“Call,” I holler, as I come up on the deck, but he’s not where I left him. I see several shapes moving in the dim lights that rim the base of the deck. Who else is up here? Some of the crew? “Hey,” I say, stepping out onto the deck and then Naomi grabs my arm, hard, stopping me.
The shapes advance, evolve. As they come closer they turn from shadows into people whose faces I don’t recognize.
Raiders.
“We want the gold,” one of them says. “Tell us where it is. Now.”
My mind races. My eyes hunt.
Where is Call?
He didn’t have time to sound the alarm. Did he have time to hide?
“Tell us where it is,” another raider says, “or we’ll kill all of you and take it anyway.”
I look at Naomi and Nik. Their hands are up.
“You can’t kill all of us,” I say. “You need us alive. You don’t know how to run the ship.”
“You two, take us below,” the raider says to Naomi and Nik. “Show us where the gold is or we’ll shoot you.” He gestures in my direction. “Keep her up here.”
The raiders train their guns on me. My mind wants me to stay alive. My heart is sick with worry about Call. But he’s fast. He’s good. He’s probably hiding somewhere, waiting for his turn. Waiting for the instant he can pick them all off.
A moment passes.
And then I hear a terrible sound: the ship’s motor shutting down. They’re stopping us.
I sidle toward the edge of the deck. Are more raiders waiting down there in the water? Did Call escape? Is he standing in the river, silent, hoping I’ll look over the edge? Waiting to catch me if I jump?
If he is, we could still get away. We could leave and not look back.
“Go ahead,” says the raider guarding me. “Take a look.”
I glance over the side. Spots of light on the water—raiders in boats, holding torches. There are at least three dozen of them down there in addition to the ones already on the ship.
How are there so many? They were supposed to be dying out.
Only twenty-three people live on the dredge. We can’t handle an armed group this size. And we’re too far up the river to call for reinforcements from the Outpost.
They’ve timed this perfectly.
Where is Call?
I’m frantic to find him.
The raiders herd the other members of the crew up the stairs and out onto the deck. I see Naomi, Nik. The cook, the first mate. The captain. The cartographer. The other machinists and the miners. None of our crew is armed. The raiders must have taken our weapons.
Call is not the only one missing. I don’t see the second mate, either.
And then, last up the stairs, two more raiders, each carrying someone. Good, I think, we injured some, but then they throw the people down on the deck of the dredge and I see one’s the second mate and the other is turned over, facedown, and neither of them moves.
I do. Across the deck I stumble, crashing to my knees next to the facedown man. I put my hand on a dark place on his back and it comes away bloody. Naomi makes a sound like a cry. They might shoot me in the back too but I have to know. I have to know what I already know.
I turn him over. And there he is, his face lit by the cool glow of the deck lights and the fire of the raiders’ torches. His eyes are open, alone.
Call.
I put my fingers to his lips. His skin already feels cold to me.
“Get up,” says a raider.
I don’t.
Call was shot in the back. He didn’t have a chance to sound the alarm. He was shot in the back and he was alone. What do his eyes say? Nothing. They say nothing. He’s nothing. He’s not here anymore.
Am I still here?
Can you be this hollow and not blow away on the wind?
I glance over my shoulder at the other crew members. My friends. Naomi and the captain and all the rest of them, and I think, I wish you were dead instead of him. You and you and you. Everyone else on this ship. All of you. I’d trade all of you for one of him and it wouldn’t pain me one bit.
Someone else steps into my line of vision. A raider. I hear the creak of his boots as he crouches down, but I don’t lift my gaze from Call’s face. His eyes.
“Do you know who we are?” The man’s voice is rough as rock, or gold. Not the polished shiny gold that’s been refined and purified. The heavier, dirt-burnished kind that we drag up from the river bottom.
“Raiders,” I say.
“Drifters,” he says.
I couldn’t care less what they call themselves. I take Call’s rough hand in mine.
My face is wet.
“We’re letting you go,” the man says. He doesn’t raise his voice, but it carries well, and the ship is so silent. “We left food for you on the shore. It’s enough to get you back to the Outpost if you walk fast and don’t eat much.” He leans close, so close I can feel his breath on my cheek and see the glitter of his eyes in the torchlight. “Tell your Admiral that we’re done with you taking from us. Tell him this is the last time we leave anyone alive.”
I reach into Call’s shirt pocket. I look at the buttons, the fabric, instead of at his dead eyes. One of the raider guards grabs my shoulder to haul me back, but not before I’ve taken out the folding ruler that Call always kept with him.
“What’s that?” the raider asks.
I don’t answer. “Help me,” I say to Nik. “Help me bring him with us.” Even though Call’s gone, I won’t leave his body with the raiders.
“Leave it,” says the rough-voiced raider. “Get on out of here.”
Fury, hot-white and loud as a motor, sounds through me. “Naomi,” I say. “Will you help me?”
She doesn’t move. Her face is sad and sorry. She’s afraid. They’re all afraid. I’m not. The worst has already happened.
As they drag me away, I twist around and see that the raiders are dragging Call, too. His head lolls back. He carries none of his own weight.
He’s heavy, and yet he’s not here at all.
* * *
• • •
Out on the shore, the dredge is an enormous deep shape against the night sky, and then it’s the sun, exploding.
“They’ve blown it up.” The captain’s voice shakes.
Heat washes over us. A few singed shards of metal come down into the water and glint-glance off the rocks we tore up earlier.