by Jeff Seymour
Tam’s door closes inside the ship. No more time to be careful. Nic’ll be heading to my room next. I slide faster, working like crazy to keep my balance on the wiggly rope. After a few seconds I’m almost to the rigging I need. Two more slides. One more. I grab the hull and struggle up on my foot.
Just as I reach for the mooring line, I slip off the rope.
I try to catch my weight with my missing leg, but there’s nothing there and I whiff, hard. My fingers slip, and for a second I start to fall toward the mist and what I hope to the ends of Goshend’s judgment is a net.
But somehow my fingers find another inch to stretch. They get over the top of the rope and catch my weight, and even though my hurt shoulder grinds hard enough to make my eyes water, my grip holds. I dangle over the mist, breathing hard, staring down, and then I swing my body up, hook my leg over the rope, and curl the Lady across the top of it.
For a second, I just hang. I shut my eyes and try to catch my breath. My arms shake. My stomach muscles are killing me. I’m gonna be more sore tomorrow than I’ve been since I got hurt.
But if Nic takes a little longer, and if my body holds, I think I’m gonna make it.
Climbing ropes like this is hard. Like, wicked hard, even if you’ve got two unhurt arms and legs. The rope’s at about a forty-degree angle, so I’ll have to dig my heel into the rope to take the weight off my hands, then reach forward, then dig the Lady in and reach again. Pep and I used to practice horizontal climbing on a rope someone had set up on a beach in Myrrh to play on, but I’ve never done it like this. I hope the Lady’s up to it.
I dig my heel in and pull myself forward. So far, so good. Now for the hard part. I press the Lady real hard into the rope to take my weight. It hurts. A lot. I’m probably going to open up my scar again, and I have no idea how I’ll explain that to Nic, but that’s tomorrow’s problem. I reach forward and pull myself along the rope, then repeat the whole thing twice more, trying to move fast. Nic must be on his way by now, and I’m so tired that if I stop to rest I might never get started again.
My hair touches the Orion’s hull. I crane my head over my shoulder. Almost there. One more dig. One more reach.
And then I’m over the deck. I uncross my legs and lower myself to the little bench I sat on to tie us up this morning. My arms are so stiff I can barely open my hands. My stomach feels like I just spent all night throwing up. My legs burn, and my missing foot aches. I take a few seconds to breathe.
Big mistake. Nic’s light comes up out of the stairs belowdecks and moves toward my cabin. I can’t chance the door now—he’ll see me for sure. The only shot I have is to go through my porthole, which, Goshend be good, is still open.
Biting my lip through the pain in my leg and my shoulder, I hop toward the porthole, then jump in and wriggle through it. Nic’ll be here any second. I squirm into my room and thump across my desk, realizing as I go that I’m wet as a fish after spending all that time out in the mist and rubbing against the Orion’s hull. If Nic spots that, I’m done for.
He knocks on the door, three times.
I freeze, leaning against my desk, breathing hard, sweat trickling over my face, covered in incriminating mist. All that work wasted. I almost made it, and I’m gonna get given away by a little bit of water! It’s not fair!
Nic knocks again, and I see a pitcher of drinking water—which Nic wants me to finish every night because my body’s still healing—sitting on the floor near my bed. I remember the sounds Tam made. I’ve got a hunch about what kind of distraction he threw, and maybe it’ll work for me too.
I take a deep breath, then let out a loud gasp, like I’m waking up real fast. I toss my covers down to the foot of the bed, then throw myself on the floor and knock over the pitcher.
“Nadya?” Nic says. “What’s wrong?”
The door opens, and I roll through the puddle and cross my fingers it’ll fool Nic.
I look up at him from the floor and do my best to look like I just woke up from a nightmare. “Wha—?” I ask. “Where are we? I—owwww!” I reach for the Lady, and I start paying attention to what she’s feeling, and I let all my fears break over me. I don’t have to fake crying.
“Easy, Nadya,” Nic says softly. He kneels next to me. “Did you fall out of bed?”
I nod, closing my eyes.
“Where does it hurt?” he asks.
“My scar,” I whimper.
“Let me see,” he says. He straightens and lights my lamp, and a little dolphin of fear jumps up my throat, but he doesn’t pay any attention to the water on me, or the puddle on the floor. He looks down at the Lady, which is sopping wet from the puddle and weeping a little bit of blood from my scar, and frowns. “I apologize, Nadya,” he says. “Pepper was out of bed, and I wanted to make sure everyone else was accounted for.” He sighs. “Let me clean this for you. I shouldn’t have startled you.”
He helps me up to my bed and gets a bit of gauze and some tape from the infirmary, then bandages my scar as gently as he ever has. There’s a chance here to ask what’s going on. He must feel like he owes me something.
“Captain Vega,” I ask quietly, “why are you being so hard on us?”
He stops working on my bandage and looks me in the eyes. “I have a duty,” he says softly, “to keep you safe. And I will not fail in it.” He looks back down.
“What about Mrs. T?” I ask. “How are we going to save her?”
Nic finishes my bandage and stands up. He closes my porthole. “We’ll still report her abduction. The Cloud Navy will look for the pirates. And until they find them, she can take care of herself. She’s more capable than you know.”
He leaves then, and I put on a dry set of clothes and lie in bed with my heart pounding and my lamp lit. My head whirls. Nic does still have a plan to get Mrs. T back. But it seems like a bad one. The Cloud Sea is huge. I don’t understand him. I don’t think I can trust him anymore.
And that means it’s all up to me.
CHAPTER 7
IN WHICH NADYA MEETS THE LORD SECRETARY OF FAR AGONDY, AND LEARNS SOMETHING WORRISOME.
The next morning starts with a loud knock at my door. I sit up slowly, wincing. My shoulder feels like I yanked it out of its socket, the Lady feels like she got caught in a mousetrap, and my hands and arms and stomach and legs and pretty much everything else is sore.
“Come in!” I say, starting my slide out of bed. It’s a cool morning, but the sun must’ve burned off the mist outside the ship, judging by the light trickling in through the curtains over my porthole. I hear shouting and the rumble of cranes—it’s always loud during the day in port, no matter where we are or what’s going on.
I reach for my crutches against the headboard and hit nothing but air, then remember I left them under Tian Li’s bed and cringe. I’m not done hiding yet if it’s Nic or Thom at the door.
Luckily, it’s Pepper.
She looks tired, and pretty grumpy. Her overalls are rumpled and sloppy with engine grease, and her curls are matted and gnarled on one side, like she’s been lying on the ground working under something.
She’s holding my crutches, which she sets against the foot of my bed. “Hi,” she says. “Glad you’re okay.” Then she turns around and starts to go.
“Wait, Pep!” I say, and she stops. “Come in for a second, would you?”
She stares at me, then sighs and walks to my bed.
“What happened last night?” I ask.
Pep looks at her feet. “Nic got mad at me. Real quiet, real stern, like he does sometimes.” Her lips quiver. “‘I’m so disappointed in you,’ he said. ‘I expected this from Nadya. But not from you.’” She wipes her eyes. “And then he told me I’m not allowed to leave the ship while we’re in port, and that if I break the rules again, the consequences will be worse next time.” She yanks on one of her curls. “I knew it was a dumb idea. But I heard everybody
else going and I didn’t want to be left out.”
I swallow. I want to hug her, but I’m not sure she’d want me to so I don’t. “Thanks for taking the heat like that,” I mumble. “That was really brave.”
Pep shakes her head. “We shouldn’t have been down there, Nadya! What’d we figure out that we couldn’t have during the day, without breaking the rules? Nothing.”
I chew my thumbnail for a second, thinking. “Well, we wouldn’t have all been there at the same time, so it would’ve taken way longer to put our heads together. It might’ve been days before we figured out what happened.”
“You didn’t know that when you went,” Pep snorts. “And so what? We’ve got days. I’ve sure got days, stuck here on the ship. I was really looking forward to meeting Gossner when you and Tam go ask about your prosthesis. She sounds so cool when he talks about her.” She yanks her curls again and frowns.
I reach for her shoulder, thinking maybe she will let me comfort her after all. She’s talking to me. Maybe I can figure out what’s eating her.
Pep gives up on her curls and throws her hands up. “It’s always like this. You always—”
“Nadya!” Tam shouts from the deck, and I freeze. Pep jerks her hands down and wipes her eyes real fast before Tam pokes his head in. “Nic wants you on deck and ready to go ashore in an hour. We’re delivering the gormling today.”
I lean forward and raise my eyebrows at him, waiting. Hoping. After a second, I jerk my head toward Pep.
Tam squints at me, then gets the hint. “Oh. Hey, Pep,” he says. “Thanks for what you did last night. That was pretty cool. Have you seen Salyeh this morning?”
Pep shakes her head, and Tam smacks his hand on my doorjamb. “Darn. Thanks anyway.” He turns around and runs toward the stairs that lead belowdecks.
Pep lets out a big, heavy sigh. “Good luck with the gormling, Nadya,” she mutters. She leaves before I can say another word.
I stare at the door after she closes it, my stomach flipping and flopping like a fish trying to get back to water. It sure seems like she’s bothered about Tam. But she told me that wasn’t it. She keeps trying to say something else. That I always do something. But what? What do I always do?
I lean forward and knock my forehead against my knee. Outside, the men and women who work the dock call to one another, shout and curse and laugh. Cranes creak. Saws screech. Drills whizz. The Orion moves gently against the ropes holding her in place. Life goes on. I have to get up and go be a part of it.
But I really, really wish I could just take a day off and figure some things out instead.
* * *
• • •
An hour later I’m crutching carefully along the narrow, rope-lined gangway between the Orion and the dock, looking down. They’re slinging the safety net under the Orion now as another ship comes in below us, which means there was nothing to catch me last night when I was doing acrobatics. My stomach curdles like cream mixed with orange juice, even though I try not to think about what could’ve happened. I made it, that’s what counts.
Tam and Salyeh stand in front of me, watching one of the dock operators as she uses a crane to lift the gormling’s tank out of the Orion’s cargo bay. The gormling itself seems pretty spooked—it’s sloshing around the bottom of the tank in a panic, darting back and forth every time the tank sways, which just makes it swing more.
“Nadya, can you calm it down?” Sal shouts from the dock. “This would be over a lot quicker if it stayed still!”
I stuff my fears as deep as I can push them and reach for the gormling on the Panpathia. It’s just a short distance on the web. I was okay last night. Surely nothing’s going to come get me, right?
It’s okay, I tell it. If you stay still, everything will stop moving so much.
The image of it in my mind glares at me. Its emotions run something along the lines of I was born to swim. Imagine you were being thrown around in a tiny bubble of air two hundred feet under the ocean and think how calm you would be.
It’s got a point, but glaring at me seems to give it something better to do than stare at all the open space beneath its tank, and it calms down a little anyway. I hop off the Panpathia before anything notices me, and a few minutes later the crane operator swings the tank over the deck and sets it expertly on an enormous cart. I crutch over and press my hand against the glass. The gormling rubs its cheek against the other side, one last time.
I feel a little choked up. This fish and I’ve been through a lot together. I wish we could keep it, even though I know that tiny tank is a terrible home for it and we’ve got nowhere better to put it, plus we really need the money from delivering it to fix the Orion now that she’s got a hole blown in her side.
“A remarkable specimen,” says a friendly voice from the other side of the tank.
I look up to see who’s speaking, and a short man with the fanciest clothes I’ve ever seen steps around the tank. He’s got pale skin and wavy brown hair that cascades almost to the collar of a big silver cape on his shoulders. Beneath the cape he’s wearing a white silk shirt and a purple vest. He smiles and reaches out to greet me with a hand gloved in silver-lined black velvet.
“Alan Salawag,” he introduces himself as he shakes my hand. “Lord Secretary of Far Agondy.” His voice reminds me of a piece of fleece that’s been heated up in a steamer—fluffy and comforting. He’s got piercing brown eyes, the kind that make the people who have them look smart, but when he smiles the sharpness goes away and they’re as soft as his voice. He’s also, I notice, got gills right where his neck meets his shoulders, so he’s a skylung like me.
“Thank you for bringing this gormling to me,” he says. “I’ve heard your voyage was enormously difficult.”
Me, Sal, and Tam just look at him. We’re not used to rubbing elbows with muckety-mucks. Eventually Salyeh coughs and says, “You’re welcome.”
Lord Salawag adjusts his cape. “You’re the Orion’s skylung?” he asks me. “Awfully young to be doing the job on your own, aren’t you?”
My gills burn. “Someone was teaching me, but we lost her to the pirates.”
Lord Salawag winces. “Ah, I’m sorry. That’s . . . awful, simply awful. It must have been terrible bringing the ship in by yourself. I’m impressed.”
I shrug, but the burning in my gills stops. “I had help. We rescued a cloudling from the pirates.”
Lord Salawag touches his chest in surprise. “Rescued . . . goodness, what a trip. Markus!” he calls, and a tall, burly guy even paler than Salawag, with tattoos up his arms and a beard that reaches the bottom of his neck, steps out from the secretary’s crew and gives me a glare that could kill a rat. “Markus, give the ship’s captain an extra ten percent and tell him it’s to be shared out among his crew as a bonus. These kids have been through a lot.” Salyeh makes a choking sound, and his eyes get big. Whatever Nic was getting paid, ten percent of it must be a lot.
The bearded guy makes a note on a clipboard he’s carrying. As he writes, his collar slips, and I notice he’s got gills too. Maybe Lord Salawag works with a bunch of skylungs or something.
“Thanks,” I say, figuring if this guy’s giving us enough money to make Salyeh choke, somebody should say it.
“I wish I could do more,” Lord Salawag says, taking off his gloves and stuffing them into a pocket of his vest. “Your names?”
“Nadya,” I say. “Nadya Skylung.”
“Skylung,” he says. “How interesting. Pleased to make your acquaintance. And the rest of you?”
Tam and Salyeh give their names, and I stand there trying to figure out what’s interesting about my last name. “Tam, Salyeh,” Lord Salawag says, “would you mind escorting Markus onto the ship to find Captain Vega and sort out payment? The others and I will wait here with Nadya.”
Sal fidgets. Tam raises his eyebrows at me and opens his mouth, probably to sugg
est he or Sal stay too because we stick together around strangers, but I shake my head real slightly. I can take care of myself, and I want to keep my promise to the gormling about visiting. Buttering up Salawag a little ought to help me do that.
Tam frowns, but instead of whatever he was going to say, he just mutters, “Sure,” and he and Salyeh lead Markus down the gangplank onto the ship.
Lord Salawag watches them go and sucks in a long, deep breath. “Ah, the cloudship Orion,” he says wistfully. “I used to be a member of the crew, you know.”
I blink up at him. I had no idea. Nic never mentioned it.
When he sees how confused I am, the wistfulness leaves his eyes, and he looks hurt and a little angry. “He never talks about me, does he?” he says. “Neither of them do, I bet.” He sits on the edge of the cart with the gormling’s tank on it, so we’re eye to eye. “I was on the same crew Thom was, about fifteen years ago. I was the skylung in training, and he was the fireminder.” He smiles. “We had some great times, chasing leviathans in the deep ocean, riding out the big storms in the fall, running the streets of Vash Abandi and T’an Gaban and all the other cities.” The smile fades, and he looks at me seriously. “But when I was about your age, Nic got a whole lot stricter with us. He set all these new rules, told us what we could and couldn’t do, started talking about discipline.”
My mouth dries up. My heart flutters.
Salawag sighs. “I didn’t like it, and I told him so. We argued a few times, and eventually he kicked me off the ship.” He stands up, then gestures to the rest of his entourage. “Things worked out fine for me, obviously. I entered the civil service academy here in Far Agondy, and I was smart enough to make the most of my opportunities. But I still miss life on the open sea sometimes, and I wonder what it would’ve been like if Nic hadn’t thrown me off the Orion.” He looks up at the cloud balloon. “I miss the garden,” he says softly. “I miss it a lot.”
