She breathes in sharp. “Manman, she opened her eyes!”
I close them again and try to remember. The world bobbing up and down, a violently blue sky. My hair soaked in sweat. Shouting and hands on my arms, lifting me. A glimpse—water all around and a . . . a . . . what’s it called? A boat, painted deep purple and pink and yolk yellow, its roof stacked high with parcels and riders, cutting away through deep water. Then patchwork walls and tin roofs baking under the sun’s glare. The smell of fuel smoke soaking the air, and everywhere constant, baking light and voices.
And then shade. The tik-tik-tik of a fan spinning lazily overhead. A man’s hand, large and cool and dry, resting on my forehead. “Li fret . . .” His voice, rustling soft like the papery skin of his hand. “Ki sa li genyen?”
The captain, speaking low in the same language, folding something into his hand. The man’s fingers pressed to the pulse below my jaw and something fitted over my nose, piping cool, sweet oxygen to my aching lungs. A needle prick at the inside fold of my arm, and the drop into nothingness.
Until now. I try to push myself up, but my muscles quake with the effort and I fall back on the cushioned pallet, covered in sweat. It feels as though someone is digging his thick, clumsy fingers into my muscles, pulling them apart thread by thread. All I can do is lie still and wait for my limbs to unlock.
The smallgirl stares at me in fright. “Manman!”
Captain Guiteau sticks her head into the room. She’s shed her jacket and beaded belt in favor of a heavy leather mechanic’s apron and welding goggles.
She kneels by my side. “Hand me one of those calcium packs, Miyole.”
Captain Guiteau hangs a floppy bladder full of chalk-white liquid from a metal hook above my bed and connects it to a small plastic something sticking out of my arm.
“Give it a minute, fi.” Captain Guiteau brushes the damp hair from my forehead.
The cramps pulse and fade. My muscles unlock, but my body feels shattered. I lie back, breathing hard. A streaky painting of a pink woman with a fish tail covers the wall above me. A whirring fan balances in one of the room’s high windows. I look around. Captain Guiteau and Miyole crouch by my head, watching me anxiously. A wall of green-painted shelves stands behind them, bowed in the middle by the weight of food and mechanical parts stacked ceiling high.
“There now.” Captain Guiteau helps me push myself up until I’m leaning against the wall. The glass in me grinds against my bones as I move, but when I look down, my skin is smooth as ever. How can the captain and this smallgirl move so quick and easy under the Earth’s grip?
Another wave of nausea ripples over me. I close my eyes, breathing hard despite the thin, flexible tubes pumping air into my nose. I finger the gummy piece of tape bound around my elbow. My own clothes are gone, replaced by a white, wash-worn shift that barely covers my knees. I clutch at my neck for the data pendant. It still hangs there, warm against my skin.
“W-Where am I?” My throat feels burned and raw; my stomach tender and empty, as if someone’s been kicking my middle with a hard boot. The smell of sick lingers in the air.
“East Gyre,” the captain says. She must see the look on my face, because she continues. “In the Pacific. You’re Earthside, fi.”
Earthside. I lean forward and try to push myself to my feet, but my legs give out. I slump back against the wall. “Iri . . .” It’s as if my tongue has become mud. I can’t make the rest of it come out.
“Don’t move too much or you’ll pull out the IV.” The captain reaches behind her back to pull the ties on her leather apron. “You want some water? Something to eat?”
“Water.”
The captain nods to the smallgirl, Miyole. She scurries off and brings back warm, bitter-tasting water in a pewter cup.
“It’s the quinine,” Miyole says quietly as I drink. “So you don’t catch blood sickness from the mosquitos.”
I sip, trying to ignore the bitterness and the cramp spreading all through my stomach. I can’t remember the last time I ate, but it might have been the feast my first—and last—night aboard the Æther. Miyole watches me drink, serious faced, and takes the cup away when I’ve finished.
The captain loops her apron on a nail and wipes her hands on a rag. “I’ve got to make a run up to Bhutto station and then to Cuzco, but we’ll talk when I’m back.” She looks to the smallgirl. “Try to keep her awake, Miyole. The longer she sits up, the better.”
“Wi, Manman.”
“Come and hug me,” the captain says. She kneels down and holds out her arms. The smallgirl runs into them.
“Be careful,” Miyole says. “Promise, Manman.”
“Wi, ma chére.” The captain touches her head to Miyole’s. She starts for the door.
“Please,” I say. There’s so much I need to ask her. Where exactly I am and why I’m so weak and why I’m not dead altogether. And I should thank her. And I don’t even know . . .
“It can wait,” the captain says.
“But I don’t even know your name.” I don’t recognize my own voice.
“Perpétue.” She gives a funny half bow, half salute. “Gyre Parcel Service. And my daughter, Miyole. But believe me, Ava, the rest can wait.”
I close my mouth and let my head fall against the wall. I nod. With a wave, Perpétue disappears out the back door, and a few minutes later a high whine fills the air, followed by a thrumming whum-whum, like the giant fans deep in the Parastrata’s innards. The shriek and roar of the mail sloop’s burners build and lift her away.
“Watch,” Miyole says. She runs to the window on the other side of the room and points up to a bare patch of bleached sky.
I squint as the sloop races by, up and away into the blinding sun. Its engines judder and fade. A chorus of sharp squawks erupt from the roof.
“What’s that?” I whisper.
“Manman’s chickens.” Miyole drops down beside me and crisscrosses her legs. “Manman said you could have soup. You want soup?”
I clear my throat. “Please so.”
Miyole hops up and darts to the kitchen on the other side of the room. She sings a little song under her breath in that other language as she unfolds a portable stove, balances a heavy stew pot on top, and draws two fresh, fat fish out of the plastic cooler shoved against the wall. My eyes widen. We have our biolumes, of course. And once my father made a trade with the Nau crewe for cases on cases of tiny fish preserved in salt and oil, but I’ve never seen any like this. I didn’t know they could grow so big. Miyole scrapes the scales from the meat. Then, with a few deft turns of her knife, she hacks off the heads, slices the fins away, and slits their bellies.
“. . . si li pa dodo, krab la va manjé . . .” Blue flames flare beneath the pot.