Nailer had never thought to wonder why Tool was amongst the ship breakers. He had just been there, much as the boat refugees had been. The Spinoza clan and the McCalleys and the Lals had all come to work, and so too had Tool. They were there for the work.

But it was true what Lucky Girl said. Half-men were used for bodyguards, for killing, for war. Those were the stories he had heard. He’d seen them with Lawson & Carlson’s bankers. Seen them clustered around the blood buyers when they came to inspect the yards. But always with others. Swanks. People who could afford to buy creatures mixed from a genetic cocktail of humanity, tigers, and dogs. And they were expensive. The human eggs that jump-started their development were always in demand, and commanded a high price. The Life Cult often supported itself on the ovum of its devotees, and the Harvesters were always buying.

“Where’s your master, then?” Nita asked. “You’re supposed to die with your master. That’s what ours always say. That they’ll die when we do, that they will die for us.”

“Some of us are astonishingly loyal,” Tool observed.

“But your genes-”

“If genes are destiny, then Nailer should have sold you to your enemies and spent the bounty on red rippers and Black Ling whiskey.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No? But you descend from Patels, and so you are all intelligent and civilized, yes? And Nailer, of course, is descended from a perfect killer and we know what that means about him.”

“No. I didn’t mean that at all.”

“Then do not be so certain of what my kind can and cannot do.” Tool’s eyes bored into her. “We are faster, stronger, and whatever you may think, smarter than our patrons. Does it worry the swank girl to run across a creature like me, running free?”

Nita flinched. “We treat your kind well. My family-”

“Don’t bother. My kind will serve you, regardless.” Tool looked away and kept wading. Nita fell silent. Nailer pushed on through the waters, thinking about the strange conflict between the two of them.

“Tool?” Nailer asked. “Did they train you? Did they make you have a patron?”

“A long time ago, they tried.”

“Who?”

Tool shrugged. “They are dead now. It hardly matters.” He nodded at the approaching docks. “Do you recognize any of the clippers?”

Nita looked out at the ships against their floating docks in the distance. “Not from this far.”

They made their way closer, slogging through the water. The water’s cool was a relief from the tropic heat, but Nailer was tiring from wading. It was a slow process.

The water deepened, and they finally came to floating docks, where they were able to pull themselves out of the water. Lucky Girl wrung the brackish water out of her clothes with distaste, but Nailer enjoyed the breeze on his wet skin. Out in the distance, the clippers were sailing. From this vantage, the whole world stretched before him. Clippers and freighters at their anchor slips. The blue hulls of England, the Red flag of China North. He had memorized many of the flags from the old wrecks the ship breakers worked, the hulls painted with nation and merchant tags. The mass of shipping here was a catalogue of the world.

A small patrol boat, burning biodiesel and kicking up fumes, moved between huge sailing vessels, carrying pilots out to ships that waited to be guided in to dock. All around them the docks bustled. Swanks came down out of ships and were put on water shuttles to make their transfer upriver or to the rail lines inland. A pair of half-men guarded a yacht of some swank, staring at Tool with an open challenge in their eyes and guttural growling of acknowledgment as he went past. All around them, coolie people swarmed-black, pink, brown, blond, redheaded, black-haired, tall and short, all of them with labor tattoos and levy ensigns-working cargo down into shallow-bottom rafts for transfer. More shallow bottoms moved out from the drowned wreckage of the city, sailing in a slow wallow to the big ships.

“We could have just hitched with the freight,” Nailer muttered, nodding at rail containers wallowing their way toward the clipper ships. Some of the cargo barges were old broken sailing vessels, but others were larger, more massive. Built to burn coal and also to take advantage of wind. Huge finlike wind wings stuck up along their lengths, harnessing the breezes to help move the lumbering ships and their scrap loads of nickel, copper, iron, and steel.

The activity was intoxicating, busier even than the ship-breaking swarms of Bright Sands Beach. Nita craned her head over the crowds of people. Pointed. “Those ships over there,” she said.

Ahead, a line of clippers lay anchored. A schooner, a catamaran freighter, and a yacht, all of them lying across a bridge at a separate dock. They were beautiful, the fastest things on the high seas, equipped with rocket cannon and small missile systems for pirates, armed and deadly and fast, and nothing about them like the rusting wreckage that Nailer had always known and worked to disassemble. Comparing the clippers to those old-world wrecks was like squinting into daylight after coming out of a rust hold.

As they got closer, Nita scanned the ships and said, “They’re not mine.” She slumped, obviously disappointed.

Nailer felt a stab of disappointment himself, but stifled it. If he was realistic, it was unlikely they’d find a friendly ship immediately. Still, the river port was full of traffic. Ships were arriving all the time. Even as they watched, one of the clippers was unfurling its sails, long rippling canvas streams swishing down into place on fast pulley systems. They snapped in the breeze as the ship cast off and slipped away from the dock.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Nailer said.

Lucky Girl nodded, but still she scanned the ships as if hoping one of them would magically turn into something else. Finally she nodded and they went back through the shallows and down along the dock bridges, making their way back into the Orleans as dusk fell.

That night, they bought rats on a stick from a boat seller, and watched the street river traffic. Small boats poled past, carrying food and laborers and shore-leave sailors. From somewhere in the distance came a mournful sound of brass instruments, a death dirge echoing over the water. A few children played in the black water. Nailer took the children to mean that their current place was as safe as any could be. The serious drunks and crystal sliders were somewhere else.

The noise of crickets and cicadas filled the dark air. Mosquitoes swarmed around them, biting. The insects were much worse than on the beaches. There, the sea breeze blew many away, but here, amongst the still air of the swamps they swarmed close and tore at them, a misery of biting insects. Nailer and Nita slapped at the bloodsuckers, while Tool watched amused. Nailer wondered if Tool’s skin was exceptionally thick or if there was something about him that scared even mosquitoes away.

“How much money did Sadna give you?” Tool asked.

“A couple reds and a yellow back.”

Nita asked, “That’s all?” then bit back her words.

“That’s two weeks’ heavy crew,” Nailer said. “What, you spend that in an afternoon shopping?”

Nita shook her head, but said nothing. Tool said, “Tomorrow you will need to work if you wish to keep eating.”

“Where?” Nailer asked.

Tool gave him a yellow-eyed stare. “You’re not stupid. Think for yourself.”

Nailer considered. “The docks. If we work at the docks, we can make money and keep an eye out for her people.”

Tool grunted and turned away. Nailer took it as agreement.