Free Riveted by Meljean Brook

dangerous waters near the Ivory Market in Africa and the smugglers’ havens of Australia. Annika didn’t think that Källa would have ventured so close to Horde territory, but her sister had been infected with nanoagents since she was young. Even if she’d managed to secure fake letters of origin, perhaps she hadn’t been able to find a place in the New World—and though Källa could have made a home in the countries around the North Sea, temper might have driven her as far from Iceland as she could go.
    Annika didn’t want to leave
Phatéon
any more than she’d wanted to leave Hannasvik. Finding her sister was more important than those wants, however.
    But until she left, her job needed to be done. With a sigh, she scooted to the edge of the bed. “I’d best find the chief, then.”
    On the third deck, she pounded on Leroux’s door, but the old engineering chief wasn’t in his cabin. Perhaps the engine deck. As she turned toward the companionway, the ship’s physician came out of her quarters. Lucia Kentewess carried a bottle of wine and wore a bright smile—a lovely look for the woman, whose smiles were usually tinged with melancholy.
    Annika liked Lucia very well, and preferred her company to everyone’s except Elena’s, but she suspected that the doctor sought her out for conversation in the wardroom because she viewed Annika as something of an amusing oddity. Which Annika supposed she was, and so didn’t mind the woman’s attention. The New Worlders were often amusing oddities, too.
    “Annika! Is the chief in?”
    “No. I’m looking for him myself.”
    “Ah, well. I shall give this to him after dinner, then.” The doctor glanced at Annika’s skirts, then swayed as a gust of wind jerked the ship around by the mooring tether. “You aren’t on duty?”
    “I’m on the eight to twelve today.” Unless García’s leaving would change that, as well.
    “Oh, that is perfect. My nephew, David, is aboard. If we can get away from the captain’s supper, I’d love to introduce you.”
    So that explained the bright smile. His aunt had spoken of her nephew before, and had once shown Annika a ferrotype photograph of a grinning boy sitting in a small steam-powered cart, wearing a hook on his arm and his trousers tucked around missing knees. A tall native man and Lucia had stood on either side of him. If Lucia hadn’t told her what had happened to the boy’s mother and her own husband, Annika would have assumed that it was a portrait of a happy family, not one torn apart by a disaster.
    Annika vaguely recalled that he had traveled since then, but she better remembered Lucia’s pride when she’d spoken of him thanany specific stories. David Kentewess likely wouldn’t find Annika as interesting as his aunt seemed to, but she didn’t mind meeting him, especially if it added to the new joy in Lucia’s smile.
    “I should be in the wardroom unless there is a change to my watch schedule. García left
Phatéon
, so I’m on my way to discover that now.”
    “Oh, of course. Go on, then.”
    Annika did, gathering her skirts at her knees to descend the ladder. The distant
thud
of the closing cargo doors echoed up the companionway. They were done with the loading, then, and might soon be under way.
Phatéon
couldn’t carry as much weight as a sailing ship, but was often stuffed to the deckheads with perishables and mail. On this run, they carried laborers to Smoke Cove; crates of dry goods and foodstuffs bound for the island of Heimaey filled the rest of the cargo hold, and mail drops would be made at a few coastal communities in between.
    Annika didn’t participate in any of the loading or unloading. Her job was simply to make certain that
Phatéon
arrived at her destination by tending the furnace and engines at the heart of the ship.
    She caught sight of the chief outside the engine room, his white hair easy to spot even in the dim passageway. Almost seventy, his face deeply lined and tall, bony frame stiff,