The Navigator, page 14
***
Dahmlam was a middle-aged man with long, black dreadlocks. His skin was light brown, almost tan. He was wearing a raggedy red button-up shirt with an oversized blue naval jacket. Two guards stood on either side of him as he sipped his tea, looking over the day's paperwork.
"Quill?" He looked up as she walked into his office and quickly slammed his teacup down, clearing his throat. "How - how're you doing?"
"Dahmlam." Quill pulled up a chair and took a seat across from him. "What's up with your new doorman? Why can't he use pronouns?"
"Cero? I don't know; guess it's a nomad thing. He takes his job seriously though. I like that. It will probably keep him healthy in the long run. Lux was so lax he'd let anyone in. It's no wonder he wound up catching a bullet."
Quill stared at Dahmlam's little teacup. Its dainty floral design made her smile.
"You're drinking tea now? Turning into a dry foot?"
The two guards standing behind Dahmlam chuckled.
"You two can shut up," Dahmlam snapped. "Yeah, I've fallen for tea. Never appreciated all of the subtly and hidden flavor. Such a complex drink and yet so simple. Just a bunch of leaves in your water. You dry foots are onto something, I'll tell you that. All we have out here to drink is that shitty, rot-gut, swill - tastes like motor oil."
"I see you've changed the name. Bikini Atoll?"
"You must have seen our dancers. Getting a few women to take off their clothes and writhe around on stage really helps pack in the warm bodies. . .Didn't think I'd see you back here, Quill. You were so eager to leave the Raft. How'd your job go?"
"Naris tried to kill me."
Dahmlam barely reacted. "I'm sorry Quill. I told you I couldn't vouch for him. You were warned before the job. It paid well, but everyone knows that pirates can be very untrustworthy. Too clannish."
"He threw me overboard!" Quill bit her thumb and shifted in her creaky chair. The whole ship rocked back and forth from a large wave.
"Well, like I said - I'm sorry. I'm just a middleman. I'm not responsible for what Naris did. All I knew was that he needed a navigator and you needed a job. I'd never worked with Naris before. I told you that."
"You owe me. I almost died. It was lost at sea, treading. It was torture."
"I said I'm sorry."
"I need to find a ship. It's called the Kowaka Adon. Do you know it?"
Dahmlam cocked his head. "What for?"
"It kidnapped my friend's sister. Why do you want to know? You're never interested in why people want things, just how much silver you can wring out of them."
"You know me well." Dahmlam laughed. "Just seems out of the blue for you, Quill. You've never come to me to ask for information. . . I don't know the name, Kowaka Adon, off hand. I'll have to run it through my people. It'll probably take a week, maybe less. Run you three hundred pieces."
"Three hundred sesterces?" Quill scoffed. "You owe me, Dahmlam. You almost got me murdered. This should be free. A favor."
"I apologize for what happened, but that was business. You knew the risk of working with pirates. Now, if you want me to find this ship, you have to pay like everyone else."
"I don't have anything to pay you with. It's not like Naris gave me my share before he tried to drown me. I have nothing."
"Well I'm a businessman. What did you expect me to say?"
Quill's lips curled into a snarl. "You're an asshole is what you are. You screwed me royally and now I have nothing!"
Dahmlam seemed amused by Quill's ire. He smiled. "How about this: I'll get the wheels turning and start looking for your ship, now. You can pay later, when you get the silver. How's that sound?"
"That's the best offer I'm going to get?"
"From me?" Dahmlam thumbed his dreadlocks. "Yeah. You know that's a fair price for what you want. How many other people on the Raft are going to deal fairly with a dry foot? I could tell you - but you already know - not too many. And even if they did, they don't have all of my connections back on the Continent."
"Fine." Quill stood up. "I'll get you your silver. Somehow."
"Well then. It's nice to see you back in town. Why don't you relax? Go and dance. Have a drink at the bar. You're so high strung - all that time out at sea - you need to kick back and start having fun again."
"I come here begging for a favor. You have the nerve to charge me for it, and then, on top of that, you tell me to just relax and have fun? I'm completely fucked! You've left me broke and homeless!"
Dahmlam wasn't paying attention to Quill anymore, instead, staring down at his paperwork. He took another sip of tea, pretending she'd already left.
Quill stomped away.
Asshole. . .
Petal waited for Quill on top of the docks, next to Bikini Atoll. It was evening. The sky was alight with a canopy of stars. She spent a few moments looking up at them. She then turned her eyes downward, studying a crowd of men and women who were lined up in front of a tiny boat that had been converted into a food cart. The front of the cart was lined with spits. Several skewers of glistening meat and battered fish rotated slowly to the crackle of a deep fryer
Petal hadn't eaten all day. She felt around in her pockets to see if she had a piece of silver. A strange noise echoed up from below her feet. It sounded like a voice, reverberating through the wooden planking.
Petal got down on her knees and peered between the planks, straining to see who was making the noise. She saw a little shadow dart across the wooden beams slightly above the waves. For a second it looked like a teenage boy, but it quickly melted into the darkness.
"Petal?" Quill jumped down from Bikini Atoll. She wobbled on the narrow gangway as it shifted from a wave. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing." Petal stood up from her knees. "What did Dahmlam tell you?"
"Nothing yet. He said he'll start looking for the ship but he won't tell me what he's found until we can pay him."
"What does he want?"
The surrounding ships let out a groan and Petal looked up at their towering hulls, expecting to be crushed between them.
"A lot. Three hundred sesterces. We don't have that kind of silver. Even if we sold everything - the clothes on our backs - it would barely get us fifty."
"Three hundred?"
"It's a fair price, but it took me months to get a job on the Raft that paid that. Hesperians aren't popular here, just tolerated."
Petal glanced back at the food cart, studying its blinking lights while listening to the drunken crowd holler out their orders.
"Is there someone else you can ask here? Lhan? Maybe he could-"
"We should sell your boat."
"What?"
"It would get us two hundred, maybe. Not enough, but almost. I might be able to haggle Dahmlam down if we get close to what he's asking for."
"No." Petal shook her head. "I'm not selling my boat."
"Why? You want to know about the Kowaka Adon. He can find it. That's why we came here. We need that silver."
"It's the only thing I have. All I have now is that boat."
"So? What do you think I have, Petal? I don't have anything either. I don't even have a boat. I have nothing. I don't even know how I'm going to eat in a week or two."
"I'm not selling my boat. I'll be stuck here. Even if Dahmlam can find the Kowaka Adon, what could I do then? You can stay here. This is your home. What am I supposed to do? I can't stay here. I have to find Junk."
"Then you find a way to get the silver."
Petal clenched her fists. "You traded half our things for that stupid room - because you were too spoiled to sleep in my boat where it would have cost nothing. If I sell my boat, I'll have nowhere to sleep once our week in the Hostel is over. I'll be sleeping on a gangway."
"I'm trying to help you, you brat. Now you have to help yourself. We both need money to eat. Let go of that boat and we can get started on finding your sister."
"Screw you. I know you hate my boat, but it's mine. . . it's the only thing I need to live. It's the only thing I know."
Petal's eyes glazed over. She looked away. Her mood swing caught Quill off guard. Quill swallowed her pride and tried to be the adult.
"Okay, tomorrow I'll look around for a job, but we're going to need silver in the meantime. We need something to live on day-to-day. I know how attached a captain-" Quill fought to keep herself from rolling her eyes at the exaggeration. "Can get to a ship, but it's just a hunk of wood and metal. Think of Junk. The boat is replaceable. It doesn't matter."
"You're right." Petal closed her eyes, nodding. "But I don't want to sell it unless I absolutely have to."
- 29 -
The next morning Quill walked along the docks, looking for a job along with half the transient population of the Raft. Most of the people who came to the Raft were either there to set up shop, resupply, or look for work like her. She soon became lost in the mob.
The docks were packed with throngs of other Hesperian ex-pats, mostly refugees from Yong. The influx of new arrivals had made the job market cutthroat.
Anytime a captain or first mate walked down from his ship, the mob would crowd around him, begging for work. Quill could barely been seen in the horde of refugees. She would always wind up buried under a sea of arms and legs, as an army of desperate men and women jostled their way past her.
On one occasion, a large trawler pulled up to the Raft. A pair of deckhands tied the ship off and walked down the gangways, toward the job-hungry mob, calling out open positions for fishermen.
Quill tried to squeeze her way to the front of the crowd, but was stiff-armed by a fat woman, square in the chin.
"What the hell? Don't touch me!" Quill squawked, almost toppling off the gangway. She pushed back against the plump woman with all of her strength, nearly shoving her into the ocean.
"Naja ido-awka hiti illsun!" The woman screamed in Yong. She clutched her belly with both hands.
She was eight months pregnant.
The surrounding crowd of Yong refugees immediately came to the pregnant woman's defense, grabbing Quill's clothes, and dragging her far away from the trawler.
Quill cursed the mob and broke free from their hundred-armed grasp. She spent another two hours stuck at the back of the crowd, baking under the sun, before giving up, and making her way back to the hostel.
***
Petal spent the morning wandering the Raft, trying to get her bearings. Walking across the settlement was grueling work. Nothing but the docks was level. To go from ship to ship, she had to climb up and down an endless procession of stairwells and little ladders. It was like trying to cross a mountain range made of rusted, swaying steel.
After reaching the other side of the Raft, she paused for a few minutes on the bow of a very tall freighter. The crew was gone, and its doors were sealed, allowing passing travelers to rest on the main deck and admire the view.
From the tip of the bow, Petal could see the flow of daily life below. Throngs of destitute transients who didn't own their own boats were huddled around the ships. Migrating seabirds cawed overhead, swooping down onto the docks to snatch up any unguarded scraps of food. The frenetic activity of the early morning slowed to a crawl as the afternoon heat grew relentless.
As Petal scanned the docks and their supports, she saw the mysterious boy again. He was sitting on a small cross beam at the very bottom of one of the docks – just above the surface of the sea. Workers and merchants walked on the wooden planks directly above him, oblivious to his presence.
The boy waved at Petal, motioning for her to come down to him.
Petal climbed down from the freighter and wound her way across the platforms to the dock he'd been hiding under. By the time she got there he was gone. Confused, she lay down on the wood and poked her head around to its underside.
Below the dock was an odd open space that seemed to run clear across the Raft. A gap where the waves met the steel, two to three feet high in places. When a large wave came through, the space disappeared, buried under a moving wall of water.
Petal scanned the gap, her hair dangling into the sea. The space was crisscrossed by a wood and steel grid, a tangle of rusted metal. It was the docks basement – a highly hazardous, hidden semi-sewer that few would dare to enter.
"HEY!"
Petal heard a voice over the lap of the waves.
The little boy was sitting on an iron bar about ten feet away. A high wave came by and soaked him up to his chest. He smiled at Petal.
Petal studied him. He was wearing khaki colored pants and a blue shirt, both of which had been frayed to tatters. His thin, brown hair was wet and slick. His face looked boyish yet charming.
"Who are you?" Petal shouted. She was looking at him from the top of the dock, her head still hanging over the edge. The upside-down image of the boy and the sea was disorienting.
"Come here!" The boy motioned for Petal to jump into the ocean. Another high wave rolled in and he was veiled behind the foamy water.
Petal stood up and bit her tongue. Against her better instincts, she jumped off the dock and splashed into the ocean.
The water was rough and cool. She hadn't expected such a strong current. Each wave seemed massive from the surface. She floated up on a high swell and was smashed into the underside of the docks - squeezed up against the grated steel. The water continued to push her forward with immense force, toward a low hanging steel beam that threatened to brain her.
Petal pushed off against the underside of the dock, diving down, under the water. She surfaced and began to swim to the strange boy. The current constantly tugged at her.
The boy playfully jumped off his little perch and darted across the sea in front of Petal. He taunted her with his speed and grace, kicking up a column of water to splash her face, while effortlessly cutting through the ocean. He swam in-between a narrow set of wooden beams and then grabbed onto the bottom of the dock. He pulled himself up by his spry arms into a little, hidden cubby.
Petal flailed in the water. Another set of waves came in, almost impaling her on the jagged cross beams. She had to swim as hard as she could to keep the current from dragging her away from the Raft, out into open ocean.
"Up here!" The boy poked his head down from the cubby, goading Petal to come closer. "Come on!"
Petal dove under the surface again. The salty water burned her eyes. She fought to make her way through the waves and the foam. After swimming in place for a minute, she was able to bob up right below him.
The boy leaned down and grabbed Petal's arm as she rode up on a high swell. He then hauled her up, into the gap in the grated metal.
Petal looked around the cubby. The back of the crawlspace opened up into a large hidden area, tucked into the space between the docks and a row of ships. The air inside was misty. Sunlight shone down from above. The grated steel overhead gave it a grid-like pattern.
There were two other children hiding in the crawl space. Both of them were little boys wearing tattered shorts and nothing else. The rest of the space was littered with water bottles, scraps of food, raggedy blankets, and little trinkets.
A squatter's hideaway.
"You're a good swimmer." The boy who'd helped Petal up gave her a pleasant smile. "You could be useful."
"Who are you? Why have you been following me?"
"Name's Jack. Blue Jack, cause I'm as fast as one in the water." He giggled. He pointed to the other two boys. "They're Angler and Mackerel."
Petal eyed the other boys. They looked malnourished and filthy.
"What do you want with me?"
"You an orphan?" Jack shook himself off like a dog. Water streamed out of his ears. "Seen you walking along the docks and by the clubs with that dry foot woman - but she doesn't look like she's your mother."
"Yeah," Petal sniffed. "I'm an orphan."
"We're all orphans here. Me, Flounder, Shrimp, all of us. The adults call us the Barnacles."
"What are you?" Petal watched as the smallest of the boys, Angler, dove into the sea. He disappeared in a white splash, becoming just a shadow under the surface.
"We're a family." Jack wiped the excess water off his hair, giving it a neat part. "We take care of each other. The adults up there don't give a shit about us, so we do what it takes to scrape by. We help one another stay alive. You ever had a family?"
"What do you want with me?"
"Don't know yet." Jack sucked his cheeks in. "Say, what's your name?"
Petal was hit by a splash of spray. She shook it off as Jack giggled.
"Petal."
