Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter 5—Games

There was a game
being played in the plaza when Esther arrived. It was
a cavernous space in the center of the ship surrounded by three levels of
shops. Some were used for storage, while others had become workspaces. Light
filtered down through the skylight onto a group of children sitting in a circle
on the threadbare carpet. To Esther’s surprise, David sat in their midst.

They were tossing
a limp rubber ball between them. Whenever one of the kids caught the ball, they
called out the name of a sea creature. A girl wearing a “
Catalina
: Your Island at
Sea”
T-shirt that came to her
knees had the ball when Esther stopped on the staircase to watch them.

“Crab!” the little
girl squealed, and passed the ball to a boy with overlarge glasses.

“Dolphin!” he
said, and threw it to the girl across from him.

“Eel!”

“Fish!”

“Wrong!” yelled
the first girl. “Izzy already said that one last round!”

The kids dissolved
into giggles. The boy who had said “fish” looked like he might cry. Lip
trembling, he stared down at the ball in his hands.

“It’s okay,
buddy,” David said, leaning toward the boy. “You get to start the next round.”

“I don’t know any
g
creatures,” the boy wailed.

David smiled, and
Esther was struck by how frank and kind his face looked in that moment. It was
rare to see him so relaxed. She wasn’t sure he had made any real friends on the
Catalina
. The Galaxians remembered
his former position all too well, and the Catalinans didn’t trust him. Yet now
he was sitting on the floor playing with the kids. It was official: Esther
didn’t understand him at all.

“How about gull or
gurnard?”

“What’s that?” the
little boy asked.

“It’s a fish that
walks along the bottom of the sea on its fins.” David walked his fingers along
the floor toward the boy. “It’s always looking for some shrimp to eat.” He
grabbed the boy’s bare toe, and the child giggled and squealed, his tears
forgotten.

“Okay, gurnard!”
he said.

Another little
boy, wearing a pair of orange bowling shoes, snuck up behind David then and
stole his glasses. He ran up the grand staircase with them, cackling wildly.
David just laughed and leapt up to chase him. He stumbled toward the stairs,
apparently not able to see all that well without his glasses. Several of the
kids jumped up and grabbed onto his arms. He swung them forward, making them
laugh and shriek.

Esther plucked
David’s glasses out of the little boy’s hands as he darted past her and brought
them down the stairs.

David stopped when
Esther was close enough for him to recognize her, and for a moment his face was
open and vulnerable. He smiled, and it felt like the
Catalina
had lurched sideways.

David disentangled
himself from the kids and retrieved the ball from his young friend. He offered
it to Esther.

“Do you want to
play? I bet you can name sea creatures like a champ.”

“You can have your
way,” Esther blurted out.
Smooth, Esther.
“You can try to sell my design.”

David blinked. He
looked down at the ball he was still holding out and drew it back.

“That was quick,”
he said.

“No point in
agonizing over it,” Esther said. “I just want to get this over with.”

David
straightened, and suddenly he was back to his usual sophisticated self. “This
is the right decision, Esther. I knew you’d see things my way.”

Something about
his tone bothered her. He didn’t seem surprised that she had agreed to do what
he wanted.

“Right,” she said.
“Well, I’d better get back to work.”

She handed over
the glasses and left him standing in the plaza, the ball still in his hand. She
had just given him what he wanted, so why did he look disappointed somehow? He
turned and tossed the ball back to the kids.

It was only after Esther was back amongst her diagrams and tools that
she remembered what Neal had said:
Don’t
take this the wrong way, but you haven’t exactly been encouraging him by hiding
out in the bowling alley.
She had a feeling that she’d somehow missed an
opportunity just now.

Chapter 6—The
Engine Test

Esther didn
’
t sleep at
all the night before the trip to the
Amsterdam Coalition
. Ordinarily, the
crew would dump the last of the crude oil into the refinery in preparation for
the journey. Instead, Esther stayed up all night, preparing to fire up the
completed biofuel system for the first time. It had taken a week of double
shifts to finish hooking up the big separator and refinery to the main engines.
She was still a little worried the biofuel wouldn’t work as well in the big
engines as it did in the smaller motors she had tested so far. It was the
moment of truth.

Esther had invited
David to the engine room to see the system in action so he’d know what he was
talking about at the
Amsterdam
. She
couldn’t help thinking about what he had said when she decided to do things his
way, how he hadn’t been surprised.

This is the right decision, Esther. I knew you’d see
things my way.

He was definitely
confident. With the prospect of negotiating a trade, he was back in his
element, more so than he had been for a while. She wanted to see something that
showed he wasn’t only out for himself. Was he really just manipulating her so
that he could do what he wanted with her invention? He had said himself that
everyone would want it. Maybe that “everyone” included the
Galaxy
captains. He could be using her idea to get his old job
back. Even Boris would accept that trade.

She still couldn’t
bring herself to say anything about whatever was between them, yet she felt
nervous knowing he would be coming to the engine room soon. She hadn’t seen
much of him lately because she’d been working overtime to get everything ready.
It was much simpler than trying to figure out her feelings.

She tightened up
one final bolt and crawled out from underneath the machine. It was bigger than
a lifeboat, and they’d had to move the other machinery around to make space for
it. Esther’s trousers were smudged with oil, and the algae had stained her
hands green.

Reggie had rounded
up a big group to help her with the final stages of assembly. The crew usually spent
most of their time fishing, harvesting seaweed, and maintaining the ship. Now
they gathered around the engine room, both on the main floor and the catwalk,
to see the final test. It looked like the galley crew was here as well, and a
handful of curious Galaxians. Esther spotted Adele from Guest Services and
Byron the water taxi driver turned quartermaster. Her father was here too. This
had better work.

David arrived in
his usual whirl of elegance. The man who had sat on the floor playing ball with
a group of kids was nowhere to be seen. He sailed down the steps from the
catwalk and joined her on the bottom level.

“All set, Esther?”

“I think so,” she
said. “These guys are going to be pretty disappointed if I end up having to go
back to the drawing board now. Reggie has been talking me up.”

David surveyed the
crowd gathering on the catwalk. “I might have had a hand in that too.” He waved
at some machinery. “Now
this
part
looks quite intricate. Well done.”

“Actually, that’s
the pump. It was here before. This is the separator.” Esther tugged on David’s
arm to turn him in the right direction. He met her eyes, and heat swept through
her body. She dropped her hand.

“Looks great,”
David said. “Can you make one for the
Lucinda
next?”

“That’s the plan.
Next time should be easier. I can make it smaller too, so it won’t weigh her
down too much.”

“You’re brilliant,
Esther, you know that?” David said.

She looked down at
the green stains on her hands. “I—”

“Have you given
any thought to joining the
Lucinda
for our land voyage? I’ve got a crew mostly picked out. We’ll be moving onto
her for the journey to the
Amsterdam
so we can work through any issues. There’s a spot available.”

“I don’t know,”
Esther began. So the offer was still open. Could she leave the
Catalina
for a man she didn’t understand?
A man she wasn’t sure she trusted? “My work . . .” She trailed off when she saw
disappointment flash across David’s face. And maybe hurt. It was gone in an
instant.

“Are you going to
turn it on or not?” a voice cut in. Judith stomped down the steps, making the
catwalk shudder.

“Sure. Just about
ready,” Esther said.

David winked at
her, face smooth again, and strode off to join Judith at the bottom of the
catwalk stairs. He had asked her to go with him again! He wouldn’t do that if
he wanted to return to the
Galaxy
.
Why had she choked? She was so much better with machines than with people.
At least, certain people.

Esther made sure
the emergency off switch was clear and stepped over to the main control panel
she had rigged up for the system. On the catwalk, Reggie shouted at everyone to
be quiet. The crowd shuffled forward, making the metal creak. A hundred faces
stared down at her. It was time.

Esther turned on
the separator. With a grotesque sucking sound, it began pulling in algae and
spinning it through the system. The engine room rumbled. So far so good. She
had tested this part before. Next, she opened the valve to the refinery. The
raw oil cycled through it. Reggie explained what was happening to the assembled
crew. Next was the part they hadn’t tried yet: using the refined biofuel to run
the engines.

The six marine
diesel engines waited. They dwarfed all the other machinery, their tops level
with the kneecaps of the people on the catwalk. Esther turned the final valve,
allowing the fuel to flow to the injectors. She hit the intercom on the control
panel.

“Engine control?”

“This is the ECR.”

Esther crossed her
fingers. “Let’s do it.”

“Roger that,
Esther.”

The engines
grumbled, shaking the floor. From the outside it didn’t look like anything was
happening, but the growls echoed around the cavernous room. The engines would
be generating energy using Esther’s biofuel. It should be enough to power the
propellers.

“ECR?” Esther
shouted into the intercom.

She waited. The
engines continued to roar. She looked at David. He was watching her, not the
machine, a tic in his jaw.

Finally, a voice
crackled through the intercom from the engine control room. “We’re at full
power!”

“Fire up the
propeller.”

The crowd on the
catwalk leaned forward, holding their breath. Then the ship shuddered. The
propellers were turning. They’d be churning up the seawater, gulping up energy,
but this time they weren’t using any of the
Catalina
’s
remaining fuel resources. This time, by way of Esther’s design, the propellers
were being powered by the sea itself.

Then the
Catalina
moved.

The crowd on the
catwalk broke into cheers. Even though they couldn’t see what was going on
outside from deep in the engine room, they could tell that the ship was sailing
forward.

“And we’re off!”
Reggie shouted above the noise of the crowd and the machines. “Hell, we could
sail all the way to land!”

Esther released
her grip on the control console. Now the navigation officer would set a course
for the
Amsterdam Coalition
. They
were sailing toward their usual rendezvous, but this time everything would be
different.

The crowd on the
catwalk began making their way back to their posts, many calling
congratulations down to Esther as they left. The demonstration was complete.

Esther joined
David and Judith by the catwalk steps. She was proud of her system and she
appreciated the cheers, but it was their approval that mattered most.

“Well?” she said.

“Good work,
Esther,” Judith said, giving her a grudging nod. “Now, are you sure about
selling this system? I think you should reconsider.”

Esther glanced at
David. “No, I think Hawthorne’s right about trading it for a supply stockpile
and new alliances. Let him try.”

“Thank you for
your confidence, Ms. Harris,” David said.

Why was he so formal
suddenly? Had she offended him somehow?

“This is going to
change everything,” Judith said.

“I hope so,”
Esther said.

David turned away
abruptly. “Now that we know it works, Judith, shall we discuss the remaining
trade? I think it would be wise to delay any big purchases until after we’ve
sold Esther’s technology.”

“You think it would
be wise, do you?” Judith said.

David wasn’t fazed by her
dry tone. He simply continued his pitch, leaving the engine room at Judith’s
side. He didn’t look back at Esther once.