Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  Still nothing. Water was everywhere. LEDs were shorting out, sending portions of the ship into blackness. The ship was sinking. He had to get out. Judging from the empty corridors and rooms, even the crew had run. He wondered what had happened with the fight. Who had won?

  He scrambled through corridors made topsy-turvy by the ship’s cant. The smell of oiled machinery was strong in his nostrils, reeking. It was like being back on one of the ship-breaking wrecks. Like being trapped in the oil room.

  He pushed open another door and crawled through. He was lost all right. Inside, the hydrofoil gearings for the Pole Star sat in red dimness, clicking gears and whirring automation mechanicals for the sails and hydrofoils and parasail reels. Warning signs said: SPEED MECHANICALS IN USE! WATCH HANDS AND LOOSE CLOTHING. Nailer was amused that he could actually make out the meanings now. He was going to drown, but hey, he could read.

  On one wall, flashers and safety overrides blinked to indicate that there were electric malfunctions and topside failures, probably from having the conning deck go under. The mechanicals were almost exactly the same as the ones he’d had to lubricate under Knot’s supervision on Dauntless. Bigger, but the layout was awfully similar. As the ship had gone onto its side, the service panels that had been in place on the floor had come loose and fallen free, revealing the huge gears and interlocking hydraulic systems. It looked like ships in the Patel Global fleet were almost the same. Nita wouldn’t be here. He turned to keep searching. The ship groaned and shifted under him again. Nailer wondered if he was going to end up like Jackson Boy after all. Dead in a different bit of scavenge, but dead just the same.

  “Nita! Where the hell are you?”

  He broke into a new corridor. The ship was trying to turn upside down, kept from capsizing only by the strength of its masts where they tangled in the Teeth. If the ship turned turtle, he’d have to swim out. He wondered if he’d be able to make it up through the waves and wreckage.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” A familiar voice interrupted his thoughts. “Hello there, Lucky Boy.”

  Nailer turned, his skin crawling.

  His father stood in the soaking corridor with Nita slung over his shoulder, gagged and bound at her wrists and ankles. Water ran slick on his face and a machete gleamed in his hand.

  Nailer stepped back, horrified. His father smiled. Even in the dimness of the red LEDs Nailer could tell the man was sliding high. He had the bright, wide eyes and the feral grin of an addict deep in his drugs.

  “Goddamn,” Richard Lopez said. “I didn’t think I’d run into you here.” He dumped Nita unceremoniously on the ground and swung his machete in an experimental arc. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  Nailer tried to shrug, tried not to show his fear. “Yeah. Me either.”

  His father laughed. The sound echoed in the cramped space. The dragons stood out stark on his bare arms, curling up around his Adam’s apple like spikes. His ribs showed over the ripple of his fighter’s muscles.

  “You gonna just stand there?” his father asked. “Or you gonna help me?”

  Nailer hesitated, confused. “Help you? You want me to help with the girl?”

  His father grinned. “Just kidding. I should have let you die when we found the scavenge. Should have known you’d be an ungrateful little bastard.”

  “Just let her go,” Nailer said. “You don’t need her.”

  “Nope.” His father shook his head. “I don’t need her. But I’m not going out empty-handed, and she looks like the best scavenge here.”

  “They’ll catch you.”

  “Who?” His father laughed. “No one gives a damn anymore. Every man for himself and all that.” He shrugged. “Anyway, they don’t really care if she’s alive or dead. If I sell her for spare parts to the Harvesters, it’s all the same to them.” He glanced at her. “She might have been a swank once. But she’s scavenge now.”

  Nailer followed his father’s gaze. Nita was conscious, he was surprised to see. She was fighting against her bonds, trying to get free.

  Nailer’s father kicked her hard. “Sit still,” he said.

  Nita grunted in pain, then sobbed as her breath returned. Richard turned to Nailer. He twitched his machete. “What’re you thinking, boy? Thinking you’re gonna cut down your old man with your little knife? Get back at me for all your whippings?”

  He twitched the machete again, letting the blade bob before Nailer. “Come on, then.” He beckoned Nailer forward. “Hand-to-hand, boy. Just like the ring.” He bared his damaged teeth. “I’m going to spread your guts on the floor!”

  He lunged. Nailer hurled himself aside. The machete slashed past his face. His father laughed. “Good job, boy! You’re damn quick!” He slashed again and Nailer’s belly burned where the blade cut a shallow line. “Almost as quick as me!”

  Nailer staggered back. The cut wasn’t deep—he’d gotten worse on light crew—but it filled him with fear to see how fast his father was. He was as deadly as a half-man. Richard Lopez closed on him, making short jabs with his machete. Nailer gave ground. He feinted with his own shorter knife, trying to slash inside the machete, but his father anticipated him and this time the machete caught Nailer across the cheek.

  “Still a little slow, boy.”

  Nailer backed off, fighting fear. He swiped away the blood that ran freely from his face. The man was horrifyingly fast. Amped on amphetamines, he was superhuman. Nailer remembered the time his father had beaten three opponents in the ring at the same time, on a dare. He’d been overmatched, but he’d left the others crushed and unconscious and stood over them all, bloody teeth gleaming with triumph. The man was born to fight.

  His father slashed again. Nailer jumped back.

  Concentrate, Nailer told himself.

  His father exploded into motion. Nailer barely slid inside the machete’s cut. His father’s body slammed into him. Nailer’s hand, slick with blood, lost his knife. It went flying. He and his father went over in a tumble. Richard grabbed at him, but Nailer wriggled free and scrambled down the corridor. His father laughed.

  “You can’t run away that easy!”

  Nailer searched frantically for his knife but couldn’t see it in the dimness. His father stalked him. Nailer turned and ran. Behind him, his father laughed and gave chase as Nailer dashed for the mechanicals room. Under the glow of emergency lighting, Nailer cast about, looking for some tool he could use as a weapon. His father burst into the room behind him.

  “My my, you’re a slippery one.”

  Nailer backed away. The damn Pole Star crew kept a tight ship, not even a wrench or a screwdriver lying around. Nailer grabbed a loose service panel and hurled it, but his father dodged easily.

  “That the best you can do?” he asked.

  Nailer grabbed another loose maintenance panel, then looked up at where it had fallen from. An entire wall of gears and hydraulic systems loomed beside him, the floor of the ship that had now become a wall. If he could climb up, he might be able to get out of reach inside a maintenance hole.

  Nailer ran to the wall of exposed gears and pulled himself up. With the ship turned sideways, there were enough open panels that he could climb up along them. He peered into the slots between, almost sobbing with desperation. None of the gaps were big enough for him to hide from his father’s machete reach. He climbed higher.

  “Where you think you’re going, boy?”

  Nailer didn’t answer. He got ahold of another huge gear and hauled himself higher. He slapped at a service panel’s lock and tore it away. He threw it down at his father, missing again. Below him, Richard Lopez was watching, bemused.

  “You think I can’t just climb up and pull you down?” He shook his head. “I used to think you were smart, boy.”

  Nailer pulled himself higher. His father said, “Why don’t you just come down and die like a man? It would be so much easier for both of us.”

  Nailer shook his head. “Come get me, if you want me.”

  He loose
ned another panel. If his father could be convinced to start climbing, he could maybe drop the damn thing right on his father’s head.

  “All right, boy. I tried to be nice.” His father took hold of a gear and reached up for another handhold in the next service panel. With the machete, his climbing was hampered, but he was horrifyingly fast, even so.

  Nailer dropped the panel. For a moment, he thought it would catch his father perfectly, but then the entire ship heaved with another wave and the panel missed. Richard Lopez grinned up at Nailer, unfazed. “Guess you’re not such a Lucky Boy after all.” Then, quick as a spider, he clambered up after Nailer.

  Nailer scrambled higher, but there was nowhere else to go. He clung to a huge gear, staring down at his dad. He was trapped. Richard Lopez smiled and swung his machete. Nailer yanked his feet out of reach. The machete clanged against steel.

  A blinking LED caught Nailer’s eye. He stared, and felt a surge of hope. He was right beside a control deck, with its familiar label: FOIL OVERRIDE. KEEP HANDS AND LOOSE CLOTHING CLEAR.

  Nailer slapped frantically at the release lever and hit the engagement override button. Just like Knot had done what seemed like ages ago. He looked down at his father. “Let me go, Dad. Just let me and Nita go.”

  “Not this time, boy.” Richard Lopez grabbed Nailer’s ankle.

  Nailer said a prayer to the Fates, grabbed the engagement lever, and jumped free. His weight yanked the lever down and then he was falling.

  The scream of machinery filled the room.

  24

  NAILER HIT THE FLOOR. His ankle blossomed with pain. The scream of machinery cut off abruptly. Nailer looked up. His father dangled above him, half his body sucked into the hydrofoil’s gear system. The man was trying to reach into the machinery where an arm and leg had been consumed. Blood showed on his teeth.

  “Damn,” he said. He seemed puzzled, more than anything else. He tried to free himself again. Nailer’s skin crawled. The man should have been dead, the way he’d been sucked into the gears, but still he fought for life. Fueled by amphetamines and sliding high, his father still didn’t understand his predicament. For a terrible moment, Nailer was filled with dread that his father could not die. That he would pry himself free and come after him once again.

  Richard stared down at him. “Come here, boy.”

  Nailer shook his head and backed away. His father’s free hand went to the gears again. “What the hell did you do?” He stared at the gears, then stared at the blood dripping from within the mechanicals. In the LED dimness it was almost black. “I’m not done yet,” his father said. He looked down at Nailer. “I’m nowhere near done yet.”

  But already his voice was weak. Nailer stared up at the man who had terrorized him for so much of his life. All of a sudden Richard Lopez was different, not the swaggering, dangerous man he had been, but something else. Miserable. Vulnerable.

  “Come on, Lucky Boy,” his father croaked. “We’re family. Help me out.” He tried to reach down to Nailer. Tried to smile. Licked bloody lips. “Please,” he said. And then, more softly, “I’m sorry.”

  Nailer’s body shook with revulsion. He gave his father one last look then turned away, limping for where Lucky Girl lay bound.

  He ran into her at the door, and almost screamed before he recognized her. She hefted his fighting knife. “Thanks for the knife,” she said. “Where’s—” She gasped.

  Nailer pulled her out of the room, nearly dragging her. “Come on.” He hurried her down the corridor, half expecting his father to call after him again, but no more sounds followed them.

  “Where are we going?” she panted.

  “We need to get out.” He dragged her to a ladder that led to the upper decks. Suddenly the ship shuddered and rolled. The main mast had finally given way. They were completely upside down. Trying to get to the upper decks meant climbing down into the sea. “We’ve turned turtle,” he muttered. “We can’t go down.” He peered down into the hole. It was already half full of water. The next deck down would be completely submerged.

  “Can we swim out?” she asked.

  “Not in the dark. Not without knowing where to go.” The water was rising. “We’re going under,” he said. Despair filled him.

  Nita stared at the water. “Then we go up, right?” She shook him. “Right? We go up!” She yanked his arm. “Come on! We need to find a way into the bottom of the ship.”

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “The ship’s sinking, right? Water’s getting in from somewhere. Maybe there’s a hole in the hull.”

  Nailer nodded, suddenly understanding. He stopped her and tugged her in a different direction. “This way. We need to get into the holds. They’re this way!”

  “How do you know which way to go?”

  “I’m a ship breaker.” Nailer laughed. “Spend enough time tearing apart old ships, and you get to understand them.” They dashed into another corridor, then clambered up a ladder. They ran along the ceiling of another corridor, the floor running over their heads. “There!” He smiled as he saw the ladder that led to where the crew had been working on sealing the hold.

  “Get ready,” he said as he put the fighting knife to the seals.

  “For what?”

  “A lot of water.”

  Nita grabbed a brass fitting with one hand and his belt with the other. She nodded to him. “Ready.”

  Nailer slashed the membrane that the crew had laid down in their vain effort to save the ship. The rubbery stuff parted. Water roared down over them. They slammed against the wall. Nailer clutched for Nita as the water tore at him. A moment later, the rush slowed to a trickle. It wasn’t as much as Nailer had feared. He guessed that a lot of it had already drained down into the ship from other points. He clambered through the hatch. “This way.”

  “How did you find me?” Nita asked as she tagged behind. “When they caught me in the Orleans I thought I was done for.”

  “Captain Candless—” Nailer broke off, thinking of the shots fired in the darkness, the spray of blood as the captain went down. “He had an idea of how to hunt for you.”

  “And you came along?”

  Nailer grinned. “Pretty stupid, huh?”

  She laughed. “I’ll say.”

  They threaded through wrecked cargo rooms, climbing over jumbled trash to reach the doors that were now upside down and above them. At last they dropped into the hold. Lightning cracked, illuminating a hole in the hull overhead. A ragged tear in the carbon fiber. Farther down, another hole showed, a testament to the success of Nailer’s plan. Seawater cascaded through the holes as a wave crashed across the hull, soaking strewn cargo boxes and jumbled equipment. Nailer squinted up at the torn hull. Lightning flashed. It wasn’t much of a hole. More of a crack. And it was high, too damn high.

  Nita yanked his arm. “The cargo crates,” she said. “We’ll stack them.”

  She grabbed a crate and dragged it below the hole. Nailer saw what she meant and rushed to help. They worked feverishly. Some crates were too heavy to move alone and others too heavy for both of them to lift. Nailer’s ankle burned with pain as he tried to move and stack the junk into a semblance of a tower. More water poured down over them. Nailer was gasping with effort and pain. Nita crawled up the pile of crates, reaching down as he handed up more boxes.

  Another wave rushed into the hold. A big one, that nearly knocked Nita from her perch.

  “We’re going under!” Nailer shouted over the storm roar.

  Nita stared at the hole above her. “I think we’re high enough.”

  “Then jump!”

  “What about you?”

  “You have to go first. My ankle might not make it. When you get up, gimme a hand.”

  Nita nodded and crouched, teetering at the top of the pile. She leaped. A wave crashed down on her, but her hands caught the edge and held, and then she was clambering up and out of the hold. Nailer scrambled up after her. The crates were all uneven from the movement of
the ship. His ankle was a bright blossom of pain. It was almost paralyzing. There was no way he’d make the jump.

  Nita’s face appeared in the opening above. She extended her hand. “Hurry!”

  He got his feet under him and crouched. Ignore the pain, he told himself. Just make the jump. He took a deep breath and sprang upward. His ankle exploded. His fingers caught the hull’s ragged edge. Slipped. Nita grabbed his wrist. “Hold on!” A wave crashed over, pouring down over them. He clung to the hull’s edge, coughing and spitting water. Another wave poured down.

  Nita’s grip was slipping. “I can’t pull you up!” she shouted.

  Get up! he told himself. If you keep hanging here, you’ll fall and break your neck. You didn’t come this far just to drown in the dark.

  But he was so tired.

  “Crew up, Nailer!” Lucky Girl shouted. “You think I’m going to pull your ass up here like a damn swank?”

  Nailer almost laughed. He clawed at the edge of the ship, and slowly hauled himself through the hole. Nita grabbed him under his arm, yanked at his shirt, dragging him higher. He scrabbled for a grip on the slippery hull. Another wave surged over them, but he was braced this time, and when it passed, he clawed his way out with Nita dragging him. At last he swung his legs out of the hold, and clung, gasping, to the hull.

  Rain poured down over them. Nita lay beside him, her black hair hanging like thick wet snakes around her face. Lightning cracked bright and hard, blinding after the darkness of the ship. More rain sheeted down. A hundred meters away, Dauntless lay anchored, churning in the storm.

  “That’s where we’re going,” Nailer said.

  “What? No water taxi?”

  Despite himself, Nailer grinned. “You swanks always want it easy.”

  “Yeah.” Her expression turned solemn as she stared at the Dauntless. “Sink or swim, right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She squinted into the rain. “I’ve swum farther,” she said. “We can do this.”

  She tore off her shoes and waited until the next wave surged over them, then dove with it, letting its force carry her forward. She bobbed like a fish. Nailer said a prayer to the Fates, thinking of the disappeared captain of the Pole Star, and followed her in.