When we reach the ship for the engineers, a man stands in our way guarding the boardwalk.
He asks us something in Valley of the Sun speak.
‘This girl has important business here,’ Saleesi says, bold as anything. ‘Step aside.’
The guard switches to speak in my language. ‘Important business with who?’ he asks. ‘Or are you just here to see what you can lift with your little light fingers?’ Then he reaches out and slaps Saleesi on the side of the head like she’s a dog what’s been naughty. ‘Get off with ya!’ he says.
‘No!’ I yell. ‘I am here to see Gerra. I have important information about the death of her sister.’
The guard looks at me and tilts his head. ‘Where are you from, short stuff?’
‘The Ockery Islands where her sister died.’
‘I heard about that,’ he says. ‘A bad business. Go straight down to level two. Any detours, any pilfering, and I’ll have you thrown in the lockup.’
‘I won’t,’ I promise, even though I’m not sure what detours or pilfering is. Saleesi grabs my arm and tugs me across the gangway and we’re onto the deck of the engineering families’ ship. ‘Great story!’ she whispers.
‘It’s no story,’ I say. ‘Someone at Jacob’s Reach pushed Gerra and her sister onto the rocks and then tried to cover it up. I ain’t told no one, coz I need to find out more. These Valley of the Sun people seem to like blaming the wrong people for no good reason.’
‘Ha!’ Saleesi says. ‘You’s right about that.’
‘Everyone on this ship has the same job?’ I ask.
‘Some do engines, some do welding, some do electronics, some do energy, but if you’re born into an engineering family you jus’ learn whatever they do.’
‘But what if you’re born in this ship and you’re terrible at engineering and you want to grow vegetables or jus’ go fishing?’
Saleesi laughs. ‘Then you’re a disappointment to your family and you move ships. Come on, I reckon he’ll be down selling parts in the market.’
We take a lift down to level five, along with a man carrying a huge bag rattling with bits of metal, with pipes and wires sticking out and stabbing me as he leans forward to push some buttons.
The doors open into a large workroom. We squeeze past the man and wander around lots of tables with equipment for sale, and people behind those tables working with screwdrivers and wires and little machines that melt metal to stick wires to things. It’s all very complicated, but it’s the kind of thing Jag would like. I can’t help wondering if he wants to be rescued from all this. There’s two large corridors off the big room, and coz we can’t see Jag anywhere here we start down one.
First there’s little rooms with shelves all around and bowls and boxes on the shelves. One room is jus’ small coils of wire, the next room silver and gold bits and bobs, and another room jus’ has bowls of screws. I’m thinking if Jag is here, he’d have a full belt of useless junk by now. A kid in that room is sorting a tray of screws into the bowls by size and she turns and scowls at us. We duck on to the next room.
This room has two tables with kids around them taking apart bits of equipment. The bigger the kid, the bigger the bit of equipment they take apart. They’re straining and grunting and sweating to chip away at rust, make old machinery into parts, heads down, tongues out, and then one looks up and right at me. Those dark eyes far apart on his round face looking so calm even when he’s not. That scruffy hair, sun-bleached on the ends. That rattle of a belt of useful things as he stands up. It’s Jag!
‘I found you!’ I say.
