Free Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi Page A

thanks to the feral grace of its lines. It had the sleek, aerodynamic design of a hunter, every angle purpose-built to reduce drag to the merest fraction. Nailer’s eyes swept over the broken clipper’s upper decks, the pontoons and stabilizers and the cracked remains of the fixed-wing sails, all of it white, almost blazingly white in the sun. Not a bit of soot or rust anywhere. There wasn’t a drop of oil leaking, despite the shattered hull.
    Back at the ship-breaking yards, the old tankers and freighters were nothing in comparison, just rusting dinosaurs. Useless without the precious oil that had once fueled them. Now they were nothing but great wallowing brutes leaking their grime and toxins into the water. Reeking and destructive when they’d been created in the Accelerated Age and still destructive even after they were dead.
    The clipper was something else entirely, a machine angels had built. The name on the prow was unreadable to either of them, but Pima recognized one of the words below.
    “It’s from Boston,” she said.
    “How do you know?” Nailer asked.
    “One of my light crews worked on a Boston Freight ship, and it had the same word. I saw it on every single door in the whole damn wreck while we were taking it apart.”
    “I don’t remember that.”
    “It was before you got on crew.” She paused. “The first letter’s B, and it’s got the S—the one like a snake—so it’s the same.”
    “Wonder what happened?”
    “Had to be the storm.”
    “They should have known better, though. They have satellite talkies for those ships. Big eyes down on the clouds. They should never get hit.”
    It was Pima’s turn to look at Nailer. “How would you know?”
    “You remember Old Miles?”
    “Didn’t he die?”
    “Yeah. Some kind of infection got into his lungs. He used to work galley on a clipper ship, though, before he got thrown off. He knew all kinds of stuff about how clippers work. Told me they’ve got hulls made of special fiber, so they slide through the water like oil, and they use computers to keep level. Measure water speed and wind. He definitely told me they talk to the weather satellites, just like Lawson & Carlson do for when a storm’s coming.”
    “Maybe they thought they could outrun the storm,” Pima guessed.
    Both of them stared at the wreckage. “That’s a lot of scavenge,” Nailer said.
    “Yeah.” Pima paused. “You remember what I said a couple nights ago? About needing to be lucky
and
smart?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How long you think we can keep this a secret?” She jerked her head back to the beach and the ship-breaking yards. “From all them.”
    “Maybe a day or two,” Nailer guessed. “If we’re really lucky. Then someone comes out. Fishing boat or a trader will spot it, even if the beach rats don’t.”
    Pima’s lips compressed. “We got to claim this for us.”
    “Fat chance.” Nailer studied the broken ship. “No way we can defend a claim like this. Patrols will be looking for it. Corporate goons. Lawson & Carlson will want a piece, if it’s full salvage—”
    “It’s salvage all right,” Pima interrupted. “Look at it. It’s never going to move again.”
    Nailer shook his head stubbornly. “I still don’t see how we can keep it to ourselves.”
    “My mom,” Pima suggested. “She could help.”
    “She’s got heavy crew. If she disappears to come down and work on it, people will notice.” Nailer glanced back toward the beach. “If we aren’t back for light crew tomorrow, people are going to wonder where we are, too.” He massaged his aching shoulder. “We need goons. And even if we got thug muscle, as soon as they knew about the ship, they’d take it for themselves, too.”
    Pima chewed her lip, thoughtful. “I don’t even know how to register scavenge.”
    “Trust me, no one’s going to let us register this.”
    “What about Lucky Strike? He’s got contacts with the bosses. Maybe he could do it. Keep Lawson & Carlson off