Salvage (34 page)

We fall into the flow of traffic. Miyole gapes at the towers as Soraya leads us up from the ground level, onto a walkway arching gracefully over the train trough in the center of the street. A tier of smooth-planed pathways connect the buildings on opposite sides to one another, and covered gangways lead into the shops. Above us, still more walkways lead to higher and higher walking tiers, with hanging vines and flowers trailing from their undersides. Glass pods full of passengers slide up building faces and stop gently, poised above the street as the people inside empty into the buildings.

Soraya leads the way up to the third tier, to a high-ceilinged shop on the top floor of an older building.

“Conditioner's broken. Sorry,” the woman behind the counter calls out as we come in, fanning her face with a heavy piece of foil. The shop's barely hotter than outside, but I'm beginning to learn the rich folk of Mumbai pride themselves on not letting on they sweat.

Soraya waves and smiles, a kind of no-worries gesture, and weaves her way between the racks of embroidered tunics and raw silk saris in flame blue and persimmon. The back room is stuffed end to end with identical shirts and pants and skirts in a streak of colors.

“Here, try these.” Soraya pulls out a pair of knee-length saffron skirts and scoop-necked black shirts that button up the back. A gold-picked crest with some kind of horned bird and a circle stands out above the breast.
REVATI ACADEMY
is stitched below the bird's feet.

Miyole makes a face. The clothes look some stiff to me, too, but if this is what we have to wear to earn Soraya's help, I'll swallow it. I take the clothes and let Soraya herd me to the dressing room at the back of the shop. Miyole pulls her tongue back in her mouth and follows.

I put on the shirt in the humid dressing room, and instantly my skin goes cool. I rub the fabric between my fingers. How did they weave cool air into cloth? My crewe would trade all their copper for that secret, and I bet the Gyre folk would have done, too.

I step out of the dressing room, still staring at my new uniform.

“Do you like it?” Soraya asks.

I look up. “It's
cool
.”

Soraya laughs. “Of course it is. Haven't you worn smartfiber before?”

I shake my head.

“The wonders of civilization,” Soraya says. “Go on, get changed. We'll buy some street clothes for you, too. You can't go around sweating like a horse all day.”

As we stack our new clothes on the counter, Miyole circles a slowly spinning carousel of jewel-colored saris at the front of the store.

“Can I get one?” she asks Soraya shyly.

Soraya melts. “Of course.” She holds a lavender one dotted with silver-thread arrows next to Miyole's face. “What do you think, Ava? Doesn't this suit her?”

I freeze, mortified. “Oh, but missus, you don't need to—”

Soraya sighs. “Really, Ava, I wish you wouldn't call me that. There's no need to be so formal.”

We head home with an armload of saris. Miyole even wears one on the train, sky blue with gold horses parading along the borders. The blue is lovely against her skin. She looks like a different girl. Younger, rich, the kind of girl who would never have cause to sleep in an alley or cut her hands climbing a ladder in the midst of a hurricane. Soraya bought a sari for me, too, in midnight blue rippling with undertones of honey rose. I tried to shake her off, but that started to make her cross. How can I ever ask her about Khajjiar if I'm already in debt to her over a stack of pretty clothes?

I should be down fixing the ship
, I think as Mumbai skips by outside the train windows.
I should be working, shoring up extra money against what's to come. Not trying on clothes
. I finger the pommel of my knife. I need to be ready, in case something goes wrong here, like it did aboard the
ther
, like it did in the Gyre. Nothing this good can last.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

R
evati Academy turns out to be an old stone building in south Mumbai, near the college where Soraya teaches. Miyole and I stand hand in hand before the sliding doors of its main entrance. I'm sweating despite the smartfabric. The knowledge that the satchel slung over my shoulder hides a glistening new crow Soraya insisted on buying makes me sick some. She bought us tablets of our own, too, but they were too nice. I couldn't bring myself to carry mine with me and left it at the bottom of the chest of drawers in the guest room—
your room
, Soraya says.

A crush of other girls in matching uniforms pushes past us. They're beautiful, all of them, the way I'm beginning to see being rich gives everyone a gloss of beauty—fine clothes, straight white teeth, shiny hair, subtle paints for lips and eyes, and soft, unblemished skin in browns and peaches and pearls. No one here is missing eyes or teeth or has hair bleached and brittled by malnutrition. I smooth my own blunt-cut hair and grip Miyole's hand. I wish I had my knife. I tried to tuck it in my belt this morning, but Soraya caught me and made me leave it behind.

Miyole, though, she's caught up in the swirl and luster of it. She tries to drag us both up the building's front steps. I hold back. Despite Soraya's talks on board-certified instructors and advanced classes and individual progress assessments, I only have the muddiest idea what waits for me inside. Will the girls teach each other, like Miyole taught me my letters and figuring, or are we left to sort things out on our own? Do they have books? Or tablets? Or both? What happens inside these walls that couldn't happen in the solitude of Soraya's house, where I could grind out my ignorance in private?

Finally I let Miyole drag me through the front doors. A woman in a pale blue suit with her black hair pulled back in a loose bun catches us as we step inside. “Miyole? Ava?”

“Yes.” My voice squeaks.

“We've been expecting you. I'm Dr. Lata, dean of new students at Revati Academy. If you'll come this way, please?”

We follow her through the broad front hall, then alongside a small courtyard full of ferns and a trickling fountain. Girls sit in clusters on the fountain wall. One of them, tall and dark haired, with a gemstone stud in her sharp nose and gold bands crisscrossing her long hair, cuts her eyes sideways at us and leans close to her friends to whisper something. A stab passes through me.
Soli. Llell
. I used to have friends like that. Where are they now? Soli will have had her baby. And Llell, I hope she found the husband she wanted. Even if she wanted me dead along with the rest of my crewe, she was my friend, once.

Dr. Lata leads us to a lamp-lit, windowless room on the third floor, filled almost to its walls by a table. Two rows of bronze-framed tablets, thinner and more transparent even than the ones Soraya bought us, are anchored in the wood.

“Please, sit,” Dr. Lata says.

We take seats side by side at the wide table, across from her.

“Dr. Hertz has informed us of your . . . ah . . . unusual situation,” Dr. Lata says. “I assure you, one of the benefits at Revati is the individualized tutoring you'll receive to bring you up to speed. The young ladies who graduate from our institution have a ninety-eight percent placement rate in the world's top postsecondary learning establishments.”

I look at Miyole. She has her eyes on Dr. Lata, nodding as though she's understood, so I nod along with her. A sinking feeling sucks at the center of my chest.

“But first we need to assess your learning needs.” Dr. Lata gestures to the pristine tablets before us. They blink on, already brimming with text blocks and equations. “If you'll each complete the entrance exam, the headmistress and I will review the results and inform you of your class placement at the end of the day. In the meantime, Ava, we'll put you with the junior class, and Miyole, you may join the fourth-grade girls.”

“But I want to stay with Ava,” Miyole says.

“You may see each other at lunch, and during free study,” Dr. Lata says.

“Please, so missus, it would be better if we could stay together,” I say quietly.

Dr. Lata pauses before she speaks and folds her hands together patiently. “We like our students to interact as much as possible with their own age group. We feel it puts everyone at ease in the learning environment and enhances social development. Now, if we were to put you two together in the same grade, we would hardly be serving your potential for emotional acclimation and cognitive growth, would we?”

It seems best to nod.

Dr. Lata smiles warmly at us. “I'm glad you understand.” She stands. “I'll be down the hall if you need me. Ava, I trust you'll leave Miyole to do her own work and not give her any hints, hmm?”

I stare after her as she closes the door softly. Miyole giggles and rolls her eyes. As if she would be the one in need of hints.

The tablets ding softly, reminding us to start.

“Good luck,” I whisper as I pick up the slender stylus clipped to my tablet's side.

“You too,” Miyole says.

I stare down at the screen in front of me. Miyole's been teaching me figuring since Rushil coaxed her into talking again, explaining about words like
integer
and the language of symbols. It comes more natural to me than the reading, but still, we haven't gotten very far. Equations some like the ones Miyole had me practice file down the left side of the screen.

6
²
+ b
²
= 144

a|-1| + 12(3·4a)/5 = 1,729

z(144/2
²⁺³
—24) = 45

I push through them, then others asking the percentage of elements in a serum and the likely increase of a population given a two percent death rate per year. But too soon the questions throw up words like
matrices
and
sine
and
cosine
. They ask me to change an equation to a sloping line on a graph, and I'm utterly lost.

I switch to the other column, the questions about reading and words.

Its var-variegated coat provides cam-camo-camouflage from the . . .

I'm even worse off here, though I didn't think that was possible. I rub my pendant's smooth surface with my thumb as I try to read.

. . . was the first to con-conduct Deep Sound ex-explor-explorations with the as-assist-assistance of neo-neoaccel-neoaccelerant tech-technologies . . .

The words I do know bleed together or lose their sense next to the ones I've never heard. Their meanings go soft and slippery in my head, so all I can do is jab half blind at the answers Dr. Lata must want. I lay down the stylus, close my eyes, and lean my head in my hands.

I glance up through my fingers. Miyole leans over her tablet, mouth parted, eyes jumping back and forth across the screen. Every minute or so, she pauses to record a mark on the tablet, then goes back to reading, the stylus pressed against her lower lip.

I pick up the stylus again and stare at the questions.

India's progress has provided a cat-catal-catalyst for eco-economic growth and improved standards of living in neighbor
— no—
neighboring countries
. . .

I scroll down. I've only finished a third of the figuring questions, and hardly any of the ones that take reading. What do they expect from me? And why can't I do this? Why don't they let me show them all I can do with my hands instead? I can weave and practice fixes and fly a ship all on my own. Doesn't that count for anything?

Miyole clips her stylus neatly to the tablet's side. “Done.” She grins at me.

I taste something caustic on my tongue, as if my heart is leaking bitter bile.
How can she be done when she's a smallgirl, and I'm near a woman? What's wrong with me?
I swallow my desire to say something sharp and put Miyole in her place. I force a smile back at her instead.

“You should go tell Dr. Lata,” I say. “I'm close on finishing. I'll be after you in a slip.”

She slides out of her chair and disappears through the door. I flip through the questions again, striking answers, scribbling clusters of words I know, random numbers, anything to be done with these questions.

Miyole returns, Dr. Lata following close behind her.

“Done?” Dr. Lata asks brightly.

I nod, feeling more sick than I did on first sitting down at the table.

“Excellent,” she says. “Go down and find your classes. Miyole, I think your group is in Civilizations on the first floor, and Ava, I believe you have Equestrian Studies out near the stables. I'll call you back to my office once we've looked over the results.”

“Right so,” I say, but the nervous-sick feeling creeps up into my throat. I've never heard of anything like Equestrian Studies, so it must be some complicated. Though if that's the case, why would they hold it in the stables? Maybe it's some like animal husbandry, but more of why animals work the way they do. I want to ask, but something about Dr. Lata makes my voice shrivel back under my tongue.

I walk Miyole down to her classroom. She peers through the glass door at the other third-grade girls and chews her lip. They look like something out of the advertisements on the buildings—clean cheeks, neat braids, pressed shirts. I would bet all the rupayes I earned at Powell-Gupta none of them have ever gone hungry. Miyole looks up at me, eyebrows knitted.

My petty jealousy turns to vapor. “Don't worry. You're quicker than any of them, Mi.”

She smiles nervously at me.

“Go on.” I give her a quick sideways hug. “I'll meet you in the courtyard when they let us out.”

“Okay.” She straightens her shoulders, adjusts the bag on her back, and pushes open the door.

My steps echo down the empty hall. I follow the signs for the stables to the back of the school, and then out a set of sliding doors. A flagstone path cuts around a glass greenhouse, its windows fogged even in the heat of the day, past a field where girls play some kind of game with flat bats, to a fenced ring of well-trodden dirt beside a brick building. The tang of manure in the air tells me I've reached the stables. I step up to the fence and breathe deep. The thick smell of the barnyard eases my nerves some, tells my body I'm home.