Free The Silver Ship and the Sea by Brenda Cooper Page B

and the curtain of diamond-shaped foliage.
    Minutes later, Bryan parted the long branches, stepping over and squeezing my side so hard I yelped. “Watch out—I’m bruised.” I laughed up at him, wrinkling my nose. “You smell like the hebra barns.”
    He smiled down at me, but his soft brown eyes looked worried. “I heard about Jinks. And I saw Legs’s gash. Are you all right?”
    “A little shaky.”
    I stepped back and rolled up my pants leg. He looked me over, his eyes widening as he noticed the many tiny grass-cuts and then the tip of the long cat scratch. “You look pretty beat-up.”
    “It will heal.” And it would. We altered healed fast.
    “So how’s Joseph? Was he hurt yesterday?”
    I pursed my lips, seeing the darkness that haunted Joseph’s eyes, the way it lifted just when he climbed on Legs. “Actually, until the paw-cat attack, we had a pretty good day.” We sat side by side on one of the benches, close, but not touching. “Tom was with us, and he was kind to us both. And later, when the paw-cats nearly ate us, he may very well have saved us both.” I shivered, remembering. “But Nava got mad at him for it afterward.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “For saving you?”
    I sighed. “Not exactly. I think she’s depending on Tom to get Joseph back to work, and I suspect a paw-cat encounter didn’t seem like just the thing to convince Joseph to overcome his fears.”
    “Ahhhh…” He stared up at the top of the tree. Points of sunlight fell between the leaves and danced on his cheeks. “And what do you think will?”
    I shook my head. “Did I tell you Kayleen and I saw Jenna a few days ago? She told me to heal Joseph because he’s the key. But she didn’t suggest what he’s the key to.”
    Bryan looked thoughtful. “It must have something to do with the way he reads data.” We’d often wondered why we six had been designed with the particular gifts we had. Stories of the war toldus many of our parents appeared more altered than we were. There were tales of marksmen who could kill from great distances, of whole camps able to outrun and outhide and outshoot the original humans. One story told of two men with six arms each, another of a human who ran on all fours and used both hands and feet as weapons. Campfire stories, but they made us wonder why we seemed so normal.
    Bryan paced, looking a bit like a paw-cat himself. “She probably meant the key to figuring something out. She uses riddles to goad us into learning new things. Remember how she tricked Kayleen into trying to beat Joseph at data stream games?”
    As if on cue, Kayleen stepped through the low-hanging branches. Bits of hay stuck in her hair and mud and hay caked the sides of her long shoes. Her feet were outgrowing them again. Eric, the shoemaker, would tease her about having to make a new shoe last already. No one on Fremont had feet as long or agile as Kayleen’s.
    She stretched. “What a day. Mom made me count everything in two whole harvest sheds, and all the while people were bringing things in and rearranging everything. I had to count the corn bushels twice to get it right.” She flopped down on a bench without taking a breath or pausing. “I had to climb both hay shelters, too—the hebra grass hay and the timothy. I heard about your adventure—I’m glad you’re okay. Did you hear the roamers are on their way? I brought some twintree fruit and water. And you two look cozy. Where’s Joseph?”
    Before I could respond, Joseph answered her last question himself by following her in. “Hi. Chelo, how’s your scratch? I brought some salve.”
    “Thanks.” My cheeks flushed red as I stripped out of my shoes and pants, leaving only my underwear and a shirt barely long enough to cover them. Kayleen blinked and said, “Wow. That’s no scratch. You can walk with that slice in your leg?”
    Joseph spread Paloma’s plant oil ointment over the cut, his fingers gentle against my torn skin. The salve sent fiery tingles