by Jordan Rivet
“It is a city,” Esther said. “That’s what you’ve done here. How many people live here?”
“About twenty-five thousand, including the cargo and tanker crews,” David said. “We have the capacity for more. We always welcome newcomers into our community.”
Judith snorted, but Esther was quiet. Twenty-five thousand. At times, Esther had feared there weren’t that many people left in the entire world, much less at sea. This could be the change she was looking for. After she fixed the Catalina’s desal system and made sure her home ship was safe, maybe they’d let her stay here. There had to be a place for her amongst twenty-five thousand people. If things were going well with Marianna, maybe she’d even have Neal around for company. Anything was better than being ostracized aboard the Catalina.
“There’s the ferry. It looks like your friends have arrived,” David said, turning away from the sea. “Ah, and it looks like Captain Ryan has come to greet you too.” He pointed toward the entrance to the deck.
A large man stood silhouetted against the entryway. He stepped forward into the sunlight, and his white hair glimmered like the wings of a gull. He wore crisp trousers and a simple white collared shirt. He had lines around his eyes and mouth, and there was something magnetic about his smile. He strode toward them.
“Welcome to the Galaxy! I’ve just been informed that we have visitors to our fair flotilla. I try to greet our guests personally whenever I can.”
He had a rich voice that carried all the way across the deck. His expression was benevolent, like a distinguished grandfather's.
David seemed to snap to attention. “Sir, may I present Judith Stone, captain of the Catalina, and her mechanic, Esther.”
The man smiled with all his teeth and extended his hand. “I am Captain Ryan, of the Galaxy Crown. It’s an honor.”
Judith offered her hand in return, and he snatched it up and planted a kiss on the back. Judith actually blushed.
“I will be so pleased to have you join us for dinner tonight,” Captain Ryan said. “If you will accept, of course. Your constituents will be fed and entertained on the Emerald, but we would so appreciate the company of another captain on the Crown.”
“Um, that’s fine, thanks,” Judith said.
“Excellent!” Captain Ryan glanced at Esther as if seeing her for the first time. His magnificent white eyebrows pulled together. “Why doesn’t your mechanic go down to greet the others I hear are arriving on the ferry? I will take you personally to meet the other captains.” Captain Ryan put both hands over his heart, revealing a thick golden ring on his finger.
Judith shot a quick look at Esther. “Esther should stay with me,” she said.
If Esther didn’t know better, she’d have thought Judith looked nervous. No, she probably just didn’t like Captain Ryan dictating the terms of their meeting.
“Nonsense,” David said, shifting his weight slightly, as if to separate the two women. “I’m sure Esther will be able to find her way back down to the lobby, won’t you, Esther?” His voice was smooth, like a panel of glass.
“I—” she began.
“Excellent. It’s settled,” Captain Ryan said. “This way please, Ms. Stone.” He gestured toward the opposite side of the deck.
Esther watched the three of them walk away. She had a nagging feeling that David Hawthorne and Captain Ryan wanted to separate Judith from the rest of them. It didn’t sound like there would be any trade discussions that day. She wanted to locate the elderly Eugene and get him to answer some questions about the Galaxy’s trading policies. But she had no idea how to find one person amongst twenty-five thousand.
Chapter 12—The Floating City
The lobby with the polished reception desk was slowly filling with people from the Catalina. Cally bounded up to Esther. She gripped her arm, gesturing wildly around the lobby, opening and closing her mouth silently, like a fish. The others walked slowly, staring at the elegant details, the signs of excess and comfort.
“And I thought we had it good,” Reggie muttered.
A willowy woman materialized from behind the long reception counter, her high-heeled shoes putting her over six feet tall. She swept her straight blond hair back from her shoulders and addressed the milling crowd.
“Good afternoon and welcome to the Emerald Galaxy. My name is Adele. I’ll be your hostess for the duration of your stay. The Galaxy Flotilla is a new hope for civilization, a new world at sea. We have rebuilt the most beautiful aspects of human society for a new generation on the New Pacific. We welcome you here and hope you will share in our vision for a brighter future for all of humanity.”
“She’s so beautiful,” Cally whispered. “Look at how clean her hands are!”
The rest of the Catalinans seemed similarly impressed. Gracie Cordova was smoothing her hair, tugging absently on the tattered edge of her sweater.
Esther looked around for her father, but he hadn’t come aboard. There were over two hundred people crammed into the reception lobby. Penelope wasn’t there either. At least her dad would have company if she decided to join the Galaxy after this was all over, Esther thought grumpily.
Adele spoke again, her voice like a light breeze singing through a wind chime. “During your visit, we here at Guest Services will introduce you to a world of leisure and comfort unparalleled in any other floating settlement. It is our greatest pleasure to help you find your way. Please sign in here and then divide into groups of twenty so that we can guide you most efficiently as we help you get acquainted with the Galaxy Flotilla. We will host a welcome dinner this evening as well.”
A group of young men and women appeared as she spoke. None were as beautiful as Adele, but they all looked refined and sophisticated, especially compared to the people of the Catalina. Their clothes showed a greater variety of cuts and styles than the sturdy garments from Constance Gordon’s shop. Most of the women wore skirts and high heels. The men wore matching blue ties.
Esther joined Cally, Bernadette, and Reggie in a group forming near the entrance to the great hall. The latter two seemed to have forgiven her in light of the recent excitement. A young man with black hair sticking out like the spines of a sea urchin took charge of their group. He handed out mismatched plastic cards to everyone. Esther’s had a name (Jennifer L. Williamson), a series of random numbers, and the word “Visa” written on the front.
“You can show these anytime you want to take a water taxi or have a meal. They identify you as honored guests.”
He spoke as if every sentence were directed at Cally. She preened under the attention.
The young guide, who told them to call him Dax, took the group straight through the center of the grand hall. The atrium opened to the sky, and the sun pouring in reflected off polished sculptures in a thousand beads of light. The sweeping staircase at one end was painted in shades of pastel blue and pale yellow. White and gold cornices trimmed the edges of the room. Shopping arcades lined the space, full of colorful bolts of fabric and a multitude of garments. Where the Catalina’s arcades had long had a wartime look, the Emerald’s shops were peaceful—and open for business. People browsed the wares, assisted by uniformed saleswomen.
“Do you have a currency here?” Reggie inquired, looking at a row of boots in one window and then down at his Guest Services card.
The boots looked handmade. Esther was almost positive a few of them used real leather.
“Yes, of course,” Dax said. “We use old casino chips because national currencies are useless now and the chips are more durable than bills. The chips can only be used on Galaxy ships, but we have a central bank where people can exchange their wages for metals or oil if they ever want to leave the Galaxy.”
“Wages?” The word sent a shock wave through the older people in the group. “People work for wages on these ships?”
“Of course. What else would they work for?” Dax tugged at his hair, as if he were trying to pull out the spikes.
The nervous gesture gave Esther the distinct
impression that he was younger than she had originally guessed.
“On the Catalina we just work, and everyone gets whatever they need,” Cally told him.
“How do you get people to work if they’re not getting paid?” Dax asked.
“They just do it because it’s for everyone’s good, I guess.”
“But what about the people who do more difficult or technical jobs? Do they get more fish or something?” Dax asked.
“No, that’d be silly,” Cally said. “Why? Do you pay people different amounts based on what their job is?” She laughed.
“Well . . . yeah.”
“Really?”
Cally stared at Dax with wide eyes. He blushed.
“You know that’s how it used to be on land?” Reggie said dryly. “We all worked for different wages. Didn’t matter whose job was the toughest either. It was more about how lucky you were.”
“It wasn’t just luck,” said another man in their group. He worked on the rationing crew on the Catalina. “You got paid more for working hard at it and achieving something in your life.”
“Maybe you did,” Reggie said. “Weren’t you a lawyer back in the good old days, Horace?”
“Actually I was. And I spent a lot of years working hard to become a lawyer too.” Horace’s voice had a hostile edge.
Reggie pulled up his shoulders and took a step forward. “Yeah? Well I spent a lotta years working hard on a ship’s crew, but I didn’t have a rich daddy to pay for my education.”
Bernadette cut in. “And this, gentlemen, is why we don’t have a wage system on the Catalina. It’s not worth getting into this old stuff again. Makes me nervous just being around proper currency.” She eyed Dax. “Please continue your tour, young man. I’m dying to know about this beautiful creation.”
Dax rushed on, first describing the sculpture in the center of the atrium in great detail, though they could see it quite easily themselves. “It used to be a fountain, apparently,” he said, looking for Cally’s reaction again. “I don’t remember it, but they would actually pipe water into the middle of the ship, just ’cause it looked nice!”
Next, Dax took them down a spiral staircase at the far end of the grand hall and pushed open a pair of double doors. A dozen rows of plush chairs filled the cool, dark room. On the wall a blank movie screen loomed over the seats. The Catalina once had a movie theater too, but the projection equipment had been damaged long ago. The Emerald’s cinema still functioned.
“We have movie theaters on two of the other ships that still work,” Dax explained, “so we rotate the film collections around them. You can go for a long time without seeing the same movie twice. If you’d like to watch one, the full schedule is posted here. For the popular ones, you need to put your name down in advance to make sure you get a seat. I usually go to the cinema on the Crystal, where I live.”
“Do you live with your family?” Cally asked.
“Not anymore. Got my own cabin last year,” Dax said.
“I’d like to see that,” Cally said.
Esther tried to shift around so she could nudge Cally’s foot. While Esther was no expert on men, she was pretty sure that suggesting a visit to this young man’s cabin wasn’t wise. But Dax just blushed furiously until Bernadette rescued him with another question.
“How are rooms allocated? You have enough space for single people to have their own rooms?”
“Oh, yes.” Dax’s eyes flitted quickly between Reggie and Horace. He tugged on his hair again. “We don’t pay rent for the cabins, though. I’ve read about rent in a book. We get assigned a place to live based on our jobs. You can apply for a change if you want to. Because I’m a Guest Services guy, I get my own place now that I’m eighteen. It’s an inner cabin, though, not a big stateroom or anything.”
“Do the hard labor crews ever get to live in the big staterooms?” Reggie asked. He had been studying the movie listings on the wall.
“I’m not sure about that. A lot of the crew guys live on the Galaxy Diamond. I think maybe the ones with families get the bigger rooms over there.”
Cally nodded. “That’s how it works for us too,” she chirped. “But we’re packed to the brim. We have to wait until someone dies to get our own rooms.”
“Cally!”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Judith asked us not to talk too much about the Catalina,” Esther said in a low voice. They were in unfamiliar territory. She wasn’t ready to trust Dax and the other Galaxy people just yet.
“I can show you a stateroom if you’d like,” Dax offered. “It’s open right now because the couple who lived there moved up to the Crown. Anyone is allowed to go and look at it in case they want to apply to move. It’s on the way up to the deck, and that’s the next stop on our tour.”
The Catalinans followed him eagerly down another passageway. The carpet was threadbare and the light fixtures didn’t sparkle as brightly here as they did in the main hall. Esther felt a little better knowing that the Emerald also needed to make things last.
Dax showed them the spacious stateroom, complete with a couch and minigalley. Everything in the room—from the walls to the bedspread to the towels hanging above the little sink—was perfectly coordinated shades of blue and pale yellow. There was even a piece of hotel-style art hanging above the bed: a painting of a yellow sailboat in a quiet harbor. The group crowded in and out of the room, careful not to touch anything.
Next, Dax guided them to the main deck. He promised that if they came here at any time of day they’d find someone who would happily accompany them to the farther parts of the Galaxy Flotilla, such as the gardening facility on one of the cargo vessels or the school on the Galaxy Luxe. As the group marveled at the view, Dax rattled off a litany of facts about the various cruise ships and the two big oil tankers.
“We’ve had one tanker all along, but we found the second about five years ago. She makes it a lot easier to get out of the way of storms.”
“I take it you have a refinery,” Reggie said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you use the fuel mostly for movement?”
“Yeah. We dip into it sometimes to generate more power for water desalination and that kind of thing too.”
“And if anyone wants to leave the Galaxy and trade in their chips, right?” Horace said.
Dax shrugged. “I guess so. We’ve got plenty.”
Esther tried to imagine what it would be like to be able to dip into endless oil reserves anytime they needed some extra water. The luxury of the Galaxy Flotilla was tempting, but it was also disconcerting. She’d been in survival mode for almost her entire life. They reused everything, pulled up any bit of detritus that floated into their path in case it could plug a leak or hold up a deck or be burned for fuel. There was never “plenty” of anything. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live without worrying about the day when they would finally run out of everything.
Dax took them across one of the bridges to another ship, the Crystal Galaxy. There was a hospital facility on the Crystal. Dax took inventory of their ailments.
“You know we can do surgery here?” he said. “It’s basic stuff, but if you have something that’s been bothering you, don’t hesitate to let us fix it.”
“What’s the cost for treatment?”
“No cost. That’s another one of the things we do for free, even for visitors.”
“That’s very generous. Do you do dental work as well?” Bernadette asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Esther smiled at that. Perhaps this was a fortuitous meeting. And if the Flotilla was so generous with its services, getting spare parts should be no trouble at all. Perhaps that was why David Hawthorne had brushed off her requests. They must have seemed inconsequential in light of all this excess.
“I’ll just show you the library, then that’s the end of my tour,” Dax said. “We recommend that you stick between the Crystal and the Emerald unless you have a guide, just so you don’t ge
t lost. You’ll be dining on the Emerald tonight and will be reunited with the rest of your crew there. I’ve heard we’ll get some potatoes today!”
The excitement over potatoes was matched only by the excitement over the books in the library. It was a grand room, with an entire wall of windows looking out on the Flotilla. The group spread out, combing the walls for old favorites and new discoveries. Their own collection of books had suffered the effects of too much moisture over the years. They had also gleaned paper from the margins of most of their books to record inventory and essential communications. The Crystal seemed to have a good dehumidifying system to prevent mildew from consuming the pages. The library had groupings of soft, mismatched chairs that looked like they’d been brought in from two or three different libraries. Some shelves had clearly been added later than others, and the books were double stacked. Bernadette pulled one off the shelves and folded herself into an armchair immediately.
But Esther was still itching to explore the engine rooms. She asked Dax if that would be possible.
“Why the engine rooms?” he asked.
“I’m a mechanic over on the Catalina,” she explained. “I just want to see how things work here.”
“Okay . . . I’ve actually never been down there, so I’m not sure what their rules are. I’ll see what I can find out, okay?”
“Cool. Thanks. Oh, and when will it be possible for us to organize trade?”
“Trade?” Dax seemed confused. “Oh, um, I’m not sure about that. If you need anything in particular, just ask.”
“I need some pretty specific parts, so it would be good to talk to a machinist, if one’s available.”
“Oh, like trading for ship parts? Yeah, let me find out for you. Anyway, it’s almost time to head back over to the Emerald for dinner!”
Dax had eased into his role considerably. Esther suspected that he had not been taking people on tours for long. She wondered how often they encountered other ships. As a general rule, Judith preferred to avoid others whenever possible. It was strange to encounter a group where such occurrences were common enough to devote an entire occupation to them.
