Seabound (Seabound Chronicles Book 1)

by Jordan Rivet

  At the time of the eruption, Judith had been twenty-two years old, the same age Esther was now. Esther, a frightened, pigtailed child, had grasped at Judith like she was an older sister, like she was a flotation device. As Simon helped the survivors cope, Judith had been his protégé, a natural leader who also found her sense of purpose in helping to create and guide their little community through the troubles. But about six years ago, a decade after their escape to the sea, Judith had started to assert herself more aggressively.

  Judith was admired for her efficiency, her caution, and her willingness to play favorites with people who supported her. She was cold, but her organization was tight as a stopper knot. She took on a larger leadership role, undermining the spirit of the rotating leadership council, and Simon started to withdraw. He became increasingly reclusive and melancholic. Meanwhile, the faction that supported him shrank. It was thanks to Simon that the survivors didn’t destroy each other in the initial terror of the new world, yet somehow Judith had succeeded in turning public opinion against him, leading people to believe that he was trying to control and manipulate them. Simon didn’t seem to mind, taking solace in recording the history of the Catalina for posterity, whatever that was. Esther had born the brunt of the insult. She’d never forgive Judith. She wished more than anything to be out from under her thumb.

  “Judith?”

  “Yes? Oh. Esther.” Judith turned away from Manny and fixed her sharp, gray eyes on Esther. Her angular face looked even more severe sticking out from a thick navy turtleneck. Her ash-blond hair, cut in a straight line, brushed high cheekbones. “Here to discuss your flagrant disregard for my instructions? I told you not to tinker with—”

  “Can I talk to you about something else first?” Esther interrupted.

  “Make it quick.”

  Esther nodded, fighting down a flash of irritation. She had to stay calm.

  “I want to submit a leave application to the council,” she said.

  Judith pinched her lips into a thin line. “I see.”

  “Can we talk about it at the next council meeting?”

  “We have a lot to discuss in the next council meeting. I’m not sure we can squeeze you on to the agenda.”

  Everyone knew that Judith controlled the council now. She chaired the meetings, ostensibly to maintain consistency as the members rotated, and she always set the agenda. Too many of the people aboard the ship had fallen into apathy; they usually just voted to do what she wanted. Judith had convinced them that she was the one who would keep them safe through all the storms the sea could throw their way. Esther would have to go through her to get what she wanted. Stay calm.

  “What about the one after that?” Esther asked.

  Manny was shaking his head. He leaned back from the table and crossed his arms over his narrow chest.

  “Esther,” Judith said, her voice slow and exaggerated, “this community functions because everyone has a role to play. Have you thought about how your abandonment would affect the community that has kept you safe for almost your entire life?”

  “I can train someone else to do my work,” Esther said.

  “Cally?” Judith gave a nasty smile. “A little fish told me she nearly destroyed the pump system last night. She’s not ready. It’s bad enough when we’re subjected to your other . . . experiments.”

  “Cally is learning, and it was an honest mistake,” Esther said, conveniently forgetting the lecture she’d given Cally. “It’s almost four months until we dock with the Amsterdam next. I can get her ready in that time.”

  Judith sighed. “We might not be meeting with the Amsterdam Coalition this year.”

  “What? Why?”

  That wasn’t what Esther expected at all.

  “We can survive on our reserves for a while yet,” Judith said, waving her hand dismissively.

  “Not for another year.”

  The idea of going for more than a year without the variation provided by the Amsterdam made Esther feel claustrophobic. It was a bright spot she didn’t think she could do without.

  “We’re better off when we don’t interact with other communities. There have been reports of increased violence between the mercenary groups. You don’t know who you can trust in this world.”

  Judith had always hated meeting up with other ships, saying they were dangerous. It was one of the scare tactics she’d used in her covert campaign against Simon. They’d had very little contact with anyone since Judith had come to power. But skipping the Amsterdam meeting?

  “You want to go it alone?” Esther asked.

  “I’m just saying we may not meet with the Amsterdam on schedule,” Judith said. “Are you sure you want to continue with your application? It would be a terrible waste of time.”

  Esther felt like the murals on the dining hall walls were getting closer together, threatening to suffocate her with their teasing images of wide-open spaces and distant lands.

  “I want a change, Judith,” she said. “Maybe if you’d let me install my ideas for the desalination system, I wouldn’t feel so stir-crazy. We could survive for longer without the Amsterdam if desal didn’t take so much energy.”

  Judith scowled, unmoved by Esther’s plea. “Frank’s system is invaluable, and I won’t have you disturbing it.”

  “I wouldn’t mess anything up,” Esther insisted. I’d only take it apart completely and . . .

  “As I recall, the last time I ordered you not to tinker with the system, we ended up going on emergency rations for a week,” Judith said.

  Leave it to her to bring that up again. It had been a tiny mistake, and now Esther knew what not to do.

  “You didn’t have a council vote,” she said. “You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do in my own time—and I fixed the leak.”

  Truthfully, she hadn’t been sure that particular experiment would work, but she’d been frustrated with Judith for ordering her around. The council members were supposed to be in charge equally. That’s how her father designed it.

  “You are not as good as you think you are, Esther. It’s time you learned to take criticism.” Esther began to protest, but Judith held up a thin hand. “I’ll have no trouble convincing the council to order you to stop experimenting altogether, now that you mention it.”

  Judith smiled, turned back to the cod on her plate, and dismissed Esther with a wave of her fork.

  Esther stood her ground. “If you’re not going to let me try anything new, then I’ll leave.”

  “Despite what happened last month, Esther, we need you to keep everything in working order. That’s your role. Let me be blunt. If you apply for leave, you will be denied. I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.” Judith turned back to Manny, jutting her narrow shoulder toward him, cutting Esther off.

  “You can’t force me to stay,” Esther said to the back of Judith’s head.

  Judith didn’t turn around. “You won’t abandon your father. Especially as he’s been suffering from a bit of depression, I hear.” Judith’s voice was like broken glass. “You shouldn’t put him at risk because you have cabin fever.”

  “Rust and salt, Judith!” It was a low blow, and Esther lost her last shred of control. “How dare you talk about him like that! It’s your fault he’s been—”

  “Now, now, Esther,” Manny said, standing up. The scar on his brow tensed. Judith kept her face turned away. “Calm down. You don’t want to say something you’ll regret.”

  Manny was only an inch or two taller than Esther, but he was well muscled. Plus the very next table contained a group of Judith’s supporters. A few looked up.

  Esther stared a tempest at Manny (and at the back of Judith’s head), then turned on her heel and stomped out of the dining hall. She couldn’t believe Judith would bring her father into it like that! This had to be a new low. Esther would be off the Catalina that very moment if there was so much as a rowboat within swimming distance.

  Her steps pounded in the hallway. She stomped straig
ht to the engine room, where she pulled out a wrench and calmed herself by tightening bolts on the silent machines.

  Chapter 5—Desalination

  The familiar sound of pumps and running water greeted Esther in the desalination room the following morning. She had stayed up late the night before, grumbling to herself about Judith and thinking about how to improve the system. As long as Judith didn’t notice what she was doing, damned if she was going to feel bad about it.

  Originally, the Catalina had a flash evaporating system that desalinated water using excess energy from the ship’s engines. It had provided the ship’s water while it carried passengers from California down the coast of Mexico. Whenever they weren’t using their engines in ports from Cabo to Puerto Vallarta, they could pump clean water in from the port city. Now that they barely had enough energy to run the engines in true emergencies, they needed some other way to remove salt from their water. That was where Frank Fordham came in.

  Esther ducked beneath the pipes crossing the room and joined Frank at one of the freshwater tanks. “Hey, Frank. How was the storm?”

  “Made it through just fine. Felt it coming in my joints.”

  Frank had once been a tall man, but his back had developed a hump over the years. With his mustache and sad eyes he would have looked like a walrus were it not for his foam-white hair.

  “Can your joints tell the difference between a runner and a rider?”

  “There isn’t that much difference,” Frank said. “I imagine we survived some runners in the early days. We’d bash up a few things and be on our way.” Frank patted the water tank affectionately.

  The desalination system Frank designed had been set up in the old bowling alley. The walls bore a faded mural of bowling pins that looked like palm trees arrayed on a tropical beach. The old racks and other equipment had been used elsewhere on the ship. The bowling balls made good weights for deep-sea crabbing and fishing. Esther and the other children had grown through a succession of bowling shoes. She still had a pair she used when her work boots became waterlogged.

  Now, the desalination system filled the room with pipes and tanks, which marched down the old lanes. It was a beautiful system, incorporating technologies that Frank had studied as an engineer, along with his own innovations. It had taken time to collect enough pipes, heat coils, filters, and reverse-osmosis membranes to create this masterpiece. They were lucky that plastic floated so well. They’d been able to skim it off the sea like leaves. It still took an incredible amount of energy to remove all the salt from the water, but it was better than using the evaporation system they’d relied on until they could get enough material to build the specialized RO filters. The entire system was a pressurized bundle of old parts, and it needed regular care.

  “We got lucky this time,” Esther said. “Neal told me the old Queen Anne sank in a storm a few months ago. He says we’d have called it a runner, but they didn’t have enough fuel left to get away in time.”

  “It’s a shame. I sailed on the Queen Anne when I was a young man.”

  “Did you?” Esther laid a hand on one of the pipes to judge the temperature and pressure of the unit.

  “She was a beautiful ship, but her parts were old then. I’m surprised she survived this long,” Frank said.

  “Did you ever wish you lived on a cruise ship?”

  Frank smiled, stretching his mustache out to the sides. “I spent too much time eating from the buffet and chasing a beautiful girl through the disco to think about the future. I was young then. Thought I could do anything.”

  “Must have been nice.” Esther thought of the future before her: a six-hundred-foot ship held together with pins, and the endless ocean.

  Frank drew his eyebrows together and nodded. “Yes. Yes, we had many options in those days. I’m sorry your youth doesn’t allow for the same freedom.”

  “Not your fault,” Esther said briskly. But Frank’s eyes were far away. Esther had noticed that happen more often lately. Her father’s eyes did the same thing. She cleared her throat.

  Frank looked at her and scratched his mustache. “Oh, hello, Esther. When did you get here?”

  “I’ve been here for a few minutes. Are you okay, Frank?”

  Esther studied him. The left side of his face was slightly slack, like a piece of tarp that hadn’t been tied down properly.

  “I’m sorry, Esther. Of course you’ve been here. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “It’s okay.” Esther turned to inspect the gauges on the nearest tank, keeping one eye on her mentor. He didn’t look well. She wanted to keep him talking. “Frank, did you know Judith wants to skip our next docking with the Amsterdam Coalition?”

  “Does she?”

  “She’s getting suspicious of them. Thinks it’s safer to keep to ourselves.”

  “The Amsterdam always has been rather mercenary. Still, I think we need them,” Frank said.

  “We have become more self-sufficient than we used to be,” Esther said. “I have a few ideas for alternate energy sources. I want to build a new generator if I can get the right equipment. Someday we might not need to rely on fuel, even for big moves. And your system will keep us in freshwater forever.”

  Frank frowned. “I’m concerned about our filters, actually. They work hard. We will need to replace them soon.”

  “What about the backups?”

  Esther moved to the next gauge. Frank had always been careful to have backup materials. He’d collected for years after the original constructions were complete, in case anything went wrong.

  “I’m afraid I’ve let a few things slide lately.” Frank’s eyes wandered through the tanks, dull like an ash-filled sky. “It doesn’t seem worth it sometimes. I checked on our backups, and they weren’t sealed properly. A large percentage of the RO membranes have decayed in storage . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Esther’s head shot up. Frank was supposed to rotate the filters regularly to make them last as long as possible. It wasn’t like him to be careless about something like this. “What do you mean, decayed?”

  “They are worthless,” Frank said, shrugging. “Our current filters will have to hold until we next dock with the Amsterdam, I expect.”

  “How long have you known about this?”

  “I checked on them after the storm yesterday, to see if they’d shifted around too much. It’s a wonder I thought to do it at all.”

  Frank didn’t sound concerned. The same sense of slackness, of vacancy, Esther had noticed earlier had replaced the curiosity and industry she had first admired about him.

  “How long do you think we have?” Esther asked.

  “Oh, the current filters have a good six months left in them, but we’ll need to restock our supply. I can speak to Judith about it.”

  Esther nodded, feeling a surge of hope despite this worrying news. “She’ll listen to you. Maybe she’ll reconsider going to meet the Amsterdam this year after all!”

  Her brain was already churning as she thought about how she could convince the council to let her leave, despite Judith’s objections. Her buddy Reggie’s turn was coming soon. That was helpful. It was a shame Gracie Cordova had another few months left on the council. She was firmly in Judith’s camp. At worst, Esther would sneak away. Her father’s face swam before her for a moment, but she pushed it down.

  “All right. Well, be careful today, Esther. I’ll be back to check in on you after I’ve had a nap.”

  Frank turned, and the joints in his knees popped.

  “Thanks, Frank. Get some rest. And don’t forget to talk to Judith.”

  “About what?”

  “The filters. And the Amsterdam?” Esther prompted.

  “Ah yes.”

  Frank walked slowly down the bowling lane, bending to duck under the pipes as he went. Esther watched him sadly. He really should have been paying better attention to the condition of the extra filters. They’d lost a few members of the community to this insidious absentmindedness. This melanchol
y. But a life endlessly at sea did not inspire hope in most people. You had to stay busy to survive.

  Esther swung underneath the intake pipes and started a complete check of the desalination system, her mind on the next few months. She would finish training Cally to take over her duties. The council would agree they had to meet the Amsterdam this year to get more filters for their water system. It was nonnegotiable. No matter what, they needed freshwater.

  They usually didn’t run the water through the system at full capacity because it took so much energy. Whenever a storm replenished their power supply, they’d do a major batch to refill the freshwater reserve, most of which was pumped down to the extra tanks in the old casino on the fourth deck. Frank was supposed to send the extra water through that morning, but the quiet hum of the machines told her he’d forgotten. She flipped a few switches to increase the flow. It would probably be better for her to monitor the process herself, since Frank seemed to be having trouble remembering things. Soon, triple the normal water intake was rushing through the bay of RO membranes, slowly filling the tanks with precious pure water. It would take time; she might as well tinker a bit.

  At the back of the room, near what had once been the automated pinsetter, Esther had assembled a workspace. Technically, Judith had banned her from doing this, but she’d had an idea last night that she wanted to record. Judith hadn’t yet followed through on her promise to get the council to officially restrict Esther’s work. If she succeeded, they’d forgive her. They’d see she wasn’t just messing around. She scratched calculations into the wood of the floor with her pocketknife, planning what she’d try next time she had new materials to work with. But her mind strayed off the Catalina.

  She wouldn’t have to stay on the Amsterdam. Other floating villages docked there all the time, according to a trader friend she’d spoken to last year. Some were on cruise ships. Others made their ark on cargo vessels and oil tankers. A few people even survived on yachts and sailing ships, but they didn’t last long, often finding bigger ships to support them. If she could demonstrate her skills as a mechanic, she should have her pick of seabound communities. But Esther, like most of them, dreamed of land.