by Jordan Rivet
Seaswept
Seabound Chronicles: Book Two
Jordan Rivet
Seaswept: Seabound Chronicles, Book Two
Copyright © 2015 by Jordan Rivet
First Edition: May 2015
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
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Dedicated to
Keith Frederick Young
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed; in breeze or gale or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving, boundless, endless, and sublime.
―LORD BYRON
Chapter 1—Breakthrough
Esther slid a razor blade down the length of wire, cutting a clean line through the yellow insulation. The rusty blade wasn’t much bigger than her thumbnail, but it did the trick. She peeled back the rubber and held the wire in the flame of her lighter to burn away the threads. She shook the lighter to gauge how much fuel was left, not wanting to interrupt her progress with a trip up to the new quartermaster. She did everything she could to avoid the upper decks these days.
Esther let the wire cool for a few seconds and then joined it with another, this one coated in blue. She reached into her toolbox and retrieved a fat roll of electrical tape. She’d found it on the Lucinda and it had been like discovering a candy still in its wrapper.
Stacks of copper and zinc wire, pipes, and gears filled the furthest lane of the old bowling alley. Esther felt spoiled with so much extra material. When she and her new allies had fled the Galaxy Flotilla and brought help to the Catalina two months ago, she had snagged any spare parts she didn’t need for the desalination system and stowed them away to use for her next experiment. After fixing the water system, Esther had begun her grand new project: a prototype separator to extract the natural oil from algae plants. One of the sailors from the Galaxy Flotilla had taken over her engine maintenance duties so she could devote more time to it. Her notes covered the warped boards of the bowling lanes all the way to the faded murals on the wall.
Esther wrapped the electrical tape around the wires and ran her fingers over the connections. She tugged on the thick rubber tubes connecting the prototype separator to the closest algae tank, which was taller than her. Inside, the green goop waited to be stripped of its oil—oil that could replace their quickly diminishing supply of fuel. A spout led from the separator to a plastic tub she had borrowed from the galley. The machine didn’t look like much, considering all the time she had spent on it. And she hadn’t even started on the larger version she hoped to build for the main engine room. The oil squeezed from the algae would be refined into a biofuel that could power the engines and, in turn, the propulsion system. If it worked, this design had the potential to free them from their seabound purgatory. If it worked, it would change everything.
Esther carefully memorized each step in the system. She’d teach her assistant, Cally, how to build another separator as soon as she had it right. Speaking of which, where was Cally? It was already midafternoon. She must be off with Dax. Cally and her boyfriend could usually be found either fighting or making out, their two favorite pastimes. But she sometimes brought down lunch, knowing that Esther wanted to avoid the tension upstairs.
At least Esther wasn’t the source of the tension for once. She’d been quite popular since bringing help for the Catalina. But if she went up to the main decks, people would complain to her about the newcomers from the Galaxy, or the newcomers would complain about the conditions on the Catalina. She tried to assuage their concerns, but she wasn’t very good at it. It was easier to hide out in her workshop.
Plus every time she went upstairs she ended up putting her foot in her mouth in front of a certain attractive but enigmatic former Galaxian. He had no trouble calming people down, with his smooth voice and seemingly effortless poise.
The door at the far end of the bowling alley burst open. He’s here! Esther dropped her electrical tape, and it rolled away down the lane. She dove after it, face burning. Why can’t you act normal? She hated how flustered that man made her, how her body seemed to malfunction whenever he was around. She leapt back up, twisting the roll of tape in her hands.
And it wasn’t even him. Instead, her friends Zoe and Anita were making their way over to her through the maze of equipment. Zoe wore her favorite vibrant purple tunic and black leggings. A black bandanna held back her sun-blond hair. Anita wore an oversize rain jacket with the sleeves rolled above her pale wrists.
“Yo, Esther,” Zoe said. “You missed a terrific showdown between Judith and Dirk. I think Judith might have Manny dump all us Galaxians in the night and make a run for it.”
Esther grinned. “Judith isn’t subtle. She’d do it in broad daylight.”
“You may be right. I’d give up a ration or two to see her try,” Zoe said. “Anyway, Dirk wants a big chunk of Judith’s stores as payment for rescuing the Catalina. Claims he’ll handle the trading with the Amsterdam on behalf of everyone from the Galaxy. Judith said something along the lines of ‘You should be worshipping the clouds and the winds in gratitude for bringing you to the Catalina. I allow you, the scum of the sea, to take refuge aboard the Kingdom of Judith. You’re lucky if I give you so much as a spool of corroded copper.’”
“That sounds like her,” Esther said.
“I thought Dirk was going to crack her in the head with a pipe,” Zoe continued, “but he has more self-control than I expected.”
Dirk was the leader of the tanker crew that had come from the Galaxy Flotilla. He had been making waves since their arrival, and Judith, the de facto captain of the Catalina, did not welcome his input.
“When are you coming out of your cave anyway?” Zoe asked.
She swung on the humming pipes of the water system, making Esther cringe.
“I’m working.”
“People upstairs say you’re getting as bad as your dad.”
Esther grimaced. Her father, Simon, was famous for retreating into his work. She didn’t realize she’d gotten that reclusive. She’d come home from the Galaxy filled with ideas. She wanted to hold on tight to the inspiration, like a line in a storm, before it slipped out of her grasp.
“I’m almost there,” she said.
“You sure you’re not hiding?” Zoe asked. “Even Cally says she’s never seen you work this hard.”
Zoe, Anita, and their friend Toni had been quick to adopt Esther into their posse of troublemakers. They had become honorary big sisters to teenage Cally. Anita had even been helping Cally with her songwriting in the past few weeks. The death of her sister, Eva, during the escape from the Galaxy had left Anita virtually mute, but Cally could sometimes get her to come out of her shell. Esther liked having friends her own age around the ship
, especially because her best friend, Neal, had been busy moping lately.
“I’m not hiding,” Esther said. “Actually, I’m about to throw the switch, if you want to watch.”
Zoe gave a big holler. Anita nodded fervently but didn’t say anything.
Esther would rather test the separator without an audience, but she didn’t want to wait any longer. It was time.
The algae in the tank glistened in dark-green clumps, its fibers dense with oil. The plant grew abundantly in their current location. After being separated from the Galaxy Flotilla in a freak storm, the Catalina had ended up in a region dotted with tiny, uninhabitable islands. The ship had taken refuge in the half-moon arms of one such island, where they’d noticed sea algae thicker than they’d ever seen before. In some places it was like a green carpet undulating on the surface of the water.
It had been more than sixteen years since the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano threw the earth’s atmosphere into chaos. Temperatures had dropped drastically. Storms and tsunamis and droughts ravaged the globe. At sea, they’d hung on, gleaning sustenance from the waters and praying that the hull of their ship would last a few years longer. They ate fish and seaweed and only used their fuel to run from the worst storms. Over time they’d modified the Catalina so the interior could be powered with energy generated by the wind and waves, but it wasn’t enough for them to travel very far. Once a year they traded salvaged metals and plastics for diesel fuel at the Amsterdam Coalition, a deep-sea oil platform and trading hub. They had to ration the fuel carefully to make it last. But if Esther’s new project worked, they would be free.
She had first learned about algae biofuel from Frank Fordham, the old engineer who had lived on the Catalina for most of her life and taught her much of what she knew. He’d told her the oil in algae plants could be converted to fuel and used in any diesel engine, but this required chemicals they didn’t possess. Esther had forgotten about this type of biofuel until the Catalina took refuge among the little islands, where the sea algae grew fast and thick. As the weather warmed, the plants multiplied, spreading green fields across the water around them. She had begun to wonder whether there was another way to get the fuel from the plants.
She experimented with the parts she’d brought from the Galaxy until she’d finally developed the idea for the separator. Her system was a mechanical rather than chemical method of separating the oil from the rest of the plant and refining it into usable fuel. That was the secret. It was a highly energy-efficient process, and the results could change their lives forever. A new fuel source would allow them to cross the sea at will, and they wouldn’t have to worry as much about constant conservation. The system could improve their quality of life immeasurably. Esther just had to get it to work.
“Stand over there by the third tank,” she told Zoe and Anita. “You’ll have the best view if it explodes.”
Esther tightened the final wire and removed one of her rubber gloves. The system looked like it could fly apart at any moment. She lifted the protective casing she’d placed over the on switch and held her breath. Zoe and Anita leaned forward around the water tank. Esther checked the connection to the motor one final time.
Then she flipped the switch.
For a moment nothing happened. Water bubbled through the desalination tank behind her. Someone clunked past the door in heavy shoes. Zoe stifled a giggle. Esther put her hand on the separator machine, willing it to come to life. She felt a hum in her fingertips. It built slowly, the vibrations feeding off of each other as the system churned the algae in ever-faster revolutions. It had taken her ages to figure out how to optimize this process so that it wouldn’t take more energy to run the machine than the resulting biofuel would actually produce.
The separator started to rattle.
“Step back, will you?” Esther said, waving Zoe and Anita behind the tank. She pulled up her storm goggles and leaned closer to the machine. One gear vibrated faster than the others. Esther thrust her wrench inside and tapped it into place, trying to avoid getting her fingers caught. The machine settled into a low hum. Green sludge began to circulate through the system. The separator would be shaking the oil loose from the fibers of the plant and sending it to the second stage of the separator, where it would be refined into fuel. I hope.
Esther held her breath. After a dozen revolutions, a glistening tear of green-tinged oil dripped from the spout into the plastic tub waiting at Esther’s feet.
“Yeehaw!” Zoe cried.
Another tear dropped. Then the oil began to pour slowly and steadily, like water from a faucet in the old days. Esther sat down on the floor and watched the oil spill from the spout.
“It’s working.”
After months of adjustments, dozens of setbacks, and countless sleepless nights, she couldn’t believe she had finally done it.
“Congratulations, Esther,” Anita said softly.
“Look at that thing go!” Zoe pumped her fist in the air. “So smooth! So quiet! You’re the man, Es.”
“I knew it had to be possible.”
Esther wrapped her arms around her knees and listened to the machine hum. With the gears tightened, it was quieter than she expected. A sense of elation built slowly in her stomach, just like the vibrations in the machine. She had done it. For once she hadn’t screwed things up. Nothing had exploded. No one had been killed. This would change everything.
“Check out the meter.” Esther twisted down the gauge attached to the machine. She tapped it, but the numbers held steady. “It’s not taking much power at all.”
“Does this mean ya’ll won’t run out of fuel and need to be rescued again?” Zoe said.
“If we stay near the algae blooms,” Esther said. “Next I have to make sure the engines can handle the biofuel and hook them back up to the propulsion system. But . . . we might be able to travel wherever we want. We could nip over to the Amsterdam once a month.”
“We didn’t even do that on the Galaxy when we had a pair of oil tankers and a floating refinery.” Zoe studied the separator as if it were a strange sea creature she had never seen before. “This is pure genius.”
Anita came over and squeezed Esther’s shoulder with her long fingers.
“Let’s not get our hopes up too quickly,” Esther said. “I still have to test the fuel. But yeah, it’s something.”
“Let’s go celebrate!” Zoe said. “Come on, enough staring at your baby.”
“I should run a test on the—”
“You’ve been holed up in here for ages,” Zoe interrupted. She began pulling Esther up by the arm, and Anita helped her. “Enjoy your success for once.”
“I don’t want to go upstairs right now,” Esther said, her stomach suddenly lurching like she’d been hit by a tidal wave. “I should—”
“I know you get all awkward around him, but you’ve got to face David eventually,” Zoe said.
“What?”
“You’re hopeless, Esther,” Anita said, grinning.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Esther said. She wasn’t awkward! She’d show them.
She carefully shut down the machine and allowed Zoe and Anita to drag her through the warren of pipes and filter banks toward the door.
“Race you to the Lounge!” she said, taking off down the corridor. For weeks she’d avoided the complicated mix of personalities upstairs, hoping everyone else would sort out their differences. But she deserved a bit of fun, she had good news to share, and she knew exactly who she wanted to see first.
Chapter 2—The Spin
Esther, Zoe, and Anita dashed up the spiraling metal stairwell through half a dozen decks. Zoe could outpace Esther on a race across the plaza, but her long legs were less of an advantage on the steps. Esther kept up, letting the reality of what she had just done propel her. This was it. The breakthrough she’d been working for. She had just created the New Pacific’s most efficient energy system.
Zoe pulled ahead and took the final steps to the nint
h deck in a bound. Esther was two paces behind, followed by Anita. Her jacket sleeves had come unrolled and they flapped like fins. Breathless and laughing, the three women ducked through a service door to the Mermaid Lounge.
Mermaid-themed artwork—carved sconces and fanciful paintings in bright jewel tones—decorated the large, defunct restaurant. Booths lined the wall nearest them, and square tables were scattered across the center of the space, interspersed with cots and bundles of clothes. A massive wooden bar stretched in front of the seaside wall, where tall windows revealed a zinc-gray sky. The elaborate velvet curtains that had once hung beside the windows and the booths had long ago become blankets or clothing. The room looked a little bare without them, more like a diner than a club.
The Mermaid Lounge was quiet at this time of the afternoon. A few people chatted at tables or napped on the cots. As soon as the afternoon shift ended, the lounge would fill with movement and noise, but for now it was calm. This had become the unofficial workspace and camping area for all the old Galaxians who didn’t want to stay in the Lucinda’s cramped quarters. Most of them hadn’t blended in well with the longtime Catalina residents. They were too different, from their colorful clothes to their work methods to their pickiness over meals, and they kept to themselves. There were rumors that many would leave the Catalina when they docked with the Amsterdam Coalition if Judith and Dirk couldn’t smooth out their leadership differences.
Zoe led the way toward their usual booth, but Esther pulled up suddenly, her enthusiasm dropping out from beneath her like a sinking lifeboat. David Elliot Hawthorne sat at a table right by their booth, a collection of charts spread before him. His white-blond hair was perfectly combed. Thick-framed glasses—one lens still cracked—perched on his patrician nose. Even when he was lounging at the table, his elegant posture was on full display.
