Lightspeed: Year One

“Do you suppose she thought it was worth it?”

“I imagine she didn’t,” I said. “If she wanted a baby, she didn’t get one, did she? But maybe she just wanted to be pregnant for a little while.”

Nina looked so thoughtful, swinging her feet, staring at the rippling water where it lapped against the hull, she made me nervous. I had to say something.

“You’d better not be thinking of pulling something like that,” I said. “They’d split us up, take the house, take Amaryllis—”

“Oh no,” Nina said, shaking her head quickly, her denial vehement. “I would never do that, I’d never do anything like that.”

“Good,” I said, relieved. I trusted her and didn’t think she would. Then again, my mother’s household probably thought that about her too. I hopped over to the dock. We collected up the gear, slinging bags and buckets over our shoulders and starting the hike up to the house.

Halfway there Nina said, “You don’t think we’ll ever get a banner, because of your mother. That’s what you were trying to tell me.”

“Yeah.” I kept my breathing steady, concentrating on the work at hand.

“But it doesn’t change who you are. What you do.”

“The old folk still take it out on me.”

“It’s not fair,” she said. She was too old to be saying things like that. But at least now she’d know, and she could better decide if she wanted to find another household.

“If you want to leave, I’ll understand,” I said. “Any house would be happy to take you.”

“No,” she said. “No, I’ll stay. None of it—it doesn’t change who you are.”

I could have dropped everything and hugged her for that. We walked awhile longer, until we came in sight of the house. Then I asked, “You have someone in mind to be the father? Hypothetically.”

She blushed berry red and looked away. I had to grin—so that was how it stood.

When Garrett greeted us in the courtyard, Nina was still blushing. She avoided him and rushed along to dump her load in the workshop.

Garrett blinked after her. “What’s up with her?”

“Nina being Nina.”

The next trip on Amaryllis went well. We made quota in less time than I expected, which gave us half a day’s vacation. We anchored off a deserted bit of shore and went swimming, lay on deck and took in the sun, ate the last of the oranges and dried mackerel that J.J. had sent along with us. It was a good day.

But we had to head back some time and face the scales. I weighed our haul three times with Amaryllis’ scale, got a different number each time, but all within ten pounds of each other, and more importantly twenty pounds under quota. Not that it would matter. We rowed into the slip at the scale house, and Anders was the scalemaster on duty again. I almost hauled up our sails and turned us around, never to return. I couldn’t face him, not after the perfect trip. Nina was right—it wasn’t fair that this one man could ruin us with false surpluses and black marks.

Silently, we secured Amaryllis to the dock and began handing up our cargo. I managed to keep from even looking at Anders, which probably made me look guilty in his eyes. But we’d already established I could be queen of perfection and he would consider me guilty.

Anders’ frown was smug, his gaze judgmental. I could already hear him tell me I was fifty pounds over quota. Another haul like that, he’d say, we’ll have to see about yanking your fishing rights. I’d have to punch him. I almost told Garrett to hold me back if I looked like I was going to punch him. But he was already keeping himself between the two of us, as if he thought I might really do it.

If the old scalemaster managed to break up Amaryllis, I’d murder him. And wouldn’t that be a worse crime than any I might represent?

Anders drew out the moment, looking us all up and down before finally announcing, “Sixty over this time. And you think you’re good at this.”

My hands tightened into fists. I imagined myself lunging at him. At this point, what could I lose?

“We’d like an audit,” Nina said, slipping past Sun, Garrett, and me to stand before the stationmaster, frowning, hands on her hips.

“Excuse me?” Anders said.

“An audit. I think your scale is wrong, and we’d like an audit. Right?” She looked at me.

It was probably better than punching him. “Yes,” I said, after a flabbergasted moment. “Yes, we would like an audit.”

That set off two hours of chaos in the scale house. Anders protested, hollered at us, threatened us. I sent Sun to the committee house to summon official oversight—he wouldn’t try to play nice, and they couldn’t brush him off. June and Abe, two senior committee members, arrived, austere in gray and annoyed.

“What’s the complaint?” June said.

Everyone looked at me to answer. I almost denied it—that was my first impulse. Don’t fight, don’t make waves. Because maybe I deserved the trash I got. Or my mother did, but she wasn’t here, was she?

But Nina was looking at me with her innocent brown eyes, and this was for her.