Seabound (Seabound Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter 10—Rumors

By breakfast the rumors
had spread. Constance gave Esther a quizzical look as she sat darning socks
outside her shop. In the Atlantis Hall, one of the cooks jumped when Esther
joined the line for shrimp and seaweed rolls. Manny stared at her from his
table, slowly shaking his head. People sat in tight groups, worried faces over
untouched meals. Sharp glances flitted toward her.

Esther hurried away
and hid herself in the engine room. Had someone found out what she’d done? The
temp crew operating the engines treated her normally. She must be tired and
paranoid. She’d barely been able to sleep because she’d been so focused on the
repairs. She tried to concentrate on the grumble of the engines carrying them
toward the
Galaxy
. Neal had insisted to Judith that they needed to push
on for another few days to fully avoid the “running storm.”

Esther spent the
afternoon minding the engines and taking inventory of her toolbox and paltry
stash of extras, trying to find anything she could trade for new desal parts in
a few days. Cally found her elbow-deep in a disordered pile of wrenches.

“Hiya, Esther!
I’ve been hearing terrible things about your incompetence all day long,” Cally
said brightly as she sailed into the room.

Esther wiped her
oily fingers on her work trousers. “What?”

“Oh, you know how
rumors are. You blew up the engine room. You’re poisoning the water supply. You
purposely destroyed the pumps during the last storm. People must be extra bored
today.”

“Who’s saying this
stuff?” Esther leaned back on her heels.
How
serious is it?

Cally smiled
nonchalantly. She sat on the metal catwalk one level up from the engines and
dangled her feet over the edge. She wore a pair of old bowling shoes.

“Oh, I don’t
know,” she said. “I heard some of it from Maria Cordova, but those two ladies
who work in the rations room were also talking about it. They said something
along the lines of ‘If we all die, it’s her damn fault’—that sort of
thing.”

“Does my father
know?” Esther asked.

“Know what? Hey,
did I tell you that Boston from the washing crew has been talking to me a lot
lately? Keeps wanting to touch my hair.”

“Boston’s a moron.
You can do better. Have you seen Frank or my father around today?”

“Nah, I assume
your dad’s holed away writing somewhere, and Frank’s in the desal room,” Cally
said. “Want me to get him?”

“No!”

Cally kept swinging
her feet and cocked her head. “What’s with you?”

“Cally, there’s a
real problem.” Esther struggled silently for a moment. How much should she
tell? It sounded like the rumors might actually be worse than the truth. “I
screwed up. And I mean really screwed up. I fell asleep when I was supposed to
be monitoring a tank filler in the desal room.” Esther twisted the edge of her
black T-shirt with greasy fingers.

Cally barked a
laugh. “That’s it? You found me knee-deep in water just a few days ago because
I was nine kinds of careless. You’re
Esther
.
Screwing up for you is not like screwing up for me.”

Esther dropped her
eyes to Cally’s shoes. The laces were frayed almost beyond use. One string was
undone and swung low, like a clock ticking. “There was an explosion,” she said.
“The whole desal system is destroyed.”

“Destroyed?”
Cally’s legs stopped swinging. “What does that mean?”

“It means if we
don’t fix it, we are going to run out of water,” Esther said. “We can evaporate
the salt out of some of it, but that won’t be enough for everyone. We don’t
have the fuel. Neal and I have a plan to get the materials, and I was hoping no
one would find out. I don’t want people to panic.”

“I have to admit,
I feel a little panicky right about now,” Cally said. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re on our way
to meet up with a group of cruise ships that all travel together. We’re hoping
they’ll have the parts we need . . . and water to spare.”

Esther looked down
at what she’d found in the depths of her toolbox: a thick metal spoon, crumpled
duct tape, a spool of rusted wire.
Worthless.

“Wow, this is
crazy,” Cally said slowly. “I guess you should be ready for people to be kinda
mean to you for a few days.”

Esther gave a dry
laugh. “Think so?”

Cally nodded. “If
someone finds out the exact truth, the rumors are going to be the least of your
worries. People will be pretty ticked off.”

“That’s the last
thing I need,” Esther said. “The system’s fixable, but I’ll need free rein to
trade when we meet with the other ships.”

Esther reached up
and prodded the bandage on her face where the cut from the accident was still
healing. She thought of Gracie Cordova’s smug face and forced her hand back to
her work.

“You mean trade
with
Judith’s
stores?” Cally said.
“Good luck.”

Esther sighed.
Cally was right to be skeptical. Judith had been guarding her stash of salvage
like a barracuda lately, but Esther didn’t have enough stuff to trade on her
own. She needed it.

“Great, thanks,”
she said. “Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?”

“Ah, you’ll be
fine,” Cally said. “I’m hoping this means you won’t yell at me the next time I
put gears together wrong or something.” She smiled down at Esther, but her
auburn eyebrows were pulled tight, her smile stretched a little too wide.

It was worse than
Esther or Cally predicted. Gracie Cordova, herself not fully aware of the
extent of the damage, going only off what she had wheedled out of Frank, had
told everyone they were running out of water and it was all Esther’s fault. She
told them Esther had ignored orders. That she was arrogant, like her father.
Esther was amazed at Gracie and her cronies’ ability to change people’s
opinions so quickly
, and the timing of
this news didn’t help
. They were already raw after their encounter with
the
Orchid
. The sickly terror of life at sea without drinkable water
spread through the ship’s inhabitants like a virus.

By the time Esther
left the engine room that night, angry stares rippled around her like wake on a
windless day. Voices bombarded her as she crossed the plaza. They didn’t even
try to keep her from hearing.

“She ruined it.
The water system.”

“I heard we don’t
have enough to make it through the week.”

“We can’t live
without water.”

“Remember last
time?”

“She should never
be allowed belowdecks again.”

“My mom is
hyperventilating in her cabin. She sent me up here to gather rations.”

“You can’t
stockpile! That’s not fair!”

“Stay away from
me.”

“Put down the
bottle!”

“I’m getting that
water.”

“Stop it, you two.
Judith’s coming.”

Esther had nearly
reached the doors to the outer decks when she heard those last words. She was
desperate for fresh air, but she slowed as the voices around her quieted. She
turned. Judith was stomping down the grand staircase, face like a frozen
tornado. Morbid glee filled the eyes of the bystanders.

“Esther. Bridge.
Now.”

Esther had never
seen Judith look so furious. She’d never seen anyone look so furious. Her
stomach turned over. She had no choice but to follow Judith through the
corridors and up the stairs to the bridge.

The bridge ran the
full width of the upper part of the ship. The windows opened out above the
foredeck. Rows of silent computer consoles filled the room. Most of them were
useless without the satellites. They hadn’t been fired up in years. A silent middle-aged
woman named Ren operated the one computer that still controlled some of the
ship’s systems. She wore the faded sailor’s uniform she’d been wearing on the
day of the disaster. She had been working as a navigator in this very room the
day the world changed. As far as Esther knew, she’d rarely left it since. Ren
looked up when they came in, and Esther noticed that her eyes were dull, like
sunbaked shells.

It was dark out,
moonless. The fluorescent lights in the bridge created a mirror-sharp
reflection in the windows. Esther could see the razor planes of Judith’s face
in sharp relief and sense the glittering anger in her eyes.

“Talk,” Judith
barked.

“It was an
accident.”

Judith whirled
around. “No excuses. What happened?”

“I fell asleep.”

“That doesn’t
answer my question.”

Esther tried to
slow the rapid fire of her heart. “The desalination system overheated after a
blockage created too much pressure. It’s destroyed. We can’t produce any more
clean water unless we get new reverse-osmosis membrane filters. I’m sorry.
I—”

“I don’t want
apologies. Tell me facts.”

“Okay,” Esther
said. “We need filters. We . . . I lied about the running storm so we could get
more. There’s—”

“There’s a
solution. That’s what you’re saying,” Judith snapped.

“Yes, but—”

“And you knew about
the solution a few days ago.”

“Yes, but I didn’t
want everyone to panic. It might not work and—”

“Do you understand
what causes panic, Esther?” Judith faced her across the room, standing as still
as a pillar of salt. Esther’s bones shook, but she met Judith’s eyes.

“People are afraid
of running out of—”

“Uncertainty,”
Judith cut in. “And lies. When you hide things or when you make it look like
you’re not sure whether something will work, it’s a hundred times worse than
when people know there’s both a problem and a solution. We could have contained
this.”

“I thought it
would be better if—”

“You always think
you know better, Esther. You’re handy in the engine room, and you think that
gives you license to do things your way. I don’t need to tell you I warned you.
More than once. You lied because you were too arrogant to accept responsibility
for what you did. I’ve already talked to Neal about this
Galaxy
. Maybe they’ll help us. Maybe they won’t. But you’ve put
this entire community at risk through your recklessness. And you’ve made it
worse by not admitting the truth immediately. We could have gone on stricter
rations days ago. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Esther felt like
she was drowning. Wave after wave crashed down on her as Judith spoke. She had always
believed Judith was unreasonably hard on her, that she was a tyrant with a
personal vendetta against Esther because of her father. But this time, Judith
was absolutely right. Esther
was
at
fault. Ice-cold guilt filled her stomach. Finally, she dropped her eyes.

“Figure out what
you need for the system,” Judith said. “When we meet the
Galaxy
, you’re coming with me to negotiate for parts. Do not trust
anyone you meet. You have no idea what it was like a few years back. Your
father sheltered you from the worst of it. Strange ships are not our friends.
Now get out.”

Esther stumbled
blindly from the bridge. She wished she could feel numb, but every one of
Judith’s words replayed in her head, sharper than a recording. This time she
didn’t even notice the angry stares as she retreated to her cabin.

Esther was sitting
on her bunk and staring at the porthole high on the wall when her father came
in. She had her storm goggles in her hands and was working her fingers along
the rubber and plastic, checking for cracks and pushing loose edges back in
place. Simon stood in the doorway for a moment, long enough for her to wipe the
tears off her face. She waited for him to speak first, to lecture her, to
express his disappointment. But he just sat down on the opposite bunk and
pulled off his shoes. Then he handed her his faded handkerchief.
 

“Get some sleep,
Button. It will be better in the morning.”

It wasn’t. Fear
brought out an ugly side to the community. Even though word spread that they
were joining up with another group of ships, there was no guarantee the
Galaxy
Flotilla
would offer the help the
Catalina
needed. What if they didn’t have the parts? What if they
were hostile? They went on limited water rations immediately. Panic bubbled
below the surface, sometimes spilling over in shouts and altercations. Some
took it out on Simon, bringing up their old resentment of him. Others took it
upon themselves to lecture Esther on taking better care with her duties. Some
suggested not so subtly that she should try being an apprentice for a different
occupation. She was really too young to be overseeing mechanical repairs
anyway.

But worse than the
direct admonishments were the whispers that followed her across the deck when
she went up to catch her sunshine ration, the stony silences that greeted her
in the dining hall. Esther was certain that if they were saying such harsh
things to her face, the words they whispered behind her back must be worse.
Even Reggie and Bernadette, who usually treated her like a niece—or a
friend—had trouble looking her in the eye.