by Jordan Rivet
David nodded. “There are advantages to living in a waterlogged world without laws.”
“Do you think the Galaxy could get people to withhold information about the Catalina from us?” Esther asked. “Maybe that’s why everyone says they haven’t seen her.”
“That’s possible.” Neal was quiet for a moment. “The harvesters had some interesting things to say about land.”
David tore his eyes away from the horizon for a moment to look at Neal. Land.
Adele had appeared in the doorway, as if drawn to them by the word. “Is another ship picking up signals from land?” she asked.
Neal nodded. “Apparently it’s true—what David said about the captains withholding reports from land. There really are people growing crops again. And someone’s working on a network of satellite towers near the coast. We could get some real information soon.”
“Who’s in charge on land?” David asked. His broken glasses gave him a wild-eyed look that was starting to get a little worrying. He would need to sleep again soon.
“In North America there’s a group based in old Kansas City, in the Midwest.”
“Any word of New York?” David asked.
Neal rubbed his eyes. “That’s where you’re from, isn’t it? They didn’t say anything about it.”
David nodded as if he expected no less. There had been reports of New York years ago, before they were entirely cut off. The city had drowned. It wouldn’t be fit to reoccupy, maybe for decades.
“Is there any fighting?” Esther asked.
Neal shrugged, but Adele spoke from the doorway. “The last I heard, they are cooperating for the moment. I don’t know if you were old enough to remember it, Esther, but in the early days after the volcano, people got pretty savage.”
“I heard enough,” Esther said.
She remembered people speaking in low voices as they hovered over their first fishy meals. Tales of looting and murder and lawlessness in the areas that had survived the initial explosion. She’d asked her father to explain, and Simon had told her they were lucky to be adrift at sea. Hard as it was to believe, they’d avoided the worst.
“Perhaps we should send a group over there when all this is finished,” David said. “What do you think, Esther?”
“It won’t be up to me,” she said. “You should talk to Judith.”
“You think any of these people will answer to Judith?” David said.
She stared at him, surprised.
Adele was nodding. “Like it or not, Esther, I think you’ll be more than a mechanic when we get back. If we get back.”
Esther frowned. “As long as they’re alive . . . that’s all I care about.”
Esther didn’t like what David and Adele were implying. They didn’t understand how the Catalina worked. She’d have to keep an eye on all of the newcomers.
But another day passed, and they still only had vague information about the Catalina’s whereabouts. An indistinct radio report suggested she was near a small group of islands off of what had once been Hawaii.
Esther started having nightmares about the Orchid, the ghost ship they’d sent to the bottom of the sea. What if they discovered the Catalina and it too had become a floating mausoleum? She woke in a cold sweat each time she managed to fall asleep at all.
Esther shared a cabin with Zoe, Toni, and Anita. Once, she awoke in the darkness, shaking after another Orchid dream, and a lumpy pillow hit her in the face.
“Salt, what was that?” Esther shouted.
“You were whimpering,” Zoe said, and she hit Esther with the pillow again. “Snap out of it.”
“Ouch. I’m awake.” Esther sat up in her bunk, rubbing her eyes.
Zoe’s head was hanging down from the top bunk, her hair pulled halfway out of her ponytail. She grinned, preparing to swing the pillow again.
“Did I say anything?” Esther asked, ducking Zoe’s next swing and drawing her knees up to her chest.
“Just mumbling,” Zoe said, tossing the pillow back onto her own bunk and swinging her head back down. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Esther said. “Just worried about the Catalina.”
Zoe seemed to be waiting for her to say more. She looked comical with her head hanging upside down from the bunk, but she had as much a right to be worried as Esther.
“Some people seem to think that I’m a leader now. Adele. David. And I was just wondering, well, do you think we’re doing the right thing?” Esther asked, finding it hard to explain what she was really getting at. Did I mess this up? Is it all my fault? “With the mission, I mean?”
Zoe nodded without hesitation. “It was time for us to go.”
“But Eva . . .”
“Eva wanted to get away from the Galaxy as much as the rest of us,” Zoe said. “And Paris wanted to help us. Don’t beat yourself up about them, Esther. We’re all adults. We made our choices.”
“I wish I hadn’t put so many people in danger,” Esther said, again feeling the need to do something. “Maybe I should go check on the propulsion.”
She started to stand up.
Zoe frowned, then reached back on her bunk and grabbed the pillow again. “Go back to sleep,” she said, whacking Esther in the head. “You’ve been keeping us crazy busy. You’re doing a great job, O Great Leader, but you need to sleep too.”
“Okay, okay, cut it out,” Esther said.
She curled up in her bunk again, listening to Zoe shifting above her. She was grateful for Zoe and for Toni and Anita. She enjoyed their company in the midst of everything. Esther was starting to understand why they had left the Galaxy, why it was so important to them to be out from under the tyranny of the captains and the drastic inequality. And Zoe was right. If she was going to find the Catalina, leader or not, she would need to sleep.
But by the third day tempers were running thin in the pilothouse and in the rest of the ship. Other people had started to question whether it had really been such a good idea to leave the Galaxy. At least there they had room to roam and plenty of conveniences. Dirk’s friends said they should abandon the rescue mission and head for the Amsterdam Coalition to restock. Dirk met such suggestions with stony silence, but he didn’t contradict them.
Dax alternated between pacing the deck in a frenzy and speculating to anyone who’d listen about whether Cally had made it off the ferry. Finally, Esther ordered him below deck to count ammunition. When Anita went to check on him, he had fallen asleep amongst the bullet cartridges.
Esther encouraged everyone to fish and gather seaweed when they could, hoping to preserve their supplies. A few people grumbled, and Esther worried about what would happen if they didn’t make progress soon. This was what it must have been like for her father after the disaster. Simon understood how dangerous bored people could become.
It was Neal who heard the first truly promising rumor. He’d spent a late night stumbling through a conversation in Spanish with an Argentinean trawler who claimed to have seen the Catalina turn north after drifting southwest for several days. Neal was pretty certain the trawler had said north. They altered their course.
As they neared the estimated coordinates on the afternoon of the third day, a fogbank tumbled low over the sea, obscuring the view. Neal tried to reach any ships in the vicinity on the radio. Silence. Their location was remote, far from the trade winds.
Esther thought Neal’s informant must have been mistaken. Someone on the Catalina would be in the broadcast center. If they were nearby, they would respond to the Lucinda’s calls.
Then, as the Lucinda sped through the choppy, fog-cloaked sea, a solitary blip appeared on the radar.
“What’s that?” Esther hovered behind Neal and David.
“A ship, isn’t it?”
“David, head toward that point.”
Esther gripped David’s shoulder until he grunted and she remembered he was injured. She dropped her hand.
“It could be a ship,” David said. “Could be a whale. Or a wreck.”
&n
bsp; “How long will it take to get there?” Esther asked.
She felt a thrill of hope, like a struck match, but tried to keep it under control.
“We’ll have a visual soon. It’s too foggy.”
David twitched the wheel.
Neal studied the radar screen. “Hold on, we’ve got a landmass too. Looks like whatever it is is hiding in some sort of cove. You see anything yet?” Neal asked.
“Nothing,” David answered.
Esther stared at the fog until her eyes ached. “How much longer?”
“Don’t worry, Esther. We’ll get there,” David said.
Still, he increased their speed. Esther leaned forward until her nose was almost touching the cracked web on the windshield.
“We got something!” Toni shouted from the crow’s nest. “Esther, are you seeing this?”
Esther dashed out of the pilothouse and ran to the bow. Hope grew, now a sparkler in her chest.
Slowly, the fog cleared. There was a landmass, dark and low on the horizon. Set against the dark rock she could just see it: a flash of sun-dazzled white. They broke through the fogbank.
“It’s a ship! Yeah! It’s a ship, Neal!” Esther shouted.
“I can hear you.” He was standing at her elbow.
The people from the Galaxy crowded onto the deck. Everyone watched as they approached the brilliant smudge of white. When they got closer, the white dissolved into shades of gray—familiar, weather-battered shades of gray. She looked somewhat the worse for wear, with a gaping section missing from the hull shield, but it was her.
“Is that the Catalina?” Zoe asked.
“Doesn’t look like much,” said Byron, who had come on deck with his whole family.
“That’s her,” Esther whispered.
She couldn’t see any movement on deck. Nothing at all. Someone should be working on hull repair. Someone should have tried to communicate. If anyone was left.
David sailed the Lucinda in close to the ship. He cut the engine but stayed behind in the pilothouse. Somewhere, Neal had acquired a loudspeaker. He cleared his throat several times and tried to speak, then gave up and handed the loudspeaker to Esther.
She swallowed. Someone should have come out on deck by now.
She took a breath and raised the loudspeaker. “Ahoy, Catalina! Anyone there? Hello?”
She waited. The only sound was the lapping of the water against the hull. A light breeze picked up. The Catalina remained still and silent.
“Hello? This is Esther. Esther Harris. Is anyone alive up there?” she shouted, her throat threatening to close up.
Still no answer. Esther could feel the world dissolving, narrowing to a sliver that was just the railing above their heads and the crisp blue sky.
Then a flash of red appeared.
“Esther? Is that you?” A voice drifted down to them on the wind.
“It’s Cally. Cally! It’s Esther! Are you all right up there?” Esther waved her arms and the loudspeaker over her head, jumping up and down.
“We’ve been better!” Cally called. “We’re almost out of water, and we’re completely out of fuel.”
“Is my father all right?”
The answer took far too long.
“He’s fine,” Cally shouted. “Get yourself up here and I’ll tell you everything!”
“Thank God,” Esther whispered. Then she shouted, “Lower a boat, will you? We don’t want to sit here all day!”
Chapter 29—Reunion
When the speedboat lifted the first load of people from the Lucinda to the deck of the Catalina, Esther’s father was waiting. She leapt across the gap before the winch stopped and threw her arms around him, burying her face in the warmth of his shirt.
“I was so worried about you,” she said, pulling back to look at him.
It had been less than a week, but it felt like she hadn’t seen him in years. He wore his favorite green scarf, and his hair still needed a trim. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, but he was smiling.
“Me?” he said. “Button, you were the one lost in the storm.”
“I’m fine! I brought us a ship with parts to fix the desal system.” She gestured toward the Lucinda below them. “And we brought enough spare fuel to get us back to the Amsterdam.”
Simon laughed, and it was his old laugh, as full and rich as before the melancholy set in. “I should have known you’d be okay . . . and that you’d turn up with machine parts to boot!”
Esther grinned and hugged him again. When she pulled away, Judith was standing behind him, hands on her hips.
“Esther,” Judith said. “It’s about time you got here.”
“Sorry. Got held up.”
“Didn’t I tell you not to spend the night on the Galaxy?” Judith said, lips pinched.
“Yes, ma’am,” Esther said.
The newcomers from the Lucinda were gathering on the lifeboat deck in a tight bunch as Reggie and Manny helped them from the boat. Dax climbed down last and was quickly knocked over by a squealing Cally. David was still on the Lucinda.
Judith frowned at the former Galaxians. “And didn’t I warn you about the dangers of the Flotilla?”
Esther was determined to take responsibility for her mistakes this time. “Absolutely. I should have been more careful.”
Judith jerked her head in a sharp nod. “Hmph. Well, thank you for bringing help. I suppose we owe you,” she said, her voice tight and reluctant.
Esther raised an eyebrow. “Really? Can I have some of the extra supplies then, for my work?”
Judith threw up her hands. “Take it up with the council.”
She stalked off to begin directing the Galaxians indoors.
At least that was something. Esther smiled and turned back to her father. There was something different about him. His face looked younger, more vibrant. He stood straight, and Esther glimpsed a bit of the old Simon, the one who’d been her hero in the early days.
“Don’t worry about Judith,” he said. “There’s been a bit of reorganization while you were gone. Now, let’s get these people taken care of and I’ll tell you all about it. We’d better rescue that young man before Cally suffocates him.”
Esther laughed and went to help him separate Cally and Dax. Cally babbled on about everything that had happened to them, about how the storm started while they were still on the ferry from the cabaret. They barely made it back to the ship and sailed away at full speed to avoid colliding with any of the Galaxy ships. It had taken the last of their fuel. Esther sent Cally and Dax off to get blankets and promised she’d listen to the rest of the story after everyone was on board.
She greeted Reggie and Manny and helped them lower the speedboat to lift the next load of people from the Lucinda. They decided to bring everyone aboard for the night. There’d be plenty of time to sort out what to do with the Lucinda in the morning.
It took four trips to get everyone on board. David arrived in the last load. Esther stood at the railing, watching his blond head approach. She remembered how he’d looked the first time she saw him standing on the deck of the Abby Rae: straight-backed and confident. Elegant. Even with broken glasses and bullet wounds, he looked poised and self-assured as he approached the stranger ship he’d risked his life to save.
Esther looked down at her bloodstained bowling shoes and scrubbed a hand through her shaggy hair. She’d have to do something about that.
She met David as he stepped off the speedboat. “Welcome to the Catalina,” she said. “My name is Esther Harris and it’s my great pleasure to offer you our hospitality. The Catalina isn’t a new civilization on the sea or anything. We’re just a bunch of people trying to get by. And this is home.” She shrugged.
“I’m glad everyone’s okay,” David said quietly. He shook her hand formally, then held on to it for an extra second. “You did it, Esther.”
Esther smiled. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”
Chapter 30—Fresh Start
Esther drank slowly from
a bottle of water. She sat on an upper deck inside the Catalina, her feet dangling over the plaza. Beneath her, Cally and Dax were arguing in a rousing fashion, attracting the attention of half the community. She had no doubt they would patch it up. These days, when they weren’t fighting they were getting caught making out in corners. Esther had banned Dax from the engine room entirely.
Esther smiled down at her assistant. Cally had saved the Catalina. After the storm, she salvaged the remaining scraps of the desalination system and rebuilt one small unit according to the plan Esther had scratched into the floor of the bowling alley. It produced just enough water to stave off dehydration. It was a finger in a dam, but it enabled them to conserve enough energy to last until they were rescued. Cally had been brimming with a combination of pride and terror when she’d told Esther the rest of the story. They couldn’t have made it another full day if the Lucinda hadn’t arrived.
Cally had told Esther about how her father had emerged from his seclusion, like he did in the old days, helping Judith keep everyone calm and overseeing the rationing. Simon seemed to thrive in disaster situations, and everyone had been happy to have him back. Even Gracie Cordova did what she was told.
The only casualty had been Frank. When he learned they were adrift with no fuel and a severely crippled water system, he had walked quietly into the sea. He’d scrawled a note on a yellowed T-shirt and left it behind in his cabin, along with his shoes. He’d written that it was up to the old folks to make sure the young people survived. Bernadette later revealed that Frank had tried to talk several other elderly people into sacrificing themselves to the sea alongside him. They’d held out hope for themselves but didn’t try to stop him.
It had been the day after this incident that the Catalina drifted within sight of the little island. It was no more than a pile of volcanic rock, not even a mile wide, but the arm of stone protected them. They’d even gathered shellfish from its crags. The opportunity to walk about on mostly dry land was rare. It kept people calm, having their feet on solid ground. Simon ordered regular excursions to the rocky surface, mandated just as solemnly as the water quota.
Esther hadn’t been over to the shore yet because she’d been too busy getting the Lucinda’s crew settled. It had been rough for everyone for the first few days. The spare water on the Lucinda was not enough to meet the needs of the underhydrated Catalinans and the Lucinda’s crew. Esther and Cally spent every waking hour installing the new filters and repairing the tanks so that they could get back to a normal filtering schedule. The new materials were superior in quality, and Esther followed Cally’s lead in using her own design when she rebuilt the system. It was more energy efficient. Judith might never have let her rebuild using her design if the system hadn’t been destroyed in the first place.