Petal's eyes wandered across the Raft. It was a jumbled, disorganized, dangerous mess. The different boats were constantly pulled and compressed by the waves. The groans they made from grinding against one another filled the air and made it sound like the whole settlement was sinking. Every craft was linked together by a jury-rigged set of metal gangways - people-clogged, creaky platforms that were bent and twisted from the kneading of the ocean.

  Many of the ships had flashing neon signs. Their dazzling colors enticed travelers and locals to come in for a meal or a quick beer. The Raft had every kind of shop imaginable on its ships, from bars and cluttered restaurants to packed night clubs and seedy brothels.

  Lhan tried to adjust the load slung across his collar bone. He moved aside so Quill and Petal could walk ahead of him across one of the gangways, trying to bear their luggage with a smile.

  "So what brings you back, Quill?"

  "Petal does," Quill chirped, now lost in the twisted enormity of the Raft. A puff of steam wafted up from a boat a dozen feet below the gangway. She looked down into the boat's open kitchen. The moist air smelled like lemongrass and fresh noodles. "Although really, I have nowhere else to go."

  "Well, if you need somewhere to crash, I've got an extra bed."

  "I'm flattered, but we need a place to ourselves. Is Hlac still running the hostel?"

  "Yup, he's still in business." Lhan trudged behind the two girls with slow steps, barely able to match their pace. "He might even give you back your old room. It's just up there." He pointed up a rusted staircase.

  Petal watched a pair of merchant seamen stomp across the gangways two feet above her head. Their heavy footsteps made the steel rattle and she nervously hunched over, expecting the whole lattice to fall on top of her.

  "And who are you, Petal?" Lhan grinned at the cowering feral girl. "How'd you and Quill hook up?"

  Petal looked to Quill, expecting her to speak for her. "We met on Smaaland."

  "That little backwater, eh? Heard it's a hell hole."

  "You heard right." Quill motioned for Lhan to lower the sack.

  They'd reached their destination.

  Petal stared up at the colossal ship.

  Hlac's Hostel looked like a Mississippi riverboat. It had four red and white tiers, each of which was lined with decorative columns. The girls were level with the second tier, standing in front of the main entranceway. Several fishermen walked out of the hostel and squeezed past them.

  Petal watched them walk away. They took the set of stairs she and Quill had just climbed up, down to the lower level. She noticed that someone was looking up at her from the very bottom of the Raft, where the mess of wood and metal met the ocean. He was a young boy with thin brown hair. He waved at Petal from beneath the clutter.

  "Thanks for the help, Lhan." Quill began to drag her things up the entrance ramp. "It was nice seeing you again."

  "God Quill, hope this isn't the only time we're going to talk." Lhan shifted his feet. "You're going to stay for a while, right?"

  "Dunno. Depends what Dahmlam tells me."

  "Dahmlam again? Didn't he just get you into enough trouble?"

  "It's not for me." Quill disappeared inside the ship. "It's for Petal."

  Lhan glanced down at Petal. She smiled at him this time and then jogged after Quill, following her into the ship.

  "Well, take good care of her! And stop by the docks sometime soon, Quill. I've missed you."

  ***

  Petal examined the room Quill rented in Hlac's Hostel. It was a comfortable size, about ten by ten. It had no furniture other than two twin beds. A red carpet covered the floor and there was a single, naked light bulb on the ceiling. The window that lay between the beds overlooked the rest of the Raft with a spectacular, third-story view.

  She walked over to the window and stuck her head out. Pirates, merchants, fishermen, and other Raft dwellers scampered up the planking from ship to ship to the chime of buoy bells. Above the noise, Petal could hear a man with a thick Yong accent announce the daily news like a town crier.

  The flashing signs and chaotic hustle and bustle below made her feel like she'd arrived somewhere special.

  "This room is nice. How much did you have to pay for it?"

  "It cost about a third of our supplies." Quill rifled through what was left of their things. "At least we get it for a whole week. Past that we're going to have to get a job, or think of something clever. But who cares? All I know is that we don't have to sleep out, exposed, in that little boat anymore."

  "Who's Lhan?" Petal sat down on her bed. She rubbed her eyes. The afternoon heat had sapped her of her energy.

  "He's a dockworker. We met when I first came to the Raft. Don't worry about him - he's harmless."

  "How long did you live here?"

  "About six months; till I got my first job. That was on a fishing trawler. Its old navigator got drunk and fell overboard. Drowned. My old room was one floor up. I stayed on a different ship for a night or two here and there, but the rest of the time, I slept here."

  Petal grabbed the sack filled with their possessions. She reached into it, trying to figure out what Quill traded for the room.

  "Lhan likes you."

  "I know."

  "Are you together?"

  "No. He's too nice. A doormat. I like dominant men. Bad boys. The opposite of my upbringing. Probably why I fell for Naris."

  "You were with Naris?"

  "Yeah." Quill puckered her face. "I have bad taste in men. What kind of boys do you like?"

  "I don't like boys."

  "Haha. Well, I guess you're still a little young, but getting there. One day you'll understand. You'll try to see the good inside the bad apples when they're nothing but rotten to the core. Lhan might have been good for me but he was too boring. At least that's what I thought. After Naris and Smaaland, I could use being bored for a while. But since when are you curious about me, Petal? Since we first met - the whole time we were alone in your boat - you've barley spoken a word. It's been pretty uncomfortable."

  "I'm not used to talking. Except to Junk. And it was different with her. She was little." Petal turned her gaze back to the window.

  "Well we don't have to be strangers. Especially if we're living together. You should learn how to talk to people, anyway. Talk about something you like. Tell me about Junk. How did the two of you find each another?"

  Petal stared up at the sky. "I found her adrift. I pulled her from the ocean. Her boat sank. She was only three. I felt sorry for her and decided to take care of her."

  "Why were you on Piquairn?"

  "We'd been drifting up from Sol for almost a year. I took us to Piquairn to find food. We ran out before we landed."

  "Hmm. Piquairn's just a little rock. Where were you going to go afterwards?"

  Petal shifted on her bed, resting her head on her pillow. "I was trying to get us to Bimany. It's supposed to be safe there and a lot of it's deserted. We'd been at sea for so long - Junk needed more time on land. I was going to teach her how to hunt. How to make a fire."

  "What about your boat? Where'd you get it?"

  "Sol. . .I stole it."

  "So you had experience stealing before Smaaland then?" Quill teased.

  "Why did you come to the Raft? Why did you leave Hesperia?"

  "Because. . .I was a failure." Quill snorted a forced laugh. "I studied my whole life to be a navigator. I always thought it would be fun - exploring, adventure - all of that. Really it was just a ton of math. I drove myself crazy taking the boards and trying to get into the best academy. Once I finally made it in, I couldn't handle the stress. I started shooting up. Then, one day I had a bunch of people in my dorm, and one of my idiot friends was drunk. A hall monitor saw her stumble out of my room, and they wound up searching my things. They found khat in my desk and expelled me."

  "So?" Petal yawned. "Why didn't you go home? Why did you leave land?"

  "Life in Hesperia isn't like it is on the ocean. Here you can have. . .anonymity. No one here knows I got kicked out of Nhan Zhe. No one knows anything about me other than what I tell them. I can make my own past. I like that. Back on land, everyone knows everything about you. It's in your 'file.' You have a reputation. My reputation was ruined after I got expelled. I would never have been assigned a good job. I moved back home for a little while but my parents were ashamed of me. I didn't have a choice. I had to leave. That's how a lot of people from Kudu wind up on the ocean. But at least I have a useful skill for living out here. Every ship needs a navigator."

  Petal closed her eyes and began to daydream. "What's Kudu like?"

  "It's nice. It's safe. More comfortable then out here but a lot less freedom to do what you want. You have to watch what you say or the government will come after you. I'd probably go back if I could. It still feels like home. Out here . . . it's alien."

  "Junk is probably in Hesperia by now. Yong."

  "I guess. You know as much about that as I do."

  "Have you been to Yong? Is it different than Kudu?" Petal tried to imagine what life on land would be like.

  "I don't know. Yong and Kudu are enemies. We've been at war for fifty years, ever since Yong seceded. People from Kudu aren't allowed to go there unless they're soldiers. All I know about Yong is what I've seen on TV. It's hot, tropical, full of rainforests. They eat spicy food and weird things, like bats and bugs. Their government is supposed to be evil - but that's probably S.S.S. propaganda."

  "Sejanus said it was under Kudu?"

  "Taken over? Yeah, so did Lhan. Maybe Junk didn't go there then."

  Petal lay still. Her eyes wiggled under their lids.

  "What were those visions you were talking about back at Antigony's? What did you mean – the 'other' place? You never told me."

  Petal stayed silent. She let out a snore, pretending to be asleep.

  Quill watched her for a few minutes, trying to call her bluff. The afternoon heat was making her drowsy as well.

  Struggling to stay awake, she whispered to Petal, no longer caring if she could hear her.

  "Tonight I'll take you to see Dahmlam. He's the most connected man on the Raft - I know he still talks to people in Hesperia. If anyone here can tell us about the Kowaka Adon it'll be him."

  - 28 -

  "Bikini Atoll?" Quill glanced up at the neon sign mounted across the bow of the old galley. "It used to just be The Atoll."

  The main deck of the ship was a few feet above Petal's head, at the top of a squat ladder. She could hear the thump of a loud bass beat. It shook the ship's side rhythmically and made the surrounding ocean vibrate.

  Quill walked across the narrow gangway and climbed the ladder onto the ship.

  Petal followed.

  Duhn. Duhn. Duhn. Duhn. Duhn.

  Quill felt the music in her chest. It was a deep, rhythmic techno – a rather passé style back in Hesperia. The fad had obviously not faded out on the ocean. The nightclub was packed with sweaty men and women, dancing to the beat. Their gyrating bodies clogged the hull of the ship which had been converted into a darkened, wooden dance floor.

  Bikini Atoll was the Raft's most popular nightclub. The Raft was one of the few sea people settlements that welcomed all comers, and people from all walks of life crowded the Atoll in particular. Crusty pirates who had never seen land in their lives danced up on sun-soaked girls from Yong. Fishermen on a brief stop at port after spending months at sea sipped moonshine next to Khai Shen merchants fresh out of Kudu.

  Quill loved the atmosphere of the club. She looked up at the ceiling. A set of strobe lights flickered on and off, their hypnotic flashing synched with the twinkling of a disco ball. The lights and beats lulled her into a trance. She remembered partying in the Atoll the first night she'd spent on the Raft, almost a year ago. Over the course of that year, she'd spent half her savings at its neon bar, guzzling the overpriced drinks, while dancing the night away, lost in a deep bass groove.

  Petal looked up to see what had gotten Quill's attention. On the top tier of the dance floor, just below the ceiling, were four girls in glowing bikinis dancing inside little chicken wire cages. They were jiggling their hips, rocking to the dance beat, apparently oblivious to their confinement. She wondered what crime they'd committed to be forced to dance in a cage while the crowd below ogled them like meat. Their slutty outfits and forced smiles made her shudder.

  Quill dragged Petal across the middle of the dance floor. Petal had to hold her nose at the rotten smell of spilled drinks. The stains on the floor grabbed the bottom of her feet, making every step give off a sickening crunch. The air smelled foul. Everyone in the club had halitosis from a horrible mix of cheap cigarettes and rot-gut alcohol.

  "This is where Dum-lumb works!" Petal screamed so Quill could hear her over the thumping music. She couldn't understand how anyone could work in this dark, deafening environment.

  "Dahmlam! Yeah, this is his club!"

  Quill shouted the answer. She bumped into a short, hairy man with silver rings on his fingers. He looked over at her and stared at her breasts before giving her a perverted smile. The man then went back to dancing with a petite girl from Yong, dressed in leather club attire.

  Petal clutched Quill's hand like a little girl, worried she'd loose her in the shuffle. She'd never been surrounded by so many people before. The feeling of the darkness, the music, and the hundreds of sweaty bodies rubbing against hers was overpowering.

  Quill led Petal to the back of the club. Just past the exit was a small stairwell that led to the ship's bridge. In front of the stairs was a blue rope. Two men with pistols guarded it.

  Quill walked up to one of them.

  "I'm here to see Dahmlam," she said confidently. Petal shuffled up next to her, ears ringing from the music.

  The guard to the left glanced at his companion and then scratched his chin.

  "You're. . .Quill, right?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "I've got a mind like a trap. I see you once - I remember you forever."

  "I don't remember you. . .Lux knows me. He always lets me in to see Dahmlam."

  "I have Lux's job now." The man smiled. "Tell me, why does Dahmlam need to see you?"

  "It's none of your business. You're a doorman, not a bouncer. Dahmlam knows me, okay? So just let us through."

  "Dahmlam says I'm the gatekeeper. You want to get in to see Dahmlam; you tell me why you want to get in to see Dahmlam. You see Dahmlam at my discretion or you don't see Dahmlam at all."

  Quill did a mental double take at the guard's choice of phrasing. "Who are you, again? We've met?"

  "I'm Cero. Lux used to be my boss. Lux used to stand where I'm standing – until Lux got shot. I used to stand where Hicks is now." He pointed to the other guard. "I got promoted. So now I stand here."

  Quill looked at the other man for a second and then turned to Cero. "I-"

  "I remember you especially, Quill, because you're one of the few dry foots I've liked. Most dry foots are too polite; or they have the gall to cop an attitude."

  "Thanks. . .but why can't I see Dahmlam?"

  "Because you haven't told me why Dahmlam needs to see you."

  "I need to talk to him about the job he gave me. I finished it, but there's something Dahmlam needs to know about the captain he hooked me up with."

  "Fine." Cero stepped aside. "You can see Dahmlam. The redhead can wait here. She's too young to be in this club, anyway."

  "She's half the reason I came to see him. Just get out of our way! What's this S.S.S. shit?"

  "As of now, Dahmlam only sees people Dahmlam knows. Dahmlam knows you. I know you. Dahmlam can see you. Dahmlam doesn't know her." Cero pointed at Petal. "I don't know her. Dahmlam doesn't see her."

  Petal scowled at Cero.

  "Dahmlam knows her. I know her. Dahmlam doesn't know me. I don't-" Quill mocked Cero's droning voice and cadence.

  "Do you want to see Dahmlam at all?" Cero stopped her.

  "Yeah," Quill spat. She turned to Petal. "Just wait here and I'll ask him for you, okay?"

  Petal looked down the passageway, at the packed dance floor.

  "I'll wait outside."

 

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