(eng) Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker 01 by Ship Breaker

Author:Ship Breaker [Breaker, Ship]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

RUNNING OR NOT, they needed to get away from their captors. In whispered conference they made a plan and settled in to wait. It was a fight for Nailer to stay awake. Even though he’d been out for three days, he was still having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The breezes in the trees and the warmth of the night made him sleepy. He put his head down, telling himself he would keep watch. Instead, he slept, woke, and slept again.

Blue Eyes, alert and wide-awake, switched to Tool, who simply sat and stared. Every time Nailer peeked between slitted lids there was Tool, staring back at him with his yellow dog’s eyes, patient as a statue. Finally, Tool stood down to Moby. The skinny bald man settled himself comfortably against a stump and started drinking. He was half reclined and it wasn’t long before he had drunk himself back into his deep slumber, trusting in the shackles and the sleeping forms of young people for his sense of security.

Nailer lay awake, waiting. Glad to still be unrestrained. Even if he wasn’t one of this adult crew, he was one of his father’s and so he had some trust. Between association with his father and their own memories of him as a feverish invalid, he had some wiggle room. He wasn’t a risk in their minds, just a skinny light crew kid recovering from sickness. That was all to the good.

The problem was that Blue Eyes had the keys to the girls’ shackles, and she scared the hell out of him. Nobody who got in with the Life Cult was good news. Novices were always looking for new recruits. And they were always hungry for sacrifices.

As soon as Moby was snoring, Nailer began easing toward where he had seen Blue Eyes bed down. He went slowly, as slowly as any child who has learned to steal at an early age, whose best chance of survival is in silence and remaining unnoticed.

He gripped his duct knife with sweaty fingers, his hand slick with fear. There was no way to search Blue Eyes and find the keys without waking her. The knife felt small and useless in his palm, a toy. This was a necessary thing, but he didn’t have to like it. It wasn’t as if he felt guilty. He didn’t. Blue Eyes had done worse in her time and would do worse in the future. He had seen her torture people who held back on quota, or who fell behind on loans. He had seen her take off a man’s hand for stealing from Lucky Strike, and then watched the man bleed out under her cool blue gaze. And who knew how many beach rats she’d drugged and collected into the mysteries of her church? She was hard and deadly and Nailer had no doubt that if his father asked her to do it, she would kill him and Pima and Lucky Girl, and sleep well afterward.

He didn’t feel guilty.

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