by Rose Francis
“The rectangular box with the upper floor window open; it’s an office building.”
“We’ll comb through her, in time,” he said, going back to his work. “The filters'll keep.”
Tyson turned on his heels back in the direction of the office building. “That was all?” Christine asked, when she was reasonably sure they were out of earshot. “Hardly makes it seem worth the trek.”
“It wasn’t,” Tyson said, glancing back at the captain. “But the ship runs on respect. If the captain felt we hid something from him for our own personal enrichment, even temporarily, he’d view it as disrespect. And have to punish us accordingly.”
“So you’re damned if you keep working, or lose productivity and are damned if you don’t.”
“The system needs checks and balances, to keep the greedy or lazy in line. But sometimes… the balances aren’t all that well balanced.”
“Shit,” Christine said. “I’ve got to pee.”
“Bad?” Tyson asked.
“As in will it wait another three and a half hours? No.”
“I think there’s a restroom on that first floor. If not, we’ll find the both of you a nice corner to piss in.”
“I don’t have to go,” Ilsa started to say, before noticing Christine’s eyes.
“Try anyway,” Tyson said. “We don’t want to have another stop.” He led them back inside the building. “Yeah,” he said, “down the end of the hall, to the left.”
He walked with the, and opened the door into the nearest room, then starting scavenging with his eyes. “Hurry,” he called back to them.
Ilsa walked to the first stall. “It’s good I came,” she said, “because I have to pee again.”
“I don’t,” Christine said. She reached inside her pants and pulled out a short cylinder. “It’s a filter.”
“Okay, but why do you have it?”
“I found Monkey’s stash. In the vents.”
“Really?” Christine asked. Immediately she had thoughts about being able to escape.
“It’s all tapped, though. Worthless.”
“Then why didn’t we turn them in to the captain?” she asked.
“Because I had a thought. What if we switch our cannisters out for the tapped ones? At the end of the shift, hand over completely spent cartridges, instead of the 40 or 60-percent capacity ones. It might take a few days, but I can work on partial oxygen. We might even be able to trade in some fully spent filters for partials, get those to last longer for you, too.”
“But why tell me now?”
“Because what if that wasn’t everything he took? Maybe that was the spent cannisters, but what if he’s got some stashed some place nearby? Like maybe ones he didn't use up.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Christine.
“I was thinking after running back to tell the captain about Monkey, he can’t make quota while watching us both. If we take turns, making sure one of us is near enough by he can see or hear us, the other can probably sneak off for a few minutes to look around. If we rotate it enough, he won’t notice what we’re doing. But the person with him will have to be… distracting, which I might be better able to do, since when I bend over...”
“People don’t worry about the enormity of your pregnant butt affecting the tides?” Ilsa rolled her eyes.
“But you should be able to use your chest. Just, you know, be subtle—like it’s there and it’s okay if it’s noticed.”
“Or I could make conversation,” she said.
Christine frowned.
“That… would probably work, too.”
They spent the better part of the day weaving in and out of rooms while salvaging. In one room they found a lounge. Tyson set Christine to work removing the rusted shell from a toaster; the internals were worth carrying back, but the shell was heavy—and hid the item’s true worth. He worked on breaking open an ancient vending machine, to get at the electronic components inside.
She made sure she dropped it once, and that when he turned to scold her, she was already bent over provocatively. He huffed, but didn’t say anything.
* * *
Ilsa was across the hall, in a supply closet. She found a year’s supply of coffee filters, but no coffee, and nothing worth scavenging. It was about time to switch places with Christine, so she turned towards the door. As she did, the light from the hallway was eclipsed by a figure standing in the doorway. It was Potts.
He took up the entire doorway, and she couldn't see his face, because he was blocking virtually all of the light. But she could tell from his body language that he was trying to be intimidating. She went to raise her staff to brandish it menacingly, but the closet was too small, and she smacked it against the ceiling.
Potts laughed. “You hurt me, girl; I intend to hurt you back.” He closed the door behind him, and locked it. “You scream, and it’ll only get worse.”
* * *
Christine heard the sound of a door shutting and bolting nearby. Then she heard the deep rumble of a man’s voice. She took a step towards the hall, and Tyson moved to do the same. But the creak of the floorboards beneath her was different, this time. Instinctively, she gripped her staff harder, as the floor gave way in a wide circle around her. She fell five feet before her staff caught on either edge of the hole. The sudden stop wrenched her shoulder so hard her arm was on the cusp of dislocating. She tried to make her fingers clasp the staff tighter, but they were weak already from the fall. It was then that she heard the toaster clatter to a stop against a cement floor probably a hundred feet below.
There was more creaking, some coming from the center of her staff, and the rest coming from the broken boards she was braced against.
Tyson laid his metal staff across the gap and put one foot on it to reach for her. “Take my hand,” he said. She tried to take hold of the metal staff, but her shoulder slipped the rest of the way out, and the fingers slapped limply against it. She screamed in pain as she forced the limb into the air. Tyson grabbed it, and with surprising force, pulled her to the floor with him.
The floor supports started to groan.
“Get the duffle,” he said to her, rolling her off him. She had regained enough of herself that she grabbed the bag with her good arm. He took up their staves just as the hole in the floor started to suck still more boards and chairs inside.
Tyson made it to the doorway just as rest of the floor toppled inward, but he was off-balance, and the staves behind him threatened to pull him down into the dark below. Christine grabbed his collar and pulled him into the hall, where he landed messily, taking a thumping from the tools he carried.
But he was up in an instant. They could both hear Ilsa’s muffled whimpering. He handed Christine her wooden staff, and used his to pry open the door.
Potts was straddling Ilsa’s legs. He punched her in the ribs.
“Give me your staff,” Tyson said. Christine hesitated. “Mine’s too heavy. I mean to stop him, not murder him.” She handed him the tool, in exchange for his, and he raised it over his head, then brought it down wood-first on the cook’s clavicle. He squealed like a surprised pig and rolled off Ilsa. Tyson took a protective step between them.
“I wasn’t doing nothing,” Potts protested.
The whistle blew. “You can explain the nothing you were up to to the captain,” Tyson said. “Can you get her up?” he asked Christine. She set the metal staff on the ground, and was able to roll Ilsa to her feet.
“You okay?” she asked.
“No.” Ilsa frowned and stumbled.
“Bad?” Christine asked, her voice half an octave higher.
“No,” Ilsa said through a groan. “Just hurts.”
Christine continued to help Ilsa along. Tyson carried their staves and used them to herd the cook along behind them. Because they had ventured farther than the rest, they arrived last.
As they boarded the ship, the captain called out a headcount. When all were accounted for, he signaled to the hobbled old pilot
to get out of line and start the ship. The rest started to empty out their bags.
“Sir,” Tyson said, “a word?”
Christine tried to listen, but between the noise of the ship engines and distance, she couldn’t make out what he said.
“How did he strike her?” the captain asked. Tyson pantomimed, and when the slow-motion blow landed in the captain’s stomach, he became livid. He marched to Potts. “Where’s your scavenge?” he snarled.
The cook glared at him.
“So, you ignored my good-natured warning, and shirked your work to exact revenge as I instructed you not to do. You understand what that means?” he asked.
“Lashes,” Potts said.
“And what about you?” the captain asked. Tyson swallowed. He emptied his pack. Christine had been proud of their work, until she saw that their pile was no larger than any two other crewmen combined. “This is disappointing—even given circumstances—even with finding Monkey.”
“It’s my fault,” Tyson said. “My responsibility to show them the job, and it was my responsibility to keep them from harm. So the failure is mine. If you divvy up the salvage between these two, they’ve earned their keep.”
“You understand what you’re asking?” the captain asked.
“I do.”
“And what your failure entails?”
He nodded. “Lashes.”
The ship began its ascent. Tyson and Potts both began removing their shirts.
Ilsa caught herself thinking on Benito's bare skin. His skin wasn't as taut as Tyson's. It also didn't bear the scars of a hard life. It plainly wasn't the first time Tyson'd been lashed, and she suspected it wouldn't be the last.
“Bind their arms around each other,” the captain said, and he made eye contact with a man who was little more than a skeleton. He nodded, ran into the pilot's cabin, and emerged a moment later with a length of rope.
The two men stood chest-to-chest and clasped hands behind one another's back. Tyson was shorter and leaner, so his arms went under the other man's. The thin crewmate wrapped their hands without tying. “It's so they won't have to cut it,” Christine whispered to Ilsa. “Rope's too precious to waste.”
The scrawny man then ran back into the pilot's cabin and emerged with a cat o' ninetails. He handed it to the captain, who shook his head approvingly. He gave the first lash to Potts. The older man stumbled into the smaller. Tyson struggled to keep the bulky man on his feet. Coronetto waited until Tyson got Potts steady before giving him the second lash.
The whip cut through Tyson's flesh like it was fresh, creamy butter, and his face contorted as his sweat dripped into the newly opened wounds. He cried out, as much from surprise as the pain. The cook steadied him, and the moment they were both on their own feet, the next strike hit the larger man.
This time, the heavier man's weight was harder for Tyson to hold up, and his knees buckled. The skinny man took a step forward. “Any man that helps will take his share of the lashes,” Coronetto said. The man retracted the step, and no one else put a toe out of line.
With great effort, Tyson managed to shove the other man to his feet and steady him. Coronetto raised his arm, but compassion seemed to stay his hand, at least until both men stopped swaying. The lash seemed lacking. Christine wondered if the effort, in combination with the work he'd put in salvaging earlier, had stolen the captain's strength.
Tyson was better able to hold up Potts on the next lash. The larger man seemed nearly to swoon, but eventually he managed to get enough of his weight on his heels that he stood straight.
Then Coronetto delivered the final slash across Tyson's back. It was clear to Christine that the two men were cards in a house, both in a state of falling, just prevented from collapsing by their opposition in motion.
The skinny crewmate raised his hands to undo the ropes, but before his feet moved, he looked to the captain. He nodded, and the skeletal man started to unravel the rope. As soon as his hands were free, Tyson collapsed onto the deck and curled instinctively around himself for protection. The skinny crewmate held the bulk of Potts' bulk as he unraveled his bonds. The cook knew better than to let his full weight fall. He tumbled down onto one knee, then to his hands, and then to his chest, in a semi-controlled collapse.
Because of his advanced years, the crew stopped to help Potts up first. “Stop,” Coronetto said. “That man does not deserve your effort or your loyalty. He’s trespassed against us all. That man,” he pointed to Tyson, “understands what it means to suffer for the good of the whole.” The crew helped Tyson up and braced him as they walked him down below. He stopped the crewman Ilsa had seen do some of the doctoring over Christine when they first arrived. “Get him some wine from my stores.” He shook his head and disappeared below deck.
The captain kneeled beside Potts. “If you can work your way below, perhaps you can go back to earning our trust. If not, I don’t care if the exposure gets you. But know that if you cross me again, I’ll haul you across the keel and leave your bleeding carcass for the carnideer.”
* * *
Ilsa wanted to thank the captain for the mercy shown to her, and for believing her about Potts. But his eyes passed over her, and she saw nothing but angry contempt. The cook had crossed him—defied him; that he was defending her was incidental, and a part of him seemed to blame her for the turn of events. She avoided his gaze as he stomped below deck.
Ilsa wanted to stop and help the cook up, despite everything. She was too weak to stand under her own steam, and Christine steered them away, in the captain’s wake. They didn’t speak until they were safely back in their room.
Ilsa collapsed onto the bed, breathing heavily. “Did we do that?” Ilsa asked. “Two men were whipped.”
“And you were beaten,” Christine said.
“But if we hadn’t been… sneaking around, maybe Potts wouldn’t have gotten the chance to attack me, and maybe we could have made quota if we weren’t… exploring.”
“We’re prisoners here. We need to escape. People may get hurt when that happens, but to make that our fault, you have to ignore that we've been for all intents and purposes kidnapped. Besides, everyone here is at least tacitly responsible for accepting it.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“This whole situation is.”
“But we can’t control the situation—only what we do.”
“What would you rather do? Stay here forever? Let your baby be born into indentured servitude? Work here until it breaks you, or until the captain murders all three of us?”
“Stop!” Ilsa yelped. Tears streamed out of her eyes. “You’re right, okay? But just stop it. Please.”
“I’m sorry,” Christine said, stroking her cheek. “Do you, um, think you’d feel better if we checked in on Tyson?”
Ilsa frowned. She wondered if that might only make her feel worse, but then, maybe she deserved to. She nodded.
Christine led Ilsa back to the room that operated as a makeshift infirmary. Tyson was mercifully drunk when they arrived, and grinned pleasantly at them from Christine's old bed. He frowned as he tried to wrap his head around a thought.
“Could I have a moment?” he asked the ‘doctor’. He shook his head and left.
“I understand it,” Tyson said. “We’re all given room and board—and clean air. And we’re paid it in advance. He’s got to be cruel, or he’d never get an honest day’s labor. Doesn’t make it sting any less, but it’s a system that keeps me alive. If sometimes it bites me… I can accept that.” He was starting to fade. Christine and Ilsa helped him lower himself chest-first onto the bed.
The doctor peered inside and saw that Tyson was laying down, so he reentered the room. The doctor gestured for Ilsa to join him on the other side.
“Could you show me where you were hit?” he asked. She pointed to her ribs, and he lifted a pair of spiderwebbed spectacles off his nose. “No, um, what I mean is, can you lift your shirt and point? You can cover yourself first,” he said.
She put her arm into her shirt and covered her chest, and wriggled the other arm until her shirt rested on her shoulders. “Here,” she said. She pointed to a marbled clot beneath her skin, at the base of her ribs, then another on her shoulder, one just below and beneath her breasts. The areas were raised and swollen, and even the skin bore a blue tinge visible in the low lighting.
“In the stomach at all?” he asked, raising an ancient stethoscope to his ears. “Cold,” he warned as he placed it against her stomach.
“None that I remember, but... I don't really think I remember every punch he threw.”
“No,” he said, “though your body's done a fine job of that itself. Looks like a stray blow or two might have hit there, but it doesn't look like he struck the child, which is a mercy. Sounds fine.” He pulled the stethoscope around his neck. “You can put your shirt down. I... if you experience unexpected pain, especially deep pain or bleeding, tell me. But I'd guess you escaped without much in the way of permanent damage to either of you.”
“Thanks,” she said numbly. Christine led her back to their room by the hand. Ilsa's heart beat faster at the touch, remembering the last time Christine had touched her that way. She needed that reassurance. Their world felt like it was closing in, and getting more and more dangerous every moment.
But then she got scared. She wanted to be held, but the thought of anything more...
Christine must have felt the same, because she curled up around Ilsa on their cot, but didn't press the issue any further. Ilsa nuzzled her head into the curve of Christine's neck and fell quickly to sleep.
Nineteen
The tension aboard the ship was nearly palpable. Ilsa realized she didn't know what she was expected to do. She didn't expect the cook to need her as usual, and she didn't trust her own skills in the kitchen if he wasn't there. She could make a meal, with a well-stocked pantry at her disposal, but subsistence cooking was not her forte. And Coronetto would likely take waste or extravagance out of her wages.
