18
From the navigation tower, I can barely see Bao’s shadow on the horizon. He’s been temperamental in the days since I led him back to the ship. Some moments I think he’s genuinely bonded to the Minnow. Others I’m convinced he’ll run.
So far I haven’t felt like he’ll attack us, but that’s only a matter of time.
I’ve spent every waking minute with him, practicing his old signals, trying to get him back in shape, but it isn’t enough. With no rewards to motivate him, he’s grown sluggish, and I can almost hear him ask, “Why should I?” every time I throw a signal at him. He doesn’t have any available targets to practice on, so our training is limited to simply giving him directions.
Which is what brings me to the captain’s side today.
“I understand,” Santa Elena says when I finish laying it out. She slumps back in her chair at the navigation panel, her fingers tracing over the radio on her belt. “But you’ve come at me with a problem. A problem in your area of expertise. I need more than that from you. I need a proposal, at the very least.”
My nails dig into my palms. “I… We’ve never trained Reckoners to fight like this. The only thing I can think of is actually hunting neocetes with him, but then I’d be creating some strange connections between eating and training that I don’t want rattling around in his head.”
She nods, her lips pursed.
When it becomes clear she’s still waiting, I do my best to draw a breath without flinching. “I need ships. Ships for him to wreck. It’s been too long since his first tug—I need to see that he can do it again. And if he’s really going to be our weapon, I need to hone him.”
Santa Elena leans over the navigation panel, her hair falling around her face as she twists the dials on the long-distance radio. “What you’re saying is you need resources, correct?”
“Ships.”
Her lip curls at my impertinence. “Fine. Whatever. Ships. Point is, we need them, and I’ve been waiting years to cash in on the favor Eddie Fung owes me. You ever been on an Art-Island, Cas?”
I shake my head.
The captain’s grin could melt iron.
Artificial islands, I quickly discover, are nothing like their natural counterpart. Art-Hawaii 26 is built in a crescent, and only the sparsest greenery dots its surface. Within the crescent’s center lies the harbor, where Captain Fung’s ship, the Crown Prince, makes its berth. He’s been kind enough to allow the Minnow to dock next to him, after assurances that we’ll keep Bao from bothering his ships or any of the other ones docked there. The outer edge of the island is built with bladed ridges that dare any unwanted guests to run themselves up against them. The only way to set foot on Art-Hawaii 26 is through the horns of the crescent, each of which plays host to a wall of cannons.
As we pull up to the docks, I notice the anxiety eating away at Bao. The harbor is shallow, by far the shallowest water he’s ever been in. He dives to the bottom of the artificial bowl, resurfaces, dives again, and resurfaces again, his blowholes flaring as he breathes rapidly in and out. Even with the signal beacon calling him, he begins edging toward the opening of the horns, yearning for the open sea.
I radio up to the captain and get permission to set him patrolling out in the deep waters. I have to do everything I can to calm his nerves—an uppity Reckoner is an unpredictable one, and he’s already unpredictable enough as it is. I change over his signals, hold my breath when he takes a few extra seconds to process the command, and then release it as he turns tail and makes a beeline for the harbor’s mouth.
Once he’s clear of the horns, I join the captain and the other trainees on the main deck. As the docking arms extend to bring us into our slot, I get my first good look at Eddie Fung’s palace.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. The compound rests at the center of the crescent, a beast of glass and steel. It shimmers in the afternoon light, and whatever doesn’t catch the glare of the sun reflects the oceans around us, turning each surface a seething, electric blue. The Crown Prince slumbers in the slot next to us, so pristine and white that for a second I forget that Captain Fung is more than just an Islander prince. I’m about to ask Varma just how much piracy Fung engages in, but before I can open my mouth, I spot our host and his retinue striding down the docks to meet us.
Eddie Fung cleans up well. When we first met him on the Flotilla, he was dressed to blend in with the other pirates, but here in his kingdom, he’s effortlessly changed into the smiling, polished look of a young prince. His pants are pleated, his shirtsleeves crisply folded up—Fung looks ready for a weekend at a country club, not anything remotely close to piracy.
Santa Elena smirks when she sees him, but there’s something uncomfortable about her posture. She’s fought her entire life for her living, for her stake in these oceans. Fung was given his place at birth, and from the look of things he’s never had to struggle to keep it.
“Welcome!” he cries when he reaches the end of our gangway. Even from a distance, his smile gleams. The crew at his back might as well be his weekend companions, but for the guns at their hips. Santa Elena motions us forward with a twitch of her fingers, and we stride down the ramp to meet him. He offers a handshake to the captain, followed by a flirtatious grin at Chuck. I catch her nervous smile in the reflection of his mirrored sunglasses. He lifts his chin toward the horizon at the mouth of the harbor, where Bao’s retreating shadow is barely a speck. “Magnificent animal. I accepted your request just to see him in the flesh, honestly.”
“You accepted my request because you’ve yet to repay me for my generosity four years ago,” Santa Elena replies.
“If I repay, it stops being generosity,” Captain Fung shoots back, then laughs. Santa Elena joins him, but hers never reaches her eyes.
“Come along. I’ll give you and yours the tour,” he says, gesturing toward his fortress. “We have plenty of spare rooms if you want to sleep some of your crew on the island. Naturally there are parts of my home that are off-limits, but we’ll go over that when we get to it.”
That idea becomes more appealing by the second as Fung escorts us up the steps and through the estate’s doors. The rush of cool air hits me like a wave, and I realize it’s been nearly half a year since the last time I was anywhere near air-conditioning. I try to mask just how much I enjoy it. Varma doesn’t.
The captain catches his blissful expression and rolls her eyes. “As long as you’ve got a radio on you, you’re welcome to take rooms here, got it?” she says, keeping her voice low under Captain Fung’s monologue about the island’s construction. “Just don’t get too comfortable. Desert me for Fung and I’ll carve my name in your guts.”
“Speaking of…” Swift mutters, raising her eyebrows as Fung curls an arm around Chuck’s shoulders. Varma’s grin falters.
Santa Elena’s eyes narrow, but she stows the expression when Fung glances back at her. “Young punk,” she growls, then pushes forward to our host’s side. “Captain,” Santa Elena says, smiling sweetly as she plucks his arm off her trainee. Several of his retinue have their hands on their guns before the word is out of her mouth. “We trust your palace is as nice as you say. But what about what we came here for?”
Fung doesn’t miss a beat. “The ships—yes, of course! I’d assumed you saw them on your way in, but we can take our tour in that direction.” He spins on his heels and points us down a narrow hall, his next breath already spent on the intricacies of his father’s fueling business.
I watch Chuck carefully as he leads us out to the docks. She likes Fung—that much is clear from the way her attention drifts and lands, even from the rise in the pitch of her voice when she answers his questions about the Minnow. But I see her guilt too, the way she’s constantly aware of where Santa Elena is and when the captain’s looking at her.
Varma once said that Chuck chose the Minnow because the engine felt like home. But that was before Santa Elena sliced Code open and let him drain. Before the ship was hunted by the SRC, before our captain decided that we’d lead the charge in a fight against wild monsters the likes of which the NeoPacific has never seen. Maybe Chuck is smart, securing her way out now.
It’s more than I’ve done.
The thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth that endures even as Eddie Fung leads our party out another set of doors and onto another dock. I glance down the line of sleek, silvery boats moored there, wondering where the junkers we’re meant to wreck are. These look like Fung’s personal fleet of pleasure cruisers.
“So,” Captain Fung says, gesturing to the row of ships. “What do you think?”
At first I think he’s asking Santa Elena, but Santa Elena is looking at me. Everyone’s looking at me. “You… These are the ships?”
“Is there something wrong with them?”
“Is there something wrong with them?” I ask, forcing emphasis into my inflection. “You can’t be serious.”
Santa Elena swoops in before I make another misstep, wearing her best diplomatic smile. “They’re perfect, Captain Fung. We never expected this level of generosity.”
He waves a hand. “It’s nothing. These old clunkers have been gathering barnacles for too long. Best to put them to good use.”
I’m not the only one who seems to object to using luxury boats as Reckoner fodder. Beside me, Varma looks like he might throw up. Maybe it’s the ships themselves—as a helmsman, he knows just how elegantly crafted they are, just how nicely they would handle. But what’s more likely, I realize as he fixes a determined stare at Fung’s back, is it’s pissing him off that Fung was able to give them away like they’re nothing. Fung’s able to give us everything, it seems. And Varma’s imagining what Fung might be able to give Chuck.
I clap a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and his ever-present smile tilts into a grimace.