take ourselves a right prize.” She and the captain exchanged confident smiles.

  “I won’t be sorry to see Mr. Marn reap a bitter harvest,” the captain said. He waved at Nailer. “Come. It will be a while before we close the gap. As long as you’re belowdecks, you might as well make use of the time. Back to your letters, then.”

  Nailer forced himself not to sigh.

  Knot had taken on the project of teaching Nailer to read, and it hadn’t taken long for Nailer to begin resenting the tedium of book learning. But Knot didn’t care. The massive creature simply pressed and tested and forced Nailer to memorize and then to write.

  In reality, the work wasn’t as hard as Nailer had always believed, especially with the yellow-eyed glare of a half-man looking over his shoulder, but it wasn’t exactly interesting in itself. Mostly it was just a question of work and time, and with the ship pitching around and the hydrofoil gears all cleaned and lubricated, all Knot would let him do was study. For the last couple nights, Nailer had lain in his bunk, his head filled with words and letters, dreaming of spellings that Knot had tricked him with.

  The half-man liked trickery. Letters were fine, but words were hard. Lots of words didn’t spell like they sounded. But still, in the end, it was a memorization trick, like counting turnings in the ducts and keeping the quota count. And Knot wasn’t half as mean as old Bapi if you screwed up the counts.

  Nailer let himself be ushered belowdecks, and Knot was found and soon they were working their way through a book of Knot’s, all about an old guy fishing on a boat. But it was hard for Nailer to concentrate, knowing that Lucky Girl and a fight loomed on the horizon.

  At last he closed the book and looked up at the half-man. “Have you always had a master?” he asked.

  Knot looked at him steadily. “I work for Captain Candless.”

  “Yeah, but if you wanted, could you work for someone else?”

  Knot shrugged. “I do not wish it.”

  “Could you?” Nailer pressed.

  Knot’s eyes hardened. His nostrils flared and his teeth showed slightly behind curling lips. “I do not wish it,” the half-man growled.

  Nailer flinched. Knot suddenly looked like a mastiff backed into a corner, ready to bite. All of that muscle, previously so calm and steady, was suddenly bunched and bristle-backed. Nailer wanted to press again, but the half-man had become too frightening. He shut up.

  The half-man stared at Nailer a moment longer. “I do not wish it,” he said again, and then looked away.

  Nailer suddenly felt weirdly ashamed that he had prodded the huge creature. “We were reading,” he said hesitantly. The half-man nodded slowly.

  “Yes. Please continue.”

  For a while, Nailer read, with Knot correcting him. At last the half-man said, “I think you have done enough for now. I have other preparations I must attend to.”

  “Are you ready to fight?”

  Knot smiled and his sharp teeth showed. “It is my nature to fight.” He paused. “But this time it is also a pleasure.”

  “Because of Lucky Girl?” He corrected himself. “Because of Miss Nita?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she your mistress?” he asked, hesitantly. “The one you swore loyalty to?”

  Knot regarded him. “Not exactly. Captain Candless serves her. I serve the captain. But we swear dual oaths to the clan.”

  “But her clan is split now. Pyce has half-men working for him, too.”<
br />
  “Yes. It is a difficult time.”

  Nailer wanted to ask more about the nature of Knot’s loyalty, but he was afraid of irritating the creature. The last time it had felt as though he were on the verge of goading a tiger to attack. There were sensitivities that he didn’t understand. “You wouldn’t ever work for Pyce?”

  Sharp teeth showed. A low growl issued. “He is nothing. He turned against us.”

  “But Captain Candless was working for him, too. Up until just a couple days ago—”

  Knot stood abruptly. “As long as Miss Nita survives, we do not serve Pyce. We thought she was dead. Now we know better. That is all. We will serve her until she dies or her clan grants true control to Pyce and his inheritors. Her father will do anything for her. We cannot do less.”

  “He cares that much?”

  “She is his daughter. Family.”

  “Right. Family.” Nailer forced down a stab of jealousy. “The only thing family ever got me was a slap upside the head.”

  “Some families are different.”

  Nailer didn’t have much to say to that. Knot went to see to his duties, leaving Nailer to lie back in his bunk, waiting as Dauntless closed on its prey.

  Family. It was just a word. Nailer could spell it now. Could see its letters all strung together. But it was a symbol, too. And people thought they knew what it meant. People used it everywhere. Ship breakers. His father, Dauntless’s crew. Tool. It was one of those things everyone had an opinion about—that it was what you had when you didn’t have anything else, that family was always there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever.

  But when Nailer thought about it, most of those words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and think they could get away with it. Family wasn’t any more reliable than marriages or friendships or blood-sworn crew, and maybe less. His own father really would gut him if he ever got hold of him again; it didn’t matter if they shared blood or not. Nita had an uncle hunting for her.

  But Nailer was pretty sure that Sadna would fight for him tooth and nail, and maybe even give up her life to save him. Sadna cared. Pima cared.