Ocean of Dust

by Graeme Ing

  Reluctantly, she turned away and blundered into several chests surrounded by a debris of cloth scraps and broken furniture. She strained to open the largest, and inside she found a treasure trove of discarded clothes, drapes, and material. Rifling through them, she picked out handfuls of a lightweight material suitable for comfortable shirts. At the very bottom, she happened upon an old dress, and held it up to the light. The dark green fabric was luxuriously soft and expensive-looking. Its owner had been taller than her, but she was certain she could rework it. This she had to have, though she couldn't think when she’d ever wear it.

  Someone whispered. She froze.

  It didn't sound like Alice or Lyndon and she was sure she was alone. She searched the beams inches above her head for a gap that could carry voices from above. The whispering continued, louder, more of a hissing sound.

  She gasped, realizing that she wasn't hearing anything at all. The voice was inside her head. First the colors, now this. I’m going mad. She clapped her hands over both ears, and shook her head repeatedly.

  "La la la la la," she sang loudly.

  Her skin prickled. She wheeled around, peering into the darkness. The hot, still air pressed in on her, and the whispering became insistent, luring.

  Lisss-sah, it said in her mind.

  "Who's there?" she cried, spinning round and round.

  Her heart thumped as she bundled up her material, snatched her globelight, and sprinted toward the exit, ducking low to avoid banging her head. The planks bounced and creaked. She rocketed up the ladder and hurtled back to her storeroom, where she sat on a sack of hoobin-beets, her eyes flicking around the room.

  The whispering had stopped.

  * * *

  Alice didn't say a word as the three girls cooked supper. Lissa accidentally spilled sauce on Alice's hand, and flinched, her mouth agape in horror, but Alice simply glared and wiped it off. Lissa exchanged glances with Branda, who shrugged. The moment Cook left, Alice grabbed a loaf of bread and hurried from the room.

  Lissa helped Branda clean up. Afterward, she showed her friend the start she made on a new shirt. Branda beamed and fussed over it, offering to help, so they sat side by side in one of the storerooms, sharing the cloth-cutter, needle and thread. Lissa tried to relax her tensed muscles, but her mind kept replaying the events in the hold. Every time she opened her mouth to tell Branda, she sighed and kept quiet, not sure why.

  "What was up with Alice just now?" she asked.

  "I notice too," Branda replied. "She normally pick fight. I see her sneak around this afternoon so I follow."

  Lissa looked up from her sewing.

  "She come out of hold with new boy," Branda continued. "They sit and talk."

  "What about?"

  "Not polite to be a nose. I not listen." Branda shrugged. "I thought she already like Mampalo. She chase him for long time."

  Lissa scrunched her face and raised one eyebrow. Which of the disgusting sailors could Alice be interested in?

  "Have you ever tried to escape?" Lissa asked. "Off the ship I mean?"

  Branda pricked herself with the needle and yelped. "Once. Not again."

  "Why not?"

  There was a long pause. "Farq beat me. Like you. He kill me next time."

  Lissa stared into Branda's wide, sad eyes. She couldn't imagine the shy Branda making an escape attempt, but seeing the tears forming in Branda's eyes, she shut up. They sewed together in silence.

  "I'd hoped to escape when we reached Gobar a few days ago," Lissa whispered. "Would you try again if we had a chance?"

  Branda put down her material and jumped up. "I go get fresh air. Thank you for sewing." She hurried out.

  Lissa stared after her. She hadn’t meant to upset her friend, but clearly Branda didn’t want to talk about escaping. She longed to follow and apologize, but it would be best to give Branda time. She sighed heavily.

  * * *

  One morning, Cook ordered Alice to scrub the galley while Lissa and Branda were to report to the crew chief on the main deck. As the two girls hurried out, Alice gave Lissa a you're dead glare behind Cook's back.

  The day was warm with clear skies, seemingly like every day at sea. The dust ocean was placid, with no traces of the water fountain an eight-day ago. How far had they travelled since then? Lissa counted on her fingers that she'd been aboard nineteen days.

  Branda took her hand and hurried her before the giant with the forked beard. He stood like a mountain in the center of the deck, waving his bulging, hairy arms, and barking orders. He peered down at them and scratched his bald pate.

  "What do we have here?" he boomed.

  Lissa stepped back, trying not to cower. She had to tip her head right back to look into his face.

  "Cook sent us to work for you, sir," Branda said fearlessly.

  Lissa blinked, sure her own voice would have squeaked.

  "Is that so? Scrub the decks." He pointed to buckets sitting beside the water barrel.

  "Aye, sir," Branda replied.

  Lissa just nodded vigorously.

  "He's doing port side, you do starb'd."

  Lissa followed his outstretched hand, spotting Lyndon on all fours, lazily running a hand brush back and forth.

  "Star-bud? Is that a flower?" Lissa asked, then gulped and glanced wide-eyed up at the crew chief. She should have asked Branda.

  He roared with laughter, his whole body quivering. All around, the crew paused in their duties to stop and stare. Lissa shrank to make herself small. He stuck out his left arm, toward Lyndon.

  "Port," he said, and then flipped out his right. "Starb'd'. Now clean." He walked away.

  "I teach you ship speak," Branda whispered.

  "Please. It might keep me out of trouble."

  Lissa fetched a bucket and found a stiff brush inside. She tossed in a handful of soapsand, filled it from the water barrel, hoisted her skirts, and got down on her knees. Scrubbing was easy work - cleaning floors had been a daily chore at home.

  A while later, she sat up to stretch her spasming back. Farq descended the stairs from the command deck. Her stomach tumbled and her heart raced. Please, Anjan, make me invisible. She kept her head low and scrubbed at twice the speed. Ignoring all other sounds, her ears locked on to his footsteps. He crossed the deck and stopped in front of her. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and her hands trembled. She tensed for a blow or kick.

  He made a disgusting hawking sound and purple fak splattered on the deck in front of her. She reached forward and scrubbed it clean. Her skin itched as he moved behind her. Then he spat again. She spun around and cleaned it. He grunted and walked away, and she let out the breath she had been holding.

  A little later, she moved alongside Branda. "Do you often do this?" she asked. "I thought the boys scrubbed the decks."

  "They make us do it sometimes. Fresh air."

  "I prefer this to scrubbing the galley." Lissa grimaced at the memory of cleaning the oodspal pot.

  Lyndon backed into her. She'd mopped ten times the area he had.

  "Hello," she said.

  "What're you all happy about?" he snarled.

  "You mean why am I not whining and grumbling all the time like you?"

  "I guess you're used to being a slave," he said. "It's all you commoners are good for. My father's a merchant and training me to be rich and powerful like him."

  She rolled her eyes. "It looks like you're scrubbing the floor to me."

  "Shut up. This is for slaves and girls."

  "Then get used to being a slave. Maybe it'll teach you some manners, you little snot."

  "How dare you," he shouted.

  "Silence," the crew chief roared. He slapped them both around the ears in one motion.

  Lissa turned her back on Lyndon and continued scrubbing.

  When the girls returned to the galley, Cook was just on her way out. "Do as you wish for a few bells, but mind you're not late for cooking supper."

  Lissa ran from the room, grinning that she got o
ut before Alice. Branda wanted to sew, but Lissa had been waiting to explore topside for some time, and she hurtled up the ladders, now used to the steep stairs and loose guide ropes. It was good to get back in the sun and fresh air again.

  A dozen birds flocked high above, the first she had seen so far from land. The stiff wind lashed her hair in every direction, so she paused to clip it back, and caught one of the younger boys staring at her. He quickly looked away and pulled his cap over his eyes.

  There was no sign of Farq or the crew chief, so she slipped beneath the winching mechanisms that sat amidships, either side of Farq's office, and emerged on to the front deck. The Forward deck, Branda had called it.

  In the center stood a stack of crates, secured tightly under netting attached to metal rings bolted to the floor. Dust blew relentlessly across the deck, getting in her eyes. The netted cargo afforded excellent shelter from the sun and the wind, so she slumped down beside them. She watched the grey dust swirl and play like magical creatures, before being whisked into corners to form heaps.

  A shadow fell across her. Her heart jumped and she snapped her head up.

  "Hello, Liss," Pete said, sliding down beside her. He grinned and she smiled back.

  "Whatcha doing?" he asked.

  "Getting away from everyone, especially Alice and Farq."

  His grin vanished. "You want me to leave?"

  "No, stay. Shouldn't you be working?"

  "I like to watch the flux vanes," he said.

  She blinked several times. He pointed behind her and she swiveled around for a better view. Several of the crew had climbed atop the winches and gathered about a horizontal wheel. The metal screeched as they heaved on it and chains rattled as they took up the slack. At the ends of the metal booms hanging off the sides of the ship, the chains snapped taut. The crew chief appeared beside the men and echoed instructions shouted down from the command deck. Few of the words made sense to her until he yelled, "Lower away."

  The men heaved the wheel hand over hand, turn after turn. Shiny chain emerged from beneath their feet with a deafening clanking noise. It banged and scraped as it moved out along the metal arm, around the pulley, and dropped further into the dust ocean. Lissa chewed her lip and looked back and forth between the men and the chain.

  "They're lowering the vanes," Pete said. "That means they're expecting a deep flux current."

  "I don't understand." She shook her head. "How do you know all this?"

  "'Cause I've been watching them do this every time, while you've been below cooking yummy food for us all." He licked his lips and wiggled his eyebrows.

  "Those chains are connected to big spiky things called flux vanes, which dangle below the surface. They make the ship move." He shrugged with one shoulder. "Every so often they change the depth of the vanes, trying to find a good flux current."

  Images of the sparks and colors flicked into Lissa's head.

  "So the flux current flows into the vanes and up the chain to here," she said. "That makes sense. That's what the globelights are wired into. So the deeper the current, the stronger it is?"

  He scratched his nose. "I guess. I hadn't thought that far."

  The grating noise stopped. The men locked the wheel in place.

  Her head began to throb, as if someone had turned on a switch in her head. She massaged her temples. Why did her head hurt whenever she was near or thought about the metal booms and the colors? What was happening to her that didn’t seem to affect anyone else?

  Chapter 9 - The Dare

  Lissa walked barefoot across the cold, wooden deck. Icy air pimpled her skin with goose bumps, so she wrapped her arms about her body. No stars shone in the inky, overcast sky. A single globelight swung back and forth ahead of her.

  Silence engulfed her. Her steps made no noise. No orders were shouted, no sound of work being done, not even the creaking of the ship's timbers. Something tickled in the depths of her mind. This wasn't right. She tensed. Where had the crew gone? Why wasn't the deck moving under her feet?

  A figure emerged from the shadows. His heavy, green robe brushed the deck at his feet, and his head was hidden within its hood. She took another step and stopped. To one side stood a pedestal supporting a bowl, from which grey dust poured, cascading endlessly and spreading out across the floor. With a start, she remembered the man with the gnarled fingers from the command deck.

  "What's happening?" she cried. "Hello?"

  No sound came from her mouth.

  The figure slowly raised his arms. She gasped at the sight of his hands, tiny and not wrinkled or scabbed. The hands of a woman.

  Her arms trembled in the cold air, and her heart thumped when he lifted his head and looked her way. Red, alien eyes glowed fiercely from the pool of darkness inside his hood. She screamed but made no sound. Slow and deliberate, he slipped the hood from his head. She saw herself within the green robe, her eyes flickering pools of scarlet, and her flowing auburn hair sparkling with blues and purples. Her hands flew to her mouth.

  An incessant whisper shattered the silence, first one voice, another, and finally a whole chorus, seemingly surrounding her. She whirled about. No one was there.

  Lisssssa...

  Stumbling, she fell backwards.

  She crashed to the floor, and her scheepa swung wildly, whacking her in the back of the head. Heart still racing, she crawled behind a sack of hoobin-beets. Her hands went to her ears and she peered toward the dimly lit opening to the hallway.

  The hooded figure and the whispering were gone. She lowered her hands and controlled her breathing. Now, the only sound was the muted snoring of the men on the deck above.

  It was only a nightmare.

  What time was it? Should she try going back to sleep? The image of her face with the red eyes was vivid. What if the dream had been a premonition, and-?

  Stop it!

  She rubbed her eyes and combed her hair back. Curiosity compelled to go up on deck, to see that it hadn't been real. Clenching her fists, she climbed the ladder to the mess deck. Rows of men rocked gently in scheepas strung between wooden posts. How did they sleep with such a cacophony of snoring, snorts, and coughing? Padding silently in her bare feet, she continued up to the main deck, shivering in a gust of cold, night air.

  Two men stood by the mast, as if on guard, smoking pipes and muttering to each other. Lights shone from the cabins above the infirmary. Medepo, the largest of the four moons, hung high in the star-filled sky, and she could easily make out its gibbous disc. One man sat alone, cross-legged on top of an equipment locker. Her heart fluttered, identifying him as the young officer with the mesmerizing eyes.

  "Can I join you?" she whispered.

  He jolted his head up in surprise, causing his hooped earrings and beads to jangle. A handsome smile spread across his face.

  "Climb up."

  She sat beside him and they looked out over the dark ocean. The silence unnerved her, so she thought long and hard for something to say.

  "I've never seen a man with so much jewelry."

  He glanced at her quizzically and her cheeks became hot. That was a dumb thing to say.

  "I mean... I like them. They're very colorful-" She stared at her fingers.

  He chuckled. "Thank you. It's how my people identify their home clans."

  "Who are your people?"

  "I'm a Drujan," he replied.

  "From the western continent?" She pictured the hand-shaped land on the map.

  His incredible eyes locked with hers, his blazing yellow in the globelight. Her stomach flipped and her skin became suddenly warm.

  "How'd you know that?" he said. "Few travelers come to Druja. I can't imagine where you even heard of it, let alone know where it is."

  "I love looking at maps. I remember seeing it right on the edge, far from everywhere. Is the ship going that way?"

  "I wish." He sighed and peered out into the darkness. "We've been running south since Gobar."

  "So where are we going?"

&nbs
p; "We're due at Us-imyan in an eight-day. Do you know where that is too?"

  She shook her head. Another place she'd have to see from the deck. When the ship had docked at Gobar she had longed to explore its streets and get closer to its immense, multi-spired fortress, but she had been forbidden to leave the ship. Maybe she'd never be allowed to set foot on land again. Unless… unless Alice and Lyndon had an escape plan and she could somehow make use of it.

  High above, the smaller of the two bells rang a single time. He jumped from the locker. "Duty calls. Thanks for your company. You should get some sleep."

  He bobbed his head and climbed up to the command deck. She watched him, until a sudden gust sprayed dust all over her, and she hurried below, coughing and brushing her clothes.

  * * *

  Two days later, raised voices brought her running to the galley. Alice had Branda pinned against the sink, alternately shouting and slapping the little girl, who dodged the attacks as best she could. Tears streamed down Branda's face.

  "What're you doing?" Lissa cried, crossing the room in three strides. "Let her go."

  She forced herself between them and shoved Alice across the room.

  "Mind your own business," Alice screamed, shoving back. "Get lost."

  "Branda's half your size, you bully. Leave her alone."

  "Make me." Alice's face was purple, her eyes were scrunched, and her mouth made a sneer.

  Lissa raised her hand to thump her but hesitated. The look in Alice's eyes was murderous. Instead, she grabbed Alice's wrists, and they wrestled. Alice dragged her to the floor.

  "Stop," Branda shrieked.

  "You've been mean and horrible since you met me," Lissa shouted as they rolled about. "If you hate me, don't take it out on Branda."

  Alice grabbed a handful of Lissa's hair and yanked it. Lissa squealed.

  "You and your pretty, red hair," Alice said, and pulled Lissa's head to the floor by her hair.

  Lissa slapped Alice’s face and kneed her in the stomach. Free of her grasp, Lissa scrambled to her feet.