Salvage (37 page)

“I have to say, I've never heard of a crewe abandoning a girl before,” Howe says.

I look out on the garden, where a row of pear trees is beginning to fruit. “It happens.”

“I've worked here seven years and I've never seen a crewe girl. Vina will want to hear all about you.”

We stop at a set of steps leading up to a green door with an old-fashioned knob, like the one in Soraya's house.

Howe pulls out his crow again. “Hena?”

“Vina's there. She says to go in whenever you're ready.”

“Thanks, Hena.”

She snorts. “It's your funeral.”

The green door opens on a kitchen. Shelves run along every wall and above the counters, every surface crammed with seed packets, clothespins, books, and cheery jars of jam, chutney, and pickles. Sacks of potatoes and pears slump against the bottommost shelves. A stack of plates dries by the sink.

“Vina?” Howe calls.

“In here,” a woman answers from the next room.

We follow the sound of her voice into a small office. She sits at an enormous desk. Wires, used mugs, and scraps of paper litter her workspace, along with a crook-necked lamp, a tablet, and a scanning machine. Behind her, yellowing log books climb the shelves all the way to the ceiling. I crane my neck to read the print on one of the spines.
PSYCH EVALS A
-
B
.

Vina doesn't look up from the tablet she's been scribbling on. “This had better be good, Howe.”

“Vina, this is Parastrata Ava,” Howe says. “She's here about some records.”

Vina looks up and narrows her eyes at me.

“My grandfather was from groundways,” I explain again. “That's why . . .” I wave a hand at my appearance.

Vina nods and steeples her fingers beneath her chin, but still doesn't say anything.

“I'm looking for someone from another crewe. A boy named ther Luck.”

“I thought you'd want to talk to her,” Howe says. “Seeing as—”

“Thank you, Howe.” Vina nods. “I can take it from here.”

Howe breathes a sigh of relief, and then he's gone and I'm alone with Vina.

“Well.” Vina leans back in her chair and raises her eyebrows at me. “Would you like to have a seat?” She waves at a tatty blue chair in the corner.

“Thank you, so missus.” I sit, nervous. My eyes flit over the books behind her.
GRAIN INTAKE MAY
-
DECEMBER
.
WORK SPONSOR RELEASE FORMS
.
RESIDENT INDEX
.

Vina clears her throat. “So you're looking for someone?”

“Right so.” I shift in my chair. “ ther Luck.”

“How old?” She stares at me, not moving.

“Now?” I try to stop fidgeting and make myself sit up straight. “Um, nineteen or twenty turns—years—I think.”

“That old?” Vina frowns. “And when would he have come here?”

I count back in my head. “Some time in the last eight deci—I mean, months.”

Vina grimaces and clicks her tongue. “I don't remember anyone that old in the last year. Most of the boys we get are much younger. Thirteen, fifteen. But I'll check my records.” She spins her chair around and reaches for the log labeled
RESIDENT INDEX
. “You know, you could have submitted an information request through the feeds. You didn't need to come all the way out here.”

My body goes hot, and then cold. Why didn't I think of that? I could have known all this time. I could have found Luck months ago.

“I . . . I didn't know that.”

“Here we are.” Vina drops the thick log book on her desk. She pages through. “ ther, ther. Yes, okay.”

My heart lifts.

She continues. “ ther Talent, ther Mercy, ther Far.” She flips the page. “ ther Till. ther Keep.”

She looks up at me. Her mouth twists in professional sympathy. “I'm sorry, those are all the boys we've found from the ther crewe over the last year.”

I sit stunned for a moment. “Can . . . can I see that book, please?”

“Certainly.” Vina hands it over.

I flip through the pages, reading the same names she recited, each with his own page of data. Intake date. Height. Weight. Approximate age.

“But . . .” My mind skitters, trying to find a way for her words not to be true. “Are there other places—homes, like this one—where he could be?”

“Not really.” Vina lifts the book from my hands. “We get all the boys left in-country and on Bhutto station, but most states don't want to spend money on rehabilitating a bunch of vagrant boys.”

I open my mouth to protest.

“That's how they see them,” Vina says quickly. “In most of the backwaters out there they end up stealing to eat, getting in fights, begging. A lot of them wind up in detention facilities. It's the fortunate ones who are picked up and sent here. And we're only open because we're nearly self-sufficient, really. We don't take much government funding.”

“I see.” I stare blankly at the stack of papers on her desk.

Vina closes the log and replaces it on the shelf. “I'm sorry. I hate to be blunt, but if he didn't come through here, your chances of finding him are slim to none.” She swivels back to me. “Are you absolutely sure his crewe left him behind?”

I bite my lip.
Luck's face bleeding from his father's ring. The metal look in ther Fortune's eyes
. “No,” I say. The word tastes like copper.

“That's good, then.” Vina smiles, but it looks forced. “That's the best we can hope for, really, that his crewe didn't abandon him after all.”

“Right so,” I say quietly. But she doesn't understand. If Luck's crewe didn't leave him, that can only mean he's dead.

“Now, I've answered your questions. I hope you'll be so good as to answer mine.” Vina reaches over to her tablet and taps.

“Recording started,” a mechanical voice says.

Vina leans forward at her desk and laces her fingers together. “We've never had a girl from one of the crewes turn up here before. You're quite the find.”

“Thank you, so missus, but I have to walk back and catch the train. I have people waiting for me.”

She frowns. “You've clearly adapted much better than most of our boys. Your experience could be invaluable in improving our socialization techniques.”

I bite my tongue. She sounds like Dr. Lata, trying to overrun me with words. Why should she expect me to tell her things I've never even told Rushil or Soraya?

“Thank you, so missus,” I repeat, sharper this time. “No.”

“Well, at least let me offer you some tea before you go.” Vina forces a smile and pushes back her chair. “It's a long way back to town.”

“Thank you,” I say dully.

Vina bustles around the kitchen, running water into a kettle and crinkling open a wax paper pouch of loose tea. “You know, we have so much to learn from each other,” she calls over the running water. “You could give us such insight into the crewe system. And we can always use a pretty face to help convince parliament to increase our funding.”

A spark of anger flares in my chest. She's asking me for help? Me? She's just told me in so many words that Luck is dead, and now she's grasping at me.

Vina returns with a tea tray, all smiles. “Think about it, Ava. Imagine all the good we could do together.”

I rub the spot between my eyebrows. “I don't know.” I look toward the green door. An idea strikes me. “Could I talk to the boys?”

It's a risk but a small one. None of them should be able to figure out who I am by my looks, and if they piece it together, who would they tell?

“The boys?” Vina's smile fades. She places a cup on the edge of the desk before me and fills it with amber tea. “Why would you want to speak to them?”

“Maybe one of them knows something.” I pick up the cup. “About what happened to Luck.”

“Perhaps.” She pauses, filling her own cup, and her smile creeps back. “Yes, I think that could be managed. In fact, why don't you stay here tonight?”

I stiffen. “I have to get back. The train—”

“The next train leaves in . . .” Vina checks her crow. “Ninety minutes. I thought you wanted time to speak with the boys?”

“I do, but—”

“Well, then, stay the night.” Vina gives an elegant little shrug that says
simple
. “Howe will drive you back to the the station tomorrow. And who knows, maybe after you've rested, you'll feel more like talking.”

I grit my teeth. “Right so.” I put my teacup back on her desk, untouched. “I think I'd like to see them now.”

Vina arches an eyebrow. “I have to warn you. They don't fancy talking to women much.”

I almost laugh. “I think I can handle it.”

“Of course.” Vina nods and picks up her crow. “Howe?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Will you escort Miss Parastrata down to the vocational workshop? She'd like to interview some of our charges.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he says. “On my way.”

“See?” Vina says. “I told you we could help each other.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

H
owe opens the door to the vocational workshop—a long, windowless room, bright with artificial lights. Sallow-skinned boys with hair of black and red and white-blond sit at tables spread across the room, each intent on a different task. Two scrawny boys hunch over welding pens, fixing electronics, while others peer into tablet screens or sit in small groups, talking. It takes me a slip or two to figure what's wrong with the scene. I can't hear anything. Not the whine of the welding pen or the soft tapping of fingers on a trackboard, or the murmur of voices. The room must have a sort of sound shield, some like the one what protects Soraya's house from the city noise.

“What crewe was your guy again?” Howe asks.

I walk forward. “ ther,” I say, craning my neck to check the faces of the boys at the tablets. As we draw nearer, the sound shield fades and I can hear their fingers clicking. “His name is ther Luck.”

“I think we have a few ther kids over in the socialization workshop.” Howe nods at the group slouched around a table in the corner. Another man with a neat-trimmed black beard, maybe a teacher of some kind, sits at the head of the table, gesturing and talking to them.

The teacher looks up and smiles at us as we approach. “Ah, look everyone. We have visitors. You all know Instructor Howe.” He turns his smile to me. “And what a perfect opportunity to practice our conversation skills. Who would like to ask this young lady her name?”

The boys cut looks at me, but none of them answer.

“Keep? Darrad?” The instructor looks from a skinny, dark-haired boy to a slightly older boy with close-cropped hair the color of a persimmon.

Darrad
. For half a breath, I'm sure he'll recognize me. He belonged to one of the dyegirls. Four turns ago they said he was dead—killed in an accident on his first trip groundways. All the wives held his mother's hands while she wept.

The boys stay silent, arms folded, eyes on the table. None of them so much as look at me.

The instructor sighs. “Amon?” He looks to the frail, white-haired boy beside him, who is chewing on a nail. He's young, younger than all the others around him.

Amon glances nervously from the instructor to the other boys. He looks in my direction, but his gaze floats somewhere over my head. “Pleasetomeetyoumiss.”

“Very good,” the instructor says. “And now, what's next?”

“I'mAmonNauwhat'syourgoodnameplease?”

“Ava,” I say.

Darrad's head snaps up, his face a mix of confusion and suspicion, but he doesn't say anything.

“How can we help you, Ava?” the instructor prompts. He smiles too wide.

“I'm looking for someone.” I turn from one boy to another, but they all keep their eyes down, even Amon now. “His name is ther Luck. He'd be about nineteen turns now. Black hair, blue eyes.”

None of them answers me, although I can tell from the way the dark-haired boys shift in their seats and dart furtive looks at me they know exactly who I mean. Luck was their captain's firstborn son, after all. And who am I? A stranger. A girl.

The instructor scratches his chin. “We don't have anyone that old here right now.” He looks at Howe. “Have you taken her to look at the records up Vina's?”

“First thing. She—”

“Please,” I break in, addressing the boys. My search can't end here. This can't be it. “If any of you know anything . . . if you've ever heard anything of Luck . . . I'm begging you, please tell me.”

The boys exchange looks and go back to staring at their hands or the tabletop. None of them says anything.

I stare at the ther boys, my eyes burning. “Please.”

One of them shakes his head ever so slightly.

“Come on.” Howe touches my shoulder. “They're not feeling talkative today.”

I back away.

“See you in biome five this afternoon, guys,” he calls as he leads me toward the door.

The sound shield closes behind us. Some months earlier, I might have left steaming with anger that the boys clung so hard to their crewe ways, that they wouldn't deign to talk to me. But now, looking at them, I only feel sad. How will they ever make their way in this world if they can't bring themselves to talk to anyone but men? And how alone they are. At least I have Miyole and Soraya, and maybe Rushil.

I lie awake in the seed bank's guest quarters, worrying the edge of the scratchy blanket. Some hours ago, Howe's voice came over the coms.
Ten o'clock. Lights out
.

Was there something the ther boys weren't telling me? Was there something I missed?