Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  Move move move move MOVE!

  Nailer ducked low, hiding himself in the crowd, and lunged for the boardwalk’s edge. He dropped over the side, the letter for the captain at Ladee Bar forgotten. He sank into the waves and swam under the floating dock. There was just enough space for him to breathe if he craned his neck back and stuck his nose into the small gap between the water and the bottom of the boards.

  Overhead, the planks creaked and thumped with foot traffic. Water and grime lapped around Nailer’s cheeks and jaw as he peered up through the gaps in the planking. People moved past. Nailer held silent, watching for another glimpse of his father.

  What was the man doing? How did he know to look for him here?

  The trio appeared in Nailer’s vision. All of them were well dressed. Even his father had new clothes, not a stain on them, no tears. Not beach clothes at all. Swank. The half-men had pistols in shoulder harnesses and whips coiled at their belts. They stopped above Nailer and surveyed the crowds of coolie laborers hauling freight.

  Grimy waves sloshed over Nailer. The wake of a passing boat. The waves shoved him up against the planks beneath his father’s shoes. His face scraped and he held his breath as he sank and then bobbed up against the boards again, trying not to make any sound. Splinters stung his lips and water ran up his nose. Nailer fought the urge to splutter and cough. If he gave himself away, he was dead. He ducked his head under water and blew his nose clean, then surfaced, forcing himself to be silent. He took a careful shuddering breath.

  The three hunters still stood over him, surveying the cargo activity. Nailer wondered if they had just guessed that he would go to the Orleans or if they had somehow tortured Pima or Sadna for an answer. He forced the question from his mind. There was nothing he could do about that. He needed to solve his own problem first.

  The half-men surveyed the dock workers with a calm detachment so much like Tool that they could have been brothers. The half-men watched the people and Nailer watched them, putting his hands up against the boards as more waves threatened to shove him into the wood. He kept hoping they would say something, but if they did, the rumble of the boards and the splash of the waters around him obscured it. He prayed that Lucky Girl had the sense to be on the lookout. Tool as well. It was just the barest luck that had allowed Nailer to recognize his father and duck away. He trembled at the realization of how close he had come.

  Richard and the half-men moved on, still surveying the people. They had to be looking for Lucky Girl. Nailer trailed after them, eeling silently beneath the boardwalk. The trio walked quickly, and Nailer almost lost them twice amongst the thump of workers and crew on the floating docks. He was swimming so quickly that he almost revealed himself when his father climbed off the dock and into a skiff. His father’s face flashed into view below dock level. Nailer sank into the water and kicked silently away, surfacing safely in the shadows.

  When he came up his father was saying, “—see if any of the other crews had any success, then send word back to the ship.”

  The half-men nodded but didn’t respond. They loosed the skiff’s sail and it pulled away from the dock. Nailer watched them go, wondering if he would ever be rid of his father. No matter how far he ran, no matter how he tried to hide, always the man was there. Nailer started swimming beneath the boardwalk, easing his way to the buoys. He didn’t know where Tool was, but Lucky Girl was supposed to be cleaning pots for a fishhouse down on the water’s edge. If his father caught sight of her, it would be all over. Tool… Tool would have to take care of himself.

  When he got to Nita, she was excited. She took her hand out of the murky brown water that she was washing dishes in and pointed out to a ship in the harbor. A new one that had just arrived.

  “That one! Dauntless. It’s one of the clippers I’ve been looking for.”

  Nailer glanced at the ship, chilled. “I don’t think so. My dad’s here. He’s got goons with him. Half-men. I think he’s linked up with your swank uncle, Pyce.” He tugged her away from the cook shop. “We need to lie low. Disappear for a while.” He searched the crowds for signs of his father. The man was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there, or that he didn’t have others searching. The man was sly. Had a way of popping up.

  “No!” Nita shook his hand off her arm. “I have to get onto that ship.” She pointed. “That’s my ticket out. All we have to do is get to it.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the ship you want. My dad was just talking about a ship. It’s a big coincidence to have your ship and my dad show up at the same time.” He tugged her arm. “We need to lie low. My dad sounded like he had more people with him. They’re going to spot us if we don’t duck and cover.”

  “So you just want to let Dauntless sail away?” she asked, incredulous.

  Nailer stared at her. “How come you aren’t listening to me? My dad is here with half-men. Swank dressed, all of them. And he was talking about a ship.” He nodded at the ship. “Probably that one.”

  “Not Dauntless. The captain is Sung Kim Kai. She’s one of the best captains my father has. Absolutely loyal.”

  “Maybe not anymore. You don’t know what’s happened since you went running. Maybe someone else is commanding.”

  “No. It’s not possible.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Nailer said. “You know I’m right. My dad and the Dauntless showing up on the same day? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “It wasn’t Dauntless that was chasing me before,” she said stubbornly. “It was Pole Star. I trust Captain Sung.”

  Nailer hesitated. “We’ll check,” he said finally. “But we’re not just going to walk out and get snagged like a couple of crawfish jumping into a pot. It’s too big a coincidence to have my dad and your ship show up at the same time. It’s probably a trap.” He tugged at her. “Right now we have to get out of sight. None of this matters if they bag us while we’re gabbing in broad daylight. I’ll go out again tonight, check things out.”

  “What if the ship leaves before?” she pressed. “What then?”

  “Then it leaves!” Nailer said heatedly. “Better not to get bagged than to rush things on a hope. Maybe you’re eager to get yourself caught, but I’m not. I know what my dad will do if he catches me and I’m not risking it. There’ll be other ships, but you won’t get a second chance if we screw this up.”

  “There’s worse things than hope, Nailer.”

  “Yeah. Getting caught by my dad would be at the top of my list. What’s yours?”

  Nita gave him a dirty look, but he could tell she’d gotten the point. She’d lost the feverish excitement that had first filled her. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.” She carried her basin of cracked pottery back into the fish shack, and came back a minute later.

  “They won’t pay me for today unless I stick until dinner.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Nailer could barely contain his fear and frustration. “We need to get out of sight.”

  They hurried down the boardwalk and then slipped into brackish waters, wading until they reached one of the old mansions that filled the area. The bottom floor was entirely flooded, and the place was caving in on itself, but the upper floors held a slew of squats. Tool had convinced the gang who ran the place to let them crash in one of the rooms above. He had chosen it because one of the upper windows afforded a view down to the boardwalks, and also out to the ships. A decent squat, and with Tool as their protector, no one bothered them. Lucky Girl was glad enough to have a place to crash that she had barely complained about the snakes and roaches and pigeon nests that they shared space with.

  Together, they climbed the creaking stairs, stepping over broken and mildewed missing steps and finding their way around the holes and gaps in the floors to their room. A rusty spring bed without a mattress lay at one side, but they didn’t keep anything else in the room.

  Nita went to the window and stared out at the ship. She looked like the little kids who squatted outside of Chen�
�s, hoping for scrap bones. Starving. Desperate and starving for something that they weren’t quite sure would come to them.

  Nailer said, “If the ship’s still here tonight, we’ll go after it then, when not so many eyes can pick us out. Maybe we’ll do some asking around. See if we can run a message out to your smart captain, see if she’s real, then we decide what to do. But we’ll test it first, right? You don’t jump into a pond until you check for a python at the hole, and you sure as hell don’t go out to that ship without a way to get off if things go wrong.”

  Nita nodded reluctantly. They watched as darkness settled on the boardwalks. Laborers streamed back to their squats and street stalls opened for dinner. Music came from the bars, zydeco and high-tide blues. Mosquitoes swarmed.

  Nailer studied the crowds, glad they were in darkness. He had a prickling feeling that his father was still out there, watching for him; that the old man knew just where he was, and was circling in for a kill. He fought off the fear.

  “Tool’s late,” Nita said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You think your dad got him?”

  Nailer shook his head, frustrated, trying to scan the crowds. “I don’t know. I’m going to go look around.”

  “I’m coming, too.”

  “No.” He shook his head vigorously. “You stay here.”

  “Like hell. I’m no more recognizable than you.” She pulled her long hair over her face so that she was shielded by ratty lengths. The days in the swamps and water of the Orleans hadn’t been kind to the silky strands. “Probably even less.”

  Nailer had to admit she had a point. She didn’t look much like the swank he and Pima had found in the shipwreck. She was pretty, maybe one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, but definitely different than before. Now she blended.

  “Okay, sure. Whatever.”

  They slipped out of the building and down into the water, making their way slowly toward the crowds. They found a place in the swamp land bordering the main boardwalk and crouched together, scanning the night traffic, looking for signs of Tool or of Nailer’s father and the half-men he had appeared with.

  Nailer shuddered at the thought of his father with goon muscle like the half-men at his beck and call. Tool was terrifying enough without a man like Richard Lopez in charge. Nailer cursed, feeling pinned down. He didn’t like any of the options. Didn’t relish testing the loyalty of Nita’s Captain Sung out on the Dauntless. Didn’t like sitting here, half exposed, trying to figure out why Tool was missing.

  Nita was watching him. “Do you ever wish you just took the gold off my fingers when you had the chance?”

  Nailer hesitated, then shook his head. “No.” He grinned. “At least, not lately.”

  “Not even now? With your dad looking for you?”

  Nailer shook his head again. “It’s not worth thinking about. It’s already done.” He saw a hurt look cross her face and hurried to explain himself. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not saying you’re just some mistake I’ve got to live with. I mean, it’s part of it.” Again the hurt look. Damn, he was making a hash of this, and he didn’t even know what he was trying to say. “I like you. I wouldn’t trade you to my dad any more than I’d trade Pima. We’re crew, right?” He showed her the palm of his hand where he’d slashed it for their blood oath. “I got your back.”

  “You’ve got my back.” Nita smiled slightly. “And you’d vouch me onto light crew. You’re full of compliments, aren’t you?” Her dark eyes held him, intense, serious. “Thank you, Nailer. For everything. I know if you hadn’t saved me…” She paused. “Pima didn’t care. She just saw a swank.” She reached out and touched his cheek. “Thank you.”

  There was something in her eyes Nailer hadn’t seen before. It filled him with a tingling hunger. He realized that at this moment, if he was bold…

  He leaned forward. Their lips touched. For the briefest moment, she leaned in to him, let her lips press more strongly against his. Then she drew back, flustered, and looked away. Nailer’s heart beat wildly. He could hear his blood in his ears, thudding excitement. He tried to think of something to say, something smart, something to make her look at him again, to renew the connection he’d felt just a moment before. But the words didn’t come.

  Nita pointed. “Tool’s coming,” she said thickly. “Maybe he’ll know something about the ship.”

  Nailer turned and caught sight of Tool in the crowd, headed in their direction. He felt a confused rush of relief and frustration at the interruption. And then something else caught his eye: across the crowds, two half-men hurrying to intercept Tool.

  “It’s them,” Nailer said. “Those were the ones with my dad.”

  Nita sucked in her breath. “They see Tool.”

  “We have to warn him.” Nailer tried to get up, but Nita grabbed him and yanked him down.

  “You can’t help him,” she whispered fiercely.

  He tried to shout to Tool, but she pressed her hand over his mouth. “No!” she whispered. “You can’t! We’ll all be caught then!”

  Nailer looked into her fierce, solemn eyes and nodded slowly. As soon as she took her hand away, he sprang up and gave her a withering look. “You’re a cold one, aren’t you? Hide if you want. He’s our crew.”

  Before she could stop him again, he was off and running, jumping through the vines and out onto the boardwalk. Tool saw him running and waving. “Look out!” Nailer shouted.

  Tool turned and saw his hunters converging. Snarls echoed in the night and then the half-men were all moving. Fast. Blurringly fast. Faster than any natural human could ever move. Machetes appeared in the dog-men’s hands. They dove for Tool, snarling. One of them flew back, thrown by Tool’s strength, but the other swung his machete. Blood sprayed the air, an arc of black liquid gleaming in lantern glow. Nailer cast about for a weapon, something he could throw, a club, anything—

  Nita grabbed him and dragged him back. “Nailer! You can’t help him!” she said. “We have to run before they see us!”

  Nailer looked back desperately, fighting her pull. “But—”

  Crowds roiled where the half-men snarled and battled. Nailer heard wood beams cracking. The crowd obscured what was happening, but suddenly the rotten frontage of a building gave way and collapsed. Dust boiled up into the air. People screamed and stampeded from the wreckage. Nita yanked his arm. “Come on! This isn’t a fight you can survive! They’re too fast and too strong! You’ve never seen half-men fight. You can’t help him!”

  Nailer stared at where Tool had disappeared in dust and wreckage. More snarling rose, and then a scream, high and animal.

  Hating himself, Nailer turned and ran, ducking and dodging with the crowd.

  They huddled near the water’s edge, watching the lights out in the deeps, watching for more of Pyce’s creatures. People walked by, ignoring the two urchins on the shore, just another pair of the many that came and went like the junk in the tides.

  “I’m sorry,” Nita said. “I didn’t want to leave him, either.”

  Nailer gave her a withering look. “He was helping us.”

  “There are some fights you can’t win.” She looked away. “Half-men don’t fight like people. More like hurricanes. We would have been killed or caught, or just made it harder for Tool to fight on his own.”

  “And now he’s dead.”

  She was silent, lips pressed together, staring out at the blackness and the reflections of torches and LED beacons on the waters. Oars rattled in oarlocks and the distant buzz of a pilot boat wafted across the water to them.

  Finally, Nita said, “We have to try to get to the Dauntless. It’s the only way.”

  Nailer didn’t want to agree, but he didn’t see any better option. Without Tool to give them protection in this city, they were minnows waiting to be eaten. They couldn’t even keep their squat if he wasn’t around to provide muscle. But the sudden arrival of the ship along with his father and the half-men filled him with unease. They were too closely linke
d. The ship had come and his father had appeared like a wraith on the boardwalks and it was only dumb luck that allowed Nailer to avoid the man.

  And now the Dauntless sat out there in the waves, beckoning like bait on a line.

  Throughout the Orleans, Lucky Girl’s enemies would be searching harder now, sure that they were on the scent. The finding of Tool would bring more people down, waves of searchers. It would inspire his father for certain. Surviving in the drowned streets of the Orleans would be impossible. They couldn’t work in the open, couldn’t let their faces be shown without drawing attention.

  Nita said, “We’re going to that ship out there, and Captain Sung will help us get to my father.”

  Nailer shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

  “Yours too.”

  Nailer stared at the distant docks and the bustle of nighttime Orleans. The dead city, still half alive, like a zombie corpse reanimated, because people needed the trade, and the mouth of the Mississippi still poured down through the center of the continent with its great barges full of food and whatever manufactured objects came from the northern cities. All sorts of places upriver, probably, lots of places to hide. All sorts. And them just a couple bits of driftwood. They could float…

  “We could go up the river,” he suggested.

  “Not until I know about the Dauntless.” Nita stabbed her finger toward the distant shape of the ship. “That’s where I’m going. With or without you.”

  Nailer searched the crowds, then sighed. “Fine. But I’ll do it by myself.” He held up a hand, forestalling protest. “If your captain’s there, I’ll find her. If I find her, then we bring you out.”

  “But they don’t know you.”

  “You’re the one everyone wants. They’re not hunting for me, except to get to you. There’s a chance I can at least look things over. But you’ll be recognized in a second. These aren’t my people, they’re yours.”