Rising Tide (6 page)

My head. Pain. Swimming.

I reach for thoughts, and something dark is wrapped around my head and I'm moving, feet banging against the ground.

As my senses start to come back, I realize I'm being dragged down stairs, deeper into the ship. My body won't respond except to tell me about the pain in my ribs, and in my feet, and most of all in my head.

Then we're through a door and I smell the ocean and fuel and metal, and I'm suddenly splashing through a cold so deep that my heart seems to skip in my chest.

Then I'm dropped into the cold, freezing, smelly water, and I suck in breath and start to shiver.

Someone grabs my hand, and something hard is clapped around my wrist. Then another something on the other wrist.

I'm shivering and spitting and sniffling as the shroud is removed from my head.

I'm deep in the hold of the ship. Mal covers a solar-powered light that I squint against. I'm waist deep in oily, dark water, and each of my hands is cuffed to a pipe.

“What the fuck?” I say through chattering teeth.

Mal looks down on me. On the outside he looks as calm and collected as ever, but I can almost see something nasty surging underneath his demeanor. I realize I've learned to look for those signs—he may be charming and civilized, but like a snake he can strike at any time. Or at least that's what I expect from him.

“Benjamin, Benjamin . . .” Mal shakes his head. “I had such dreams for you. So many ways I thought of to revenge myself on you. Elaborate productions, simple, visceral thrills. I wanted it to be . . . epic. Or at least poetic. But . . . it seems the world has seen fit to choose for me.”

I go cold. “What do you mean?”

He screws up his face as if he just swallowed something rotten. “The
Phoenix
. She's experienced . . . a mechanical failure.”

For a moment, a brief flame of hope kindles in my mind. Mal's warship has a problem. “What kind of mechanical failure?” I ask.

He slams a hand on one of the metal pipes. “These ships . . . they naturally take on water. It's something that surprised me when I learned about it. Every minute, every day, some water leaks into them. There are pumps, down below, that pump out the water, keep it at a manageable level.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” I say.

“It is. This ship is . . . a lot of work. If not for the fact that many of the tasks are automated, I don't know that we would have gotten her moving. I have some people who know computer systems. We have this thing hacked and rigged more than a junker.”

“What does this have to do with the pumps?” I try to keep my voice level, but it's not going well. I keep pulling on the cuffs, a reaction to the cold water, and that's causing them to dig into my wrists.

“The computer systems are the easy part, comparatively. The
Phoenix
has some hull damage. Some of it exacerbated by a deficiency in our navigation skills. We lack the ability to haul her out of the water to fix it. The pumps have more to do and now . . . some of them have ceased working.”

“That's your mechanical failure?”

“Yes.” He bites the word.

“You're taking on water.”

His pained expression answers for him.

“And this is . . . what? An illustration of that fact?”

He smiles, ever so briefly. “My people and I are going to have to evacuate. After years of preparation, we will abandon this . . . ark.” The smile returns. “We will, but you won't.”

“What?”

“You're staying right here.”

“Mal . . .”

“It's not what I would have wanted, but in a way it's fitting,” he says. “And I think it qualifies as poetic.”

“You can't leave me here,” I say.

His face goes hard, and I can see that his disappointment at this unexpected failure saturates his whole being. He's defeated by chance, and he doesn't take defeat well. If I push him too much, he might just kill me here.

That might be a mercy
, I think.

“Actually, Benjamin, I can leave you here. I can do it easily. And, though this loss pains me in so many ways, this one little piece will give me satisfaction. Beyond measuring.”

“What about your promise to Miranda?”

“I promised her that I would leave you alive until the ship reaches its destination. I am fulfilling that promise. I just didn't expect the final destination to be the bottom of the ocean.”

“Mal . . .”

“Good-bye, Benjamin,” he says. He takes a moment to stare at me, savoring the moment. Possibly the last time he, or anyone else, will see me.

Think, Ben, think
. But all I see is Miranda.

“You'll get Miranda off?”

He is silent for a moment. Then he says, “Yes, of course. She hasn't wronged me. She'll be safe.” He starts walking toward the stairs, his men flanking him.

I nod. It's a shot of relief in a big bottle of shit. A bright spot. Just like Mal's bright spot in the shit of him losing his boat—he gets to dispose of me in a very fitting way. Even I can see it has a kind of symmetry to it. But what if the ship weren't sinking?

“Wait,” I say. “You said your pumps were failing. I assume you tried to fix them?”

“Of course,” he says, pausing at the bottom of the stairs.

“Then you need replacements.”

He sneers at me. “We don't have any.”

“Are you looking?”

His eyes narrow. “What do you take me for, Benjamin? I'm a forager. Of course I'm looking. But I'm not hopeful. We did this kind of search before. Most of what we found was below the water, and we had no way of getting to them.”

“What if you could—?”

“Good-bye, Benjamin,” he says. Then he and his men walk up the stairs, closing the heavy metal doors behind them.

I'm left in the dark. In the cold water. The smell of it is thick around me. The ship creaks, and I wonder if I'll go insane before the water gets too high. Or maybe I'll freeze.

This is not how you end, Ben. You have to get out of here
.

But how?

Think, Ben, think. He needs pumps. Can't find them. But there must be more out there. Somewhere. Who would know? Other foragers? Too risky, and foragers don't share information easily. Information.
It touches off something in my mind. A thought bubbles up. Someone who deals primarily in information.

Lord Tess.

But surely Mal thought about her already?

I call out into the darkness. “Mal! Mal!”

No response except the sloshing of water around me. The creaking of the ship.

“Mal, I think I can help you!”

Nothing.

Could he even hear me through the ship?

It could work. It might save the ship. And that might save me. At least buy me some time before I go down.

“Mal!” I scream as loud as I can. My throat hurts with the effort. Everything hurts. I try to work the cuffs, but they're on tight and the pipes they're connected to are steady.

I gather my breath for one last scream. It's hard with the cold all around me. “Mal! I know where you can—”

The door opens. I see a light at the top of the stairs.

Mal descends. “What are you talking about, Benjamin?” he asks.

“I know how you can get your pumps,” I say. My voice sounds raw. “You need a knowledge broker.” I take a breath. “Lord Tess.”

His face turns sour. “No,” he says.

“No?”

“She and I had a . . . falling out.”

“What kind of falling out?” I ask.

“I hurt someone she cared about.” At my questioning look, he adds, “I didn't have much of a choice.” He shakes his head. “No, she won't help me.”

“Then let her help me,” I say.

“You?”

“Let me go in your place. She likes me. Say what you will, but Lord Tess always had a soft spot for me. I can use that to get her to help you.”

He's silent for a moment.

“You know she's the best knowledge broker around. You know that she can get you what you need.”

“And you know where to find her?”

“She hasn't moved in the last few years. I know where she is. No one touches her because she's too valuable.”

“And you really think that you can get her to help.”

I smile at him. Through the shivering, it feels more like a grimace. “I know I can.”

He snorts and shakes his head. “If you think I'm going to trust you, you sustained more damage in that fall than was obvious.”

“Of course not,” I say. “But you need me. And you need me right now.”

“What I need are new pumps.”

“I can get them.”

He shakes his head. “I'll have to think about it.”

“Then think fast.”

He looks me up and down. “Benjamin, how did you come to be in the ocean in a life raft with the wreckage of the
Cherub
all around you?”

I frown. “I thought Miranda explained it to you.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

I consider my words very carefully. “I took on some raiders. Out of Gastown. The
Cherub
didn't survive.” A wave of nausea hits me, though I'm not sure if it's from thinking of the
Cherub
or from my current predicament.

“They attacked you? Took out the ship?”

“No,” I say. “I attacked them. I took out their ships.”

“With the
Cherub
?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I carefully choose the next words—I can't tell him about Tamoanchan. Not Mal. Not now. I can't tell him that I was trying to save a whole island of strangers, and a few friends who were on it. Instead I just say, “They were after some friends of mine.”

He raises a thick, dark eyebrow. “You gave up your airship, your beloved
Cherub
, for your friends?” Incredulity drips from his words.

“Things change,” I say.

He narrows his eyes, chewing on it. “We'll see,” he says.

Then he leaves.

I have no way of telling time down here in the bowels of the ship. I shiver and soak up the water. My muscles ache. My jaw, too, from the chattering.

I think a lot about Miranda. The last time I was in freezing water was after we jumped out of the
Cherub
. She was floating in my inflatable raft. I fell into the water. I thought I was going to die then, but I didn't. She was the reason I clawed my way to the raft. She's been my light in the darkness so many times before.

I could use that right now.

Then, after some time, Mal returns with his thugs in tow. “I've considered your proposal,” he says.

“And?”

“I've decided that a slim hope is better than no hope at all.”

And there it is. Mal loves his ship more than he hates me. Thinking back on everything, he must really love his ship. “So you'll let me go?”

“There are conditions,” he says.

“Okay . . .”

“You will leave this ship with a crew of my people who will take you to Lord Tess. If and when you get what you need from her, they will take you to whatever your destination is. Try to run or pull something, and they will kill you quickly and without mercy, understood?”

“Okay,” I say. It's not the best arrangement—but it gets me out of this cell and into the air. And it gives me a chance. “And what happens when I get back?”

“Pardon me?”

“If I get you your pumps, and they work, and your ship is saved . . . I'm not going back into a cell. If I'm just going to end up the same way, why should I bother?”

His eyes narrow and the slightest hint of a smile touches his lips. “You will bother because if you do not, I will let your friend, Miranda, die.”

My mouth drops open. Whatever I had been expecting, it hadn't been that. “You wouldn't,” I say.

“Wouldn't I?”

“You're not a killer.”

That trace of a smile vanishes from his face. “It's been a long time, Benjamin. You don't know what I am.”

“You said you had no issues with her. She didn't wrong you—I did.”

He inclines his head. “True, but then you went and convinced me that you could get me my pumps. I'm not setting you free. Not now. So to motivate you I needed to find something else.”

“Mal . . .”

“I know you, Benjamin. You are slippery, and untrustworthy, and far from dependable. So I must take . . . drastic measures.”

“You don't have to do this.”

He ignores the comment. “Miranda will take your place. Right here. If the ship goes down before your return, then so does Miranda.”

For a moment, desperation fills me and I try to move forward, pulling at the cuffs. Mal doesn't even blink.

Mal wades forward, his face close to mine. “You don't know what I'm capable of, Benjamin. Not anymore. Fail to return, or take too much time, and Miranda will sink with this ship. Those are my terms.”