Seabound (Seabound Chronicles Book 1) (7 page)

They were still
heading to the
Galaxy.
They still had
a plan. Esther kept silent, ignoring the guilt that rose in her stomach like
bile.

The engines
chugged back to life, moving the
Catalina
out of the drag range of the doomed vessel. The speedboat carried the explosives
team toward the sullen hull of the
Orchid
. The remaining light had
leaked from the sky. Spotlights guided its passage through the choppy gray
water. The crew wore T-shirts or scarves around their mouths and noses.
Mismatched explosives filled the spaces between them.

Whispers ran
through the crowd, saying they’d already breathed in too much—if the
disease was airborne. The shirts wouldn’t do any good. Mrs. Cordova gathered up
her extended clan and ushered them inside, muttering about saltwater baths.
Bernadette turned away. The rest stayed on deck, leaning against the rails and
each other.

The team finished
their work quickly and returned to the
Catalina.
When they were a safe distance away, the explosives erupted at the edge of
the water. The blasts sent luminous shivers up the side of the
Orchid
, like distant lightning. Slowly,
water entered the belly of the ship through the wounds they’d inflicted.
Everyone waited and watched, listening for screams or shouts or any signs of
life at all. There was nothing.

It could take hours.
The
Catalina
began to move away,
still fleeing the fabricated storm. Esther watched the
Orchid
shrink behind them. Finally, it began heaving, drifting languorously
downward. The hull seemed to glow, beautiful in its final moments. Esther
kicked the toe of her boots against the rail as she watched the materials that
could have saved them sink to the bottom of the sea.

Chapter 9—The Plaza

Esther met Frank at
the
door to the desalination room when he came to work the day after the sinking of
the
Orchid
. She had been unable to
sleep, unable to shake the feeling that she’d made another terrible mistake. So
she spent the night digging through the wreckage of the system, saving what she
could of the pipes and water tanks. She had been correct about the extent of
the damage. At their current rate of consumption, they’d run out of water in a
week.

Frank listened
calmly as she explained there had been an accident. In fact, he was so calm
Esther wasn’t sure he fully understood what was going on. He simply said,
“You’ll fix it. Don’t worry, Esther,” before wandering back up the corridor. He
seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to be on duty.

Esther returned to
her repairs.

Neal visited a
while later. He wore a faded “Catalina: Your Island at Sea”
T-shirt and his scuffed orange bowling shoes. He stepped over the
debris and pools of water, grimacing as he approached.

“Is it as bad as
we thought?” he asked.

Esther stood and
stretched out the muscles in her back. “Yes, but it could be worse.”

“We should meet up
with the
Galaxy
in three days,” Neal said.

“That was quick.”

“Yeah, well, we’re
booking it to get away from a storm, remember?” Neal pushed a hand through his
hair, smoothing the indent from his headset.

“How are you going
to play this? Act surprised when we bump into another ship?” Esther asked.

Neal shrugged.
“I’ll tell Judith we’re going to be crossing paths with the
Galaxy
about a day out so people can get
ready.”

“Does the
Galaxy
know we’re coming?”

“Marianna does,”
he said.

“And?”

“I’m a little
terrified, to be honest.”

“What did she
say?” Esther asked as she went back to sorting through the pipes, trying to
assemble at least one working unit from the detritus.

“Not much,” Neal
said. “That’s what worries me. We’ve been talking regularly for a year, about
just about everything, and when I tell her we’re going to be meeting in person,
she has nothing to say.”

“She probably
thought your two paths would never cross.”

“Maybe she doesn’t
even want to meet me,” Neal half whispered.

“She was just
surprised. You’ll be fine.” Esther tried to sound cheery, though she didn’t
really know how to give relationship advice. “Maybe you two are meant to be together,”
she said. “At least one good thing will come out of this.”

“Thanks,” Neal
said.

He helped Esther
organize the pipes at one end of the room, following her directions to the
letter. As he worked, he’d stop to stare at the old bowling murals or turn bits
of debris over and over in his hands.

“Esther,” he said
after a while. “Are you . . . okay with me and Marianna?”

“What do you
mean?”

“I thought, well,
that is, if she wasn’t really in the equation . . . I just didn’t want you to
feel . . . spurned.”

“Spurned?” Esther
guffawed, trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s a real word.
Don’t laugh. Look, I guess it seemed like we might end up, you know, getting
married, having a couple kids.”

Esther sighed.
“Were you particularly excited about the prospect, Neal?”

“I . . . well . .
. I thought it would make sense, you know? I don’t want you to feel hurt or
anything now that things might be different.”

Esther put down another
armload of twisted metal with a clatter. She didn’t particularly want to have
another conversation about this. She wasn’t attracted to Neal, but she felt
confused by what her dad had said, what he’d done. She wished she could go back
to repairing machines. People were too complicated.

“Stop squirming,
Neal, it’s fine. Yeah, it would make sense if nothing had changed, but we all
know things can change in an instant. It might have happened eventually, but
I’m not feeling that put out, to be honest.”

Esther thought
about her father’s words. Perhaps one day she would yearn for the comfort of
another person. Things could always change. That’s what she’d wanted when she
first thought of leaving the
Catalina
:
change. Right now she had to focus on making things right.

“You know you’re
my best friend, right, Esther?”

“And you’re the
sappiest guy I know.” She punched his arm. “You and Marianna will be great
together. Quit worrying. And for the love of God, don’t mention our future marriage
again.”

“Thanks. I mean
it.” He smiled. “How’d it go with Frank, by the way?”

“I think it’s
okay,” Esther said slowly. Frank’s lack of reaction still bothered her. “He
said he wouldn’t tell anyone. I didn’t let him see how bad the damage is. I
told him I accidentally busted a few things, like last time, and I wanted to
fix them. Made it sound like I’d need to go crawling around in the machinery,
which he’s way too old to do anyway. Hopefully he’s forgotten all about it.”

“That’s good,”
Neal said, “because I saw him talking to Gracie Cordova, and I was hoping it
wasn’t about this.”

Later that
evening, Esther went to look for Frank. A crowd had gathered in the shopping
plaza, but Frank wasn’t among them. That wasn’t unusual. Reggie and his band
were playing, and Frank often skipped music nights.

People had settled
in all the remaining chairs, on the floor, and on the shopping arcade
balconies. The shops had been transformed from commercial to communal
operations. Cally’s mother, Constance Gordon, leaned against the window of her
shop with her two assistants. She was a statuesque woman with dark red hair.
She had given birth just after their arrival on the ship, making Cally the
first ship’s baby. Constance’s fingers, as she picked out a seam in a
thrice-used garment, were weathered now, thin, and rough like crab legs. They
bore little resemblance to the pale, shaking hands that had held her baby tight
in the midst of the first storms. A tailor by trade, she operated the clothing
supply out of a former designer boutique. She was particularly talented at
making durable garments that could be altered many times as children grew and
elders shrank.

Reggie and his
friends had set up folding chairs in the center of the plaza. Two of the guys
had been in the jazz band that used to play in the Mermaid Lounge during the
Catalina
’s cruises. They had a
collection of salvaged and improvised instruments: rusted flutes, mellow oil
drums, and their crowning glory—an acoustic guitar whose swollen,
ruptured wood and strained strings hadn’t quite lost their sound.

Esther spotted
Bernadette in the group sitting on the floor. She was the one who had urged
everyone to find some sort of creative or leisure activity “to feed the soul.”
Music, art, even poetry. A restaurant off the plaza had been transformed into a
school. Bernadette taught arts lessons for the ship’s children until they were
old enough to learn a trade. Everyone had to learn a practical skill to help
the community function.
 

Esther picked her
way through the crowd to her friend. “Hey, you should be sitting in one of the
chairs, Bernadette.”

“Oh, don’t worry
about me, dear. I like to be in the thick of things.” She twisted her tiny
wrinkled hands in her lap. She looked like a doll wrapped up in her enormous
sweater.

“Have you seen
Frank?”

“I think he was
headed for his cabin, grumbling about a nap and ‘these infernal noises.’”
 
Bernadette did a spot-on impression of
Frank’s voice.

“I better let him
sleep,” Esther said.

“Yes, now sit.
You’ve already missed the children’s choir.”

Esther sank down
beside Bernadette and pulled her knees up to her chest. Her muscles ached from
her long day of work.

More people
trickled in, filling the plaza with conversation. Esther watched them, thinking
about how this scene would change if she couldn’t fix the water system soon,
how quickly the friendly atmosphere would turn sour.

The move to the
Catalina
had been the hardest on people who’d had a job with no practical application on
board. Anyone who’d worked in finance, law, and media had to find new ways to
occupy and stimulate themselves and contribute to their floating society. Many
had taken the place of missing crew members. They’d listened carefully to the experienced
seamen from Third World countries, learning their manual occupations from
people who’d once made less money in a year than they earned in a week. One of
Reggie’s other band mates had been an investment banker enjoying an early
retirement. Now he worked the seaweed-harvesting crew.

The music began
without preamble. The guys had developed a decidedly folksy sound. Reggie had a
raspy smoker’s voice, though he had used up his most recent batch of cigarettes
two months ago. Sometimes Cally sang with them. Her fresh voice provided a melodic
contrast to the rough acoustics.

Tonight they sang
ballads befitting the subdued mood since the sinking of the
Orchid
.
Everyone was all too aware of the dangers disease posed. The children were
especially vulnerable. None of the ones born on the ship had received
vaccinations. An old nurse who’d saved vacation days for years to be able to
take a long cruise on the
Catalina
was their chief medical officer
. She’d been sitting in a deck chair
drinking a Bloody Mary when the ash cloud reached them. She’d found herself
treating people who’d sustained injuries on their mad dash to the ship, and she
hadn’t stopped acting as caretaker ever since. But medical supplies had to be
carefully preserved. The
Orchid
had reminded them of an ever-present
threat.

Esther went over
every bolt and connection of the desalination system in her head as she
listened to the mournful tunes. It wouldn’t hurt if she made a few tweaks to
the system while she was fixing it. She hoped that they wouldn’t have to trade
away too much to get what they needed from the
Galaxy
. If worst came to
worst, she would tell Judith exactly why they needed to use her stores. She was
hoping to avoid that while everyone was distracted by the excitement of meeting
another ship.

Esther was so
consumed with the lists in her head that she didn’t notice Gracie Cordova and Judith
talking with their heads together across the plaza. Gracie’s two sisters leaned
toward the pair to listen in on the conversation.

Cally began the
first lines of a new song. The words were pure and simple, a lilting poem of
loss and hope on the empty waves of the sea. Constance Gordon dabbed at her
eyes with a handkerchief, and even old Mrs. Cordova gripped her husband’s rough
hands in her own. Esther recognized it as a song Cally had written, humming to
herself while she oiled the engines.

Breath of ocean
sighing

Cross the sea of
sorrow

Bring a song of
flying

Deep into tomorrow

Song of ocean guide
me

Cross the sea of
sorrow

Dreams you never
grant me

Weep into tomorrow

While I ever wander

Cross the sea of
sorrow

Love is what I
ponder

Deep into tomorrow

As the music
drifted away, the plaza fell silent. The vast sea seemed to press in around
them, emphasizing their vulnerability and displacement in the middle of
nowhere, going nowhere. The weight of the black sky hung heavy above the
skylight. One by one, the people of the
Catalina
rose to return to their cabins, saying little.

When Esther stood to
leave, every single one of the Cordovas watched her go with steely eyes.