Chapter 3: Arrival
The seventh day he was nervous, tacking back and forth and watching the horizon. I knew what he was looking for; his home. I sat quietly by the hold, sipping a cup of water and not doing much.
"There," he finally pointed. "We'll be there soon." He seemed to vibrate with eagerness.
I didn't. It was even smaller than my home atoll, had very little in the way of weaponry or defences I could see - it was several small boats tied in a half-circle and one long one. I could see three people in a row-boat fishing, two in the water scraping a hull and one standing up and waving furiously at us.
"How many people?" I asked quietly.
"Eight, unless Micah has had her baby early. We make ten." Not good. I'd have felt more comfortable with a hundred.
The boat pulled up aside the small boats, and a line was secured. "Hola, Travis!" a wiry old man with a few wisps of hair greeted him. "Who's this?"
"New one," he said. "Thought she'd do. Swims like she's half-fish."
"What's your name?" he asked me.
"What's yours?"
"Frank. I'm in charge around here." He didn't seem cruel, but appearances could be deceptive.
"Kayla."
"Kayla. Pretty name. Where'd you get her?"
"Atoll about six days from here. Her family couldn't wait to get rid of her. She's better off shut of them. I don't plan to go back there." He tossed some boxes over to a boy several years younger than me. "Stack those in the back, will you?"
"Sure thing," the youngster called back. "Bring back anything useful?"
"Some," he allowed. "Wasn't the best of trips."
"Smokers?"
"Oddly enough, no. Haven't seen or heard much of them for a while. No, just not much to trade for."
"Happens. Come on board. You too, little lady."
"Bring your gear," Travis - odd name - added. "You can berth over there. There should be space."
"Still is," Frank allowed. "It's the food that worries me."
"Not the water?"
"We got the still working again. Every sunny day, we get enough to drink for all of us." A solar-powered still. Very nice. "But the plants…" he sighed.
"Our wealth has two sources," the boy explained to me. "Micah, who makes lovely jewellery, and our plants. But some of them are dying."
"We've re-used the dirt so often it's nearly useless," someone muttered.
"Dirt doesn't get used up," Travis said.
"Add fish," I said. They all looked at me. "Put fish in under the roots. Renews the soil, don't ask me why. Catch fish blood in a jug, pour a little on as well as water. It's worked before. You got to watch the salt content, though. Make it the least salty fish you can find."
"If it works, you just earned your place," Frank said. "Go sort yourself out. Don't worry about anyone stealing anything. Around here the punishment for stealing is to be taken away until you can only just see this place, then be pitched off the boat and left to swim back." Wouldn't be too hard for me, but it would be for some, especially at night. "We don't put up with that sort of thing."
"I've heard that before." I moved slowly, looking around. A very pregnant lady with a flat nose, slanted eyes and dark hair must be Micah. A flaxen-haired pair, man and woman, were working a still, adding seawater and carefully bottling fresh water.
"That's Toby and Tyla," Frank told me. "Twins, great with machinery, tools, anything. My nephew and niece. Micah is Toby's wife. Tyla is Greta's mother, and Jason's, here." He clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Mitchell and Dean are escaped slaves, you'll meet them later. They've got some work to do on the hulls."
"Problem?"
"This boat has a good deep draw. They can't stay down long enough to get much done."
"Kayla can hold her breath like no one I've seen," Travis said as I unpacked onto my one shelf. "Send her down to lend a hand."
"She's good?"
"Nearly drowned me once."
"Eh?"
"She was trying to make a point." He lowered his voice, but I still heard him. "I don't think she really trusts anyone except herself. I doubt anyone's ever bothered to really care about her."
"You sound like you're smitten."
I swear, I could hear the blush. "She's going to be a challenge."
"You like tough women."
"They're never boring. But she's not going to settle easily."
"Shy?"
"Not really. She just blocks you out. Sits, listens, watches, learns, just doesn't talk or move. Goes unreachable. It's hard to get around." I finished, eying my pallet dubiously, and decided to wrap my book in a bit of tarp just to be safe.
I came back out to meet Mitchell and Dean, two dripping lengths of whipcord and weariness. "Hi," Dean said, eying me up and down. He knew exactly how good-looking he was. "Nice to meet you."
I nodded silently. "I'm Mitchell," he said, his voice squeaking a little. "Excuse me, I need to have a drink. I'm that parched." I nodded again.'
"Lunch in half an hour," someone called. "Oh, hi, I'm Greta." She came up to my waist. "Can you cook? I could use a hand." I followed her silently, noting Dean watching my backside intently. I decided I needed a new dress, one a little less revealing.
"Ignore him," Greta said. "He goes after anything with breasts."
"Oh, joy."
"So you do know how to talk. Can you do anything with these?" She handed me a string of fish. I set to work.
Meals were evidently communal, eaten squeezed in around a rough table under an awning on the big ship. Micah got the sole true chair as she was too big to fit on the benches. I listened instead of talking.
Travis discussed his trip, the various atolls, his trading hauls, the weather. Micah talked about sore feet and her hopes for a healthy kid. Everyone talked about work - fishing, making water, tending the plants, curing fish leather, making those delicate bone necklaces, all the hundred and one little tasks needed to keep an atoll working. Even an atoll that size.
There was no place for me in such a close-knit community except as a worker and bed-warmer.
I was little better off than before.
That afternoon, I helped finish the boat-scraping. I remember how surprised Dean looked when I took one breath for every three of his, and I only did that to appear normal. If I had just stayed down, I could have finished far faster, but I was glad of the respite; my hands were getting sore.
"Nice work," Mitchell said, giving me a hand out of the water before dinner. With winter coming, the days were shorter.
I wasn't looking forward to true storm season. This atoll would offer little shelter, and a lot of being tossed around. One thing had changed; Travis' boat had been added to the atoll, giving a little extra space. After dinner everyone gathered for games - dice, knucklebones, a few other things. I went to lie down and have a sleep. All my life I'd been going to bed late and getting up early. After six days of sleeping whenever I wanted, I was feeling better - but it had also meant that after six days of doing nothing, one afternoon of work was far more tiring than it should have been.
"Aren't you going to join them?" Greta asked me.
"No," I said. "I'm going to sleep."
