Page 23 of Last of Her Name
The ship is rocking gently, and it occurs to me that we’re floating, being tossed by waves, instead of sinking to the ocean’s depths.
Which means … we might actually survive this.
I feel about, pushing against the foam, as panic wells in me. I can’t find the release button. I’m going to suffocate in here, in a bubble of black, never knowing—
The foam releases with a hiss, contracting and falling limp, a spongy sheet folding over the sides of the chair. Hands unlock my helmet, and I gasp down salty, fishy, humid air, so gloriouslyoxygenatedthat I want to cry.
A face—tinted blue and scaled on the cheeks and chin, with large, dark eyes and no hair to speak of—blinks back at me. I recognize the man as an eeda, the race of adapted humans native to Sapphine. But even having seen them on holo before, I’m still slightly taken aback by how … aquatic he looks.
The eeda takes one look at me and grimaces.
“Oh, just an easy scrap haul, Ma said,” he moans. “Just an easy bit of money. Didn’t count on salt-brained survivors, did she? Blasted inconvenient. Oh, c’mon, offworlder. Up, up, before I change my mind and leave you to drown, eh?”
Pol and I stand on a metal dock, watching our crumpled caravel as it’s lifted out of the sea. Water pours from the engine, and seeing the shape it’s in, I’m still shocked we survived relatively unscathed. The eeda was all too happy to accept the ship as payment for our rescue, but as Pol pointed out to me, we didn’t have much choice. If we’d resisted, he’d simply have taken the ship and left us behind. TheLaika’s useless now, but the scrap will be worth something—and its Prism a small fortune. I suppose it’s the eeda’s lucky day, for all his moaning about having to rescue us “blasted fool offworlders.”
“Well,” I say, turning away from the wreck, my stomach still queasy, “now what?”
This is the floating city of Junwa Quay, according to our reluctant rescuer. We’re facing a vast network of floating docks, cobbled together from sheets of aluminum, metal grates, and rope, and buoyed by what look like crates full of kelp. Dozens of ships come and go, jockeying for landing pads. I watch them closely, wondering if any are bound for Amethyne. But most of them are small local vessels, hauling cargo crates or fishing equipment. All around them, automated skiffs lift containers to and from the ships’ bays, while eeda and humans barter and shout along the quay.
Pol coughs and gently redirects me, turning us both so we’re facing the caravel. Green Knight peacekeepers are approaching; the eeda told us they pay them off, so they won’t report the scrap haul to the dock master, but he said nothing about us. If we’re registered as undocumented arrivals, we’ll be in trouble.
We keep our backs turned until the knights go past, then hurry down the quay toward the city.
A ring surrounds the entire settlement, a great floating wall that keeps out the strong waves. The water inside is relatively still and stunningly turquoise. A network of aluminum quays connect massive floating platforms, on which rusty buildings huddle. We stop as a warning light flashes in front of us; the quay ahead lifts, allowing a small, agile vessel manned by an eeda to skim through. Once the quay lowers again, we walk across. I remember seeing aerial shots of Sapphine’s famous floating cities and thinking how they looked almost alive: branching, growing organisms spread across the water. Every part is mobile, the platforms like vast barges that can connect and disconnect, so the footprint of the city is always shifting. Most of Sapphine’s cities are concentrated on its equatorial current, so while they seem to stand still when you’re in them, they’re actually constantly on the move, like space ports orbiting the planet.
Eeda children dive effortlessly into the water and pop up with fish in their hands. Glass aquaculture domes protect thriving plant life. The quays form a maze through markets and residential districts, and I’m struck by the almost complete lack of wood, which is our primary building material on forested Amethyne. But here, everything is made of glass and metal, and it’s clear nothing is wasted. Many buildings look like they were cobbled out of old boat hulls, some of them still stamped with the fading names of the ships they once were.
When we reach a market barge, we pass rows of beggars holding up credit pods, pleading silently for deposits. Each of them has a vertical line tattooed between their eyebrows. I reach into my pocket, where I usually keep my own pod, then remember it’s long gone, seized by the vityazes along with my scanner and tools. All I have left is my multicuff.
“We’re in the center of the Belt now,” Pol whispers in my ear. “Things will be different here. The Committee’s presence is stronger in this sector.”
“These people … Why does no one help them?”
“They’re the lucky ones. Most are relatives of dissenters and protesters, stripped of their property, money, and rights. Those tattoos mark them as ineligible for jobs, so they’ll always serve as warnings to the rest of the people. Stay in line, or get forced outside of society altogether.”
“If this is what happens to thefamilies,” I whisper, “where are the actual criminals?”
“They’re not criminals,” he returns sharply. “They’re just trying to find freedom. And they’ll be in one of the gulags, if not dead.”
The market swallows us up; the air is thick with the smells of smoke and salt and above all else,fish. I’ve never seen so many types of seafood, from raw, tentacled things to pallets of kelp. To our left, a bar is serving bowls of steaming noodles. The smell makes my stomach grumble, and I remember I haven’t eaten in ages. All this food, right next to all those starving outcasts.
Back on Amethyne, are my parents being tattooed with that line of shame? Is Clio being forced to beg? I doubt they’d get off that easy.
“We should go back to my original plan,” I say. Putting a hand on his arm, I meet his eyes. “We trytalkingto them. Maybe it’s not too late to clear things up. If we … if …”
Pol frowns. “Stacia?”
I can’t speak.
Can’tthink.
Because my eyes are fixed on a holoscreen booth behind him, where a dozen different displays are broadcasting the same scene: a group of prisoners marching onto a transport ship, their hands shackled and heads bent.
“Clio,”I whisper.
Pol turns to look. “What?”
I shake my head and point. The prisoners are all Afkans, my neighbors and friends. And there she is among them, her eyes downcast, her shoulders hunched. She looks traumatized. Her hair is slung down her back in a messy braid. Her clothes—a brown, shapeless prisoner’s uniform—are too big for her, swallowing her up.