Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

“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 ninth 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.

“Wait, let’s sit
here,” Esther said.

She pulled Zoe
into a chair near the door. Anita followed, her cheeks still flushed from their
run through the ship.

“Why?” Zoe said.
“What’s the matter with our usual . . . ? Ah.”

David turned over
a chart in one sweeping motion. He hadn’t noticed them.

Esther pulled her
dark hair down over the side of her face. It reached her shoulders now. She put
her elbows on the table, removed them, then put one down again, banging it
painfully on the ruptured wood. Zoe chuckled, pulled out her pocketknife, and
began sharpening it on the stone she kept tucked in her tunic pocket.

“Isn’t it your
turn to grab the drinks, Esther?” she said, a sly grin flitting across her
face.

“But—”

“Yeah, it’s
definitely your turn,” Anita said, eyes widening a little too innocently.

Esther glared at
them and stood. She tried to cross the room without drawing attention to
herself, cursing her heavy boots. She skirted around a table where a pair of
Galaxians leaned together, deep in conversation. They fell quiet when Esther
passed. It was better than having them ambush her to complain about the food or
something.

She retrieved an
armful of mismatched plastic containers from behind the bar. Water was readily
available now that she had repaired the desalination system, and they liked to
drink extra whenever they hung out now. It was better than alcohol. Esther
didn’t dare follow that train of thought. She pretended not to see David as she
filled the containers from the large water jug. She didn’t want him to think
she had come here to see him.

Back at their
table, Esther handed a sports water bottle to Zoe and an old applesauce jar to
Anita, both full of pure water. She sat and peeked at David over the top of her
battered milk jug. He was still engrossed in his charts. She longed to tell him
about her discovery. At the same time somehow, she wished he wasn’t here.
Ugh, why is he so confusing?

Anita nudged Zoe,
who barked a laugh. “Trying to get his attention by hiding from him?” Zoe
asked.

“Mmm.” Esther
ignored the question.

David was fiddling
with the fancy dive watch on his wrist. He wore a cream cable-knit sweater,
which had almost become his uniform.

“That sweater’s so
impractical. What if he has to carry something with sharp edges?” she muttered.
“It’ll get ruined, and then someone will have to go through the trouble of
picking it apart to make something new.”

“Don’t know why
you care,” Zoe said. “It’s not like you’ll be doing it for him.”

“Just look at him.
He doesn’t fit in on the
Catalina
,”
Esther said. “Everything about him screams,
I’m better than everyone
.
Why is he even here?”

David switched to
a different map and leaned over it. He adjusted his glasses and ran a hand
through his hair.

“You’re shit
scared he’s going to leave,” Zoe said. She had put down her whetstone and was
turning the blade over in her hands. “Don’t look at me like that, Esther.”

“It’s not about
him,” Esther said. “I don’t want
you
guys to go. When we reach the
Amsterdam
and you head off—”

“Don’t change the
subject. After what happened between you two . . .”

“It was nothing.”

Esther examined
her fingernails and dug out some of the grease that seemed to be perpetually
stuck in them. She thought about the night she had spent with David on the
Galaxy
Mist
, about how he had made her feel. She didn’t know whether it
had meant anything to him, and she didn’t want to let on that it had meant
something to her. Especially when she wasn’t sure what she wanted from him now.
It had been two months since that night, but it felt like a lifetime.

“It obviously
wasn’t nothing,” Zoe said. “Why else would you spend half your time hiding from
him and the other half staring at him like a baby seal when you think no one’s
looking? He abandoned the
Galaxy
to
help you, and now he lurks around the Lounge all the time in case you might be
here. You guys clearly have some weird thing going on. My only question is, why
are you not pushing him up against the cylinders in the engine room every
chance you get?”

“I’m not sixteen,
okay?”

Zoe snorted. “It
might do you good to follow Cally’s lead for once. So, what is it? You’re
afraid to cross some sort of picket line? That’s been done, my friend.”

Esther’s gaze
drifted back across the room to that white-blond shock of hair. David turned
the dive watch on his wrist again. Something twisted in her stomach. She wasn’t
even sure he
had
helped to rescue the
Catalina
because of her. He seemed to
have his own reasons. It was frustrating that he made her feel so disoriented.
It was easier to deny her feelings any power, to hide away in her work, and
that’s mostly what she had been doing lately.

“It’s not that
simple,” Esther said finally. “Hawthorne was all about the spin on the
Galaxy
, and I’m not sure if I can trust
him.”

“You were pretty
chummy back on the
Lucinda
.”

“It’s
complicated.” Her eyes followed the lines in the dark wood table.

Zoe pointed her
knife accusingly at Esther. “You’re afraid he doesn’t like you!”

“That is not what
I said.”

“Yeah, but I get
it now. You’re used to figuring out mechanical cut-and-dried situations,” Zoe
said. “You don’t want to guess his feelings wrong, so you’re pretending you
don’t care.”

“It’s okay to
care, Esther,” Anita said quietly.

“He’ll probably be
leaving the
Catalina
soon anyway,” Esther said. “He spends enough time
on the
Lucinda
already.”

David had taken
ownership of the sleek patrol ship they’d commandeered from the
Galaxy Flotilla
together. Now he was
keen to learn its functions inside out and outfit it so he could sail
anywhere—even to land.

Once, he had asked
her to go with him. She remembered his exact words:
I’m not really asking you along because I need a mechanic. I’ve kind of
thrown my lot in with you, Esther. I want to have you around.

She had put him
off then, insisting that she wanted to get her feet firmly on deck before
making any decisions. But he hadn’t asked again, and he was proceeding with his
preparations, apparently without her. Esther wished she didn’t care where he
went. He was going to leave, and she should forget about him.

“The fact that
he’s here shows he’s unpredictable,” Zoe said. “I wouldn’t write him off just
yet.”

“Write who off?”
said a smooth voice right behind them.

Esther and Anita
bolted upright. Zoe’s pocketknife clattered to the floor. David stood over
them, straight backed and smirking.

“Dirk.” Esther
gulped. “Dirk’s trying to take over the council. We think he and Judith make a
good team.”

Zoe rolled her
eyes as she bent to retrieve her knife.

“You haven’t
seemed that interested in ship politics lately, Esther,” David said. “I’ve
barely seen you.”

He stood a little
too close, forcing Esther to quell the confusing tangle of feelings that rose
in her chest.

“I’ve been
working,” she said.

“We were just
celebrating actually,” Zoe said. “Esther finished her big algae
project—and it works! She’s all set to change this messed-up watery world
of ours.”

“Really?” David
said. “The one that makes biofuel without using chemicals? Reggie was telling
me about it.”

Esther nodded. She
was only just starting to process the implications now that her prototype
worked. David made the jump a lot faster.

“Everyone will
want this technology.”

“Yeah,” Esther
said. “It’ll make a big difference as soon as I get a chance to share it with
the other floating communities.”

Spreading the
technology would take time, but they were close to their annual meet-up with
the
Amsterdam Coalition
. The news
would spread from there.

“Share it? Esther,
you’ve got to think more strategically.” David slid into a chair between Zoe
and Anita and faced Esther across the table. “We’ll be docking with the
Amsterdam
for trade in a few weeks,
right? Why not sell the technology to the highest bidder? You could set the
Catalina
up for years.”

“I’m just going to
give it to them,” Esther said. “It’ll already make our lives exponentially
better. What more do we need?”

“You’d be wasting
a huge opportunity to help everyone,” David said. “No ship will last forever,
no matter how well you maintain it. The way things fall apart, we need all the
resources we can get. Let me arrange it for you. We can get some serious buzz
going around the
Amsterdam
.”

Zoe was nodding in
agreement, but Esther wasn’t so sure. “Aren’t you leaving on the
Lucinda
after we meet with the
Amsterdam
?”

“I don’t know what
I’m doing yet.” David rolled his shoulders impatiently. “The point is, you
shouldn’t just give the technology away to anyone who wants it. This could be
the perfect opportunity to make some powerful friends for the
Catalina
.
You certainly need some friends after we pissed off the
Galaxy
so spectacularly.”

Esther hesitated.
She didn’t particularly like the idea, but she would do anything to protect the
Catalina
.

“What exactly
would we sell?” she asked. “My prototype? The floorboards with the separator
designs scratched into them?”

“All of it.” David
leaned forward, and for a moment Esther thought he was going to take her hand.
“We could even throw in your expert tutelage. You could show the mechanics of
the winning bidder how to build the system and adapt it to their needs. You’re
capable of that, right?”

“Of course,”
Esther said. How did he manage to be both condescending and complimentary in
the same breath?

“Great. So we sell
your designs and your time in exchange for supplies that’ll last for years and
alliances that’ll last decades.”

“I’m not sure
about this,” Esther said. She hadn’t seen David this animated since the escape
on the
Lucinda
, but the idea made her
nervous. “I haven’t even tested the fuel on the main engines yet. Besides,
we’re all trying to survive in this rusted-up world. Why make it about profit?”