“Yeah,” Conner lied. A smile stole across his lips as he thought—without remorse—of how little sleep he’d gotten.
He helped his sister raise the mainsail, cranking on the winch as she guided the battened canvas up through the jacks. As he muscled the sail up those last few laborious meters, he thought about Gloralai and her lips and her promises and her talk of the future, and he felt an armor form across his skin, some invisible force field like a dive suit puts out, and the sand striking him was no longer a nuisance. It was just a sensation. As was the wind in his hair and the shudder in the sarfer’s deck as his sister moved to the helm and the mainsheet was tightened, the canvas gathering the breeze. The sadness of so much tragedy was still everywhere around him, but Conner felt a new awareness that he would persevere. He felt alive. The sarfer hissed across the dunes, and he felt madly alive.
They sailed downwind to get west of Shantytown before turning south. Conner tidied the lines and then got comfortable in one of the two webbed seats at the aft end of the sarfer. He helped work the sheets while his sister manned the tiller. Watching the sad and flat expanse of sand where Springston used to be, he asked his sister why they didn’t just cut across rather than sailing around.
“Because we’d catch the skids or the rudder on some buried debris,” Vic told him. “This way is longer, but it’s safer.”
Conner understood. He remembered all that was buried out there. He checked that his dive suit was secure, wasn’t going to fly away. It already felt like his, that suit. It smelled like him. Had served him.
It was quiet as they sailed in the direction of the wind. Just the shush of sand on the aluminum hull. It wasn’t until they were beyond the last of the Shantytown hovels and even west of the water pump that they turned south and gathered the sheets. The sun was nearly up. There was already enough light to see by. Conner watched Waterpump Ridge slide by, the sand blowing from its heights, tiny sissyfoots up there dumping their hauls. Vic had left the ridge well to port to keep it from blocking their wind.
“So what’s this nonsense about Father?” she asked. She took a turn on one of the winches, locked down the jib sheet, then sat back with a leg resting on the tiller, steering with her boot. “What was that scene on the stairs last night about?”
Conner remembered his sister barging out of the Honey Hole. He wanted to turn the question around and ask her what that scene had been all about. She’d been the one who’d caused it. He adjusted his goggles, tucked his ker up under the edge to keep it in place. He wasn’t sure how to tell her the same news without getting the same reaction. Their mother had probably dumped too much on her all at once the night before. But he tried. “You know what last weekend was, right? The camping trip?”
He tried not to make it sound like an accusation for her not being there. Vic nodded. The sarfer glided happily south in a smooth trough.
“So, Rob and I went alone like last year. Palmer didn’t make it … which I guess you already knew. Everything went the same, you know? We set up the tent, made a fire, did the lantern—”
“Told stories about Father,” Vic said.
“Yeah, but that’s not the thing.” He took a deep breath. Adjusted his goggles, which were pinching his hair. “So we went to sleep. And in the middle of the night, a girl stumbled into our campsite. A girl from No Man’s Land.”
“The girl Mom wanted me to meet? The one she said came all the way across. And you believe that?”
“Yeah. I do. I was there, Vic. She collapsed into my fucking arms.”
“Maybe she’s Old Man Joseph’s daughter,” Vic said, laughing.
“It’s not like that,” Conner said. “Vic, she was sent by Dad.”
His sister’s brow furrowed down over her dark goggles. “Bullshit,” she said. She wasn’t laughing anymore.
Conner tugged his ker off. “It’s not bullshit. I’m telling you. She knew who I was. And Rob. She described Dad to a tee.”
“Anyone in town could do that.” The sarfer hit a bump, and Vic glanced toward the bow, adjusted their course. “And even Mom believes her? You sure it’s not just someone looking for a handout? Some kid from the orphanage?”
“Yes, Mom believes her,” Conner said. He rubbed the sand out of the corners of his mouth. “Palmer doesn’t, but he wasn’t there. I don’t know how long he even talked to her.”
“No one comes out of No Man’s Land,” Vic said. She turned from watching the bow to peer at her brother. He wished he could see past her dark goggles. The same hard shells that allowed one person to see, blinded another. “So what’s her story?” Vic asked, her tone one of distrust and suspicion.
“She was born in a mining camp on the other side of No Man’s. Dad helped her escape. He sent her with a warning—”
“And she claims to be our sister? That our father is her father?”
“Yeah. Dad built her a suit, and she dove down under some kind of steep valley and walked like ten days to get to us. But—”