Palmer scooted away, keeping the knife in front of him. He was weak from fitful sleep and lack of food, but this poor creature before him seemed even weaker. Enraged and with the element of surprise, the man had nearly killed him, but it had been like fighting off a homeless dune-sleeper who had jumped him for some morsel of bread. Palmer dared to turn his dive light up so he could see the man better.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” the man said. “Thought you were a ghost.”
The blood on the man’s chin and down his neck made Palmer’s stomach turn. “Did you think I was your partner come back to get you for what you did to him?”
The thin man pointed a bony finger at Palmer. “You’re a diver. Did the others send you? Oh, thank the heavens. Thank the heavens!” He glanced down at his naked form. His eyes shot between the desks where the corpse lay. “No, no. I didn’t kill him. He died out in the sand. I brought him in here. I was… I was starving. Oh, god. Food. Do you have food? Water?” He staggered forward.
“Stay back,” Palmer said.
The man hesitated. “Juice,” he said. “I used up all my juice on the way down. Did you bring a charge? I’ve got a tank of air, but no juice. Help me.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“I thought you were a ghost.” He took another step forward, wild eyes on Palmer’s dive light. “Give me my knife back,” he said, baring bloody teeth. “I found that. Found it in your boot. In my boots.”
The man screamed and lunged, a bloodthirsty cry, naked limbs all bone and sinew, a mad and desperate creature in the red throb of Palmer’s flickering, dying light. The two men crashed together. A clatter as metal fell to tile, a single coin spilling out of the gash in Palmer’s suit, a sound two scroungers knew well, the price of one life saved and another taken as bare flesh impaled itself on a dive knife and a belly opened like a purse, a cost far graver than coin spilling to the floor.
23 • Missing Treasure
Vic and Marco sailed back into a Low-Pub that had transformed into chaos. It was not the sleepy town they usually found after their pre-dawn dives; this was a town startled into frenzy, a transformation jolted by the electricity of rumor. The tale of Danvar’s discovery had sent the diving community into a tizzy, and along with that community the rest of the small southern town. Those who rummaged scrapheaps, the welders who reshaped old steel, the women who catered to men’s lust, the shopkeeps and barkeeps and everyone with a love of coin, all seemed to be out in the streets gossiping or packing their sarfers or checking their gear before they ventured out to find the great and untouched city said to be buried a mile deep.
But confirming a legend may have heightened its allure without any promise of bounty in return. Damien had warned them that no one knew exactly where the city was, only that a couple of divers were said to have found it. Some brigand had flapped his inebriated gums in a crowded bar, claimed to have been there to witness the discovery, and now that same brigand was said to be dead. It had sounded to Vic like the sort of unsubstantiated nonsense that scavengers and conspiracy theorists were drawn to. And even as she and Marco pulled into the marina and began to voice doubts about the veracity of these Danvar claims, other sarfers were flying out in all directions at once. They could hear rumors being shouted from one deck to the other over the whistling winds, each diver seizing on the location that made the most sense to them. It was clear from the chaos around the marina that no one knew where Danvar was, but that wasn’t going to stop anyone from being there when it was uncovered. It was madness. Vic was about to tell Marco this, when he voiced madness of his own.
“So where should we start?” he asked.
Vic moved to the foot of the mast and helped him flake the sail against the boom. “What do you mean start?” she asked. “You don’t believe this nonsense, do you?” She lashed the sail to the boom and saw that Marco was tying slip knots while she was using reefs. As if he planned on heading right back out and she was looking to stay.
“It’s probably a load of shit, but what if? You’d rather sit here and miss the find of the century?”
“No, I’d rather sit here than chase my tail around the thousand dunes. If there was a find of the century, I’d go. But we both know there isn’t.” She rolled her eyes as Marco undid one of her reef knots and looped in a slip. “You do whatever. I’ve been up and diving since four while you’ve been napping in your sarfer. I’m gonna shake the sand out of these clothes, see what’s in this other case, and then get some sleep.”
Marco looked hurt.
“If you find Danvar,” she added, “come and wake me.”
“Well, I need to run to my place and grab my tanks. But yeah, I’ll catch you later.” He leaned over the boom for a kiss, and Vic obliged.
“Later,” she said. She hopped down to the sand, her knee still a little sore, and slung her gear bag over her shoulder. She grabbed the two cases from the sarfer’s haul rack and extended the handles. Dragging them to her house on those small and useless wheels, she cursed the madness the old world’s allure made in men. The promise of buried treasure warped their minds. Vic liked to think she was more rational than that.
But of course, her mind was prone to dreams of sudden riches too. And she had her own guesses about the location of Danvar. She wasn’t immune to the idea of seeing a city untouched by time and scavenge. Even with the craziness around her, the hysteria, the fun she might poke at Marco and these people off their rockers, she knew her own rocker was prone to tipping, too. It tipped right back, that feeling of vertigo as some momentous event loomed underfoot, until she was the one asking herself: What if it’s real? What if?
But only a fool runs around shouting “A find! A find!” when they haven’t seen it in their own visor. Right? She tried to convince herself. Because the greater fool sits in a bar alone, nursing a warm beer, while hauls of coin start coming into town and the stories that will one day be legend fill the pub. It’s a fool either way, so it’s all about cost. Which fool would she more loathe to be?
She dragged her two bags across the sand. It was early morning, but so many people were out and about. Divers who would’ve normally asked where she’d found the cases rushed right by in a hurry. Shopkeeps who would’ve begged her to come pop those latches on their counters were too busy haggling over the rising price of a fuel cell or the use of a generator or the purchase of a haul net. Vic slid through the throngs to her house. She set the cases down outside her shack and fumbled in her pocket for the key. Out of habit, she tapped her toes on the kickplate along the bottom of the door to knock the scrum from her boots loose. The gentle raps caused the door to swing open, hinges squealing. Vic pulled her hand out of her pocket. She was damn sure she’d latched it when she’d left.
“Palm?” she called.
Her brother often treated the place like it was his, had started spending as much time in Low-Pub as Springston and liked to take advantage of the fact that Vic spent most of her nights over at Marco’s. He was the only other person with a key. There was no answer from inside. She studied the door, saw the scratch marks from someone jimmying the thing open with a screwdriver, which brought back memories of the dozens of times she’d jimmied the damn thing open with a screwdriver. She hesitated before going in, wondered if maybe the latch just hadn’t caught that morning. It’d been dark and she’d been groggy when she’d left.
“Hey Palm? You asleep?”
Vic reached into her boot and pulled her latch-break out. She used the metal rod to push the door all the way open. It was dark inside, the west-facing windows getting little of the morning sun. She didn’t hear anyone. Must’ve not pulled the door shut when she left. That was it. She lit a candle and checked the bedroom and bathroom, was satisfied with her theory. She went back for the two bags, brought them inside, and kicked the door shut.