“Everything okay, Michael?”
Rand was standing behind Dunk with two others, Fastau and Weir. Rand was clutching a long wrench; the other two had lengths of pipe. They were holding these implements in an offhand manner, as if they’d merely picked them up in the course of a day’s work.
“Just a little misunderstanding,” Michael replied. “How about it, Dunk? We don’t need to have a problem here. You’ve got my attention, I promise.”
Dunk’s arm pressed tighter against his throat. “Fuck you.”
Michael glanced over Dunk’s shoulder at Weir and Fastau. “You two, go check on the stills, see what the situation is, then report back to me. Got it?” He returned his attention to Dunk. “Got this covered. I’m hearing you loud and clear.”
“Twenty years. I’ve had it with your bullshit. This…hobby of yours.”
“Totally understand your feelings. I spoke out of turn. New boilers up and running, no problem.”
Dunk kept glowering at him. It was hard to say how things were going to go. Finally, giving Michael a last hard shove against the bunker, Dunk backed away. He turned toward Michael’s men and nailed them with a hard look.
“You three should be more careful.”
Michael withheld his coughing until Dunk was out of sight.
“Jesus, Michael.” Rand was staring at him.
“Oh, he’s just having a bad day. He’ll cool off. You two, back to work. Rand, you’re with me.”
Weir frowned. “You don’t want us to go to the stills?”
“No, I don’t. I’ll look in on them later.”
They walked away.
“You shouldn’t goad him like that,” Rand said.
Michael paused to cough again. He felt a little foolish, though on the other hand, the whole thing had been strangely gratifying. It was nice when people were themselves. “Have you seen Greer anywhere?”
“He took a launch up the channel this morning.”
So, feeding day. Michael always worried—Amy still tried to kill Greer every time—but the man took it in stride. Except for Rand, who’d been with them from the beginning, none of Michael’s men knew about that part of things: Amy, Carter, the Chevron Mariner, the jugs of blood that Greer dutifully delivered every sixty days.
Rand glanced around. “How long do you think we have before the virals come back?” he asked quietly. “It’s got to be close by now.”
Michael shrugged.
“It’s not that I’m not grateful. We all are. But people want to be ready.”
“If they do their damn jobs, we’ll be long gone before it happens.” Michael hitched his tool bag onto his shoulder. “And for fucksake, will somebody please go find Patch. I don’t want to wait around all morning.”
—
It was evening when Michael finally emerged from the bowels of the ship. His knees were killing him; he’d done something to his neck, too. He’d never found the leak, either.
But he would; he always did. He would find it, and every other leak and rusty rivet and frayed wire in the Bergensfjord’s miles of cables and wires and pipes, and soon, in a matter of months, they would charge the batteries and test-fire the engines, and if all went as it should, they’d be ready. Michael liked to imagine that day. The pumps engaging, water pouring into the dock, the retaining wall opening, and the Bergensfjord, all twenty thousand tons of her, sliding gracefully from her braces into the sea.
For two decades, Michael had thought of little else. The trade had been Greer’s idea—a stroke of genius, really. They needed money, a lot of it. What did they have to sell? A month after he’d shown Lucius the newspaper from the Bergensfjord, Michael had found himself in the back room of the gambling hall known as Cousin’s Place, sitting across a table from Dunk Withers. Michael knew him to be a man of extraordinary temper, lacking all conscience, driven by only the most utilitarian concerns; Michael’s life meant nothing to him, because no one’s did. But Michael’s reputation had preceded him, and he’d done his homework. The gates were about to open; people would be flooding into the townships. The opportunities were many, Michael pointed out, but did the trade possess the capacity to meet a rapidly growing demand? What would Dunk say if Michael told him that he could triple—no, quadruple—his output? That he could also guarantee an uninterrupted flow of ammunition? And furthermore, what if Michael knew about a place where the trade could operate in complete safety, beyond the reach of the military or the domestic authority but with quick access to Kerrville and the townships? That, in sum, he could make Dunk Withers richer than he could imagine?