Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi Read Free Book Online Page B

he’d broken when he’d been a ring fighter. Thirteen red and angry slashes there. His very own baker’s dozen, he would say, grinning. And then he’d ask Nailer if he was ever going to be as tough as his old man.
    Richard lit the storm lamp that hung overhead, setting it swaying. Nailer held still, trying to guess his father’s mood as the man pulled a scavenged chair around and straddled it. The lamp’s swinging glare cast shadows across them both, looming and swooping shapes. Richard Lopez was sliding high, burning with amphetamines and liquor. His bloodshot eyes studied Nailer carefully, a snake waiting to strike.
    “What the hell happened to you?”
    Nailer tried not to show fear. The man didn’t have anything in his hands: no knife, no belt, no willow whip. His blue eyes might be crystal bright, but he was still a calm ocean.
    “I had an accident on the job,” Nailer said.
    “An accident? Or you were being stupid?”
    “No—”
    “Thinking about girls?” his dad pressed. “Thinking about nothing at all? Daydreaming like you do?” He jerked his head toward the torn image of a clipper ship that Nailer had tacked to the wall of their shack. “Thinking about your pretty sailing ships?”
    Nailer didn’t take the bait. If he protested, it would just make things worse.
    His father said, “How you going to pay your way around here, if you’re off your crew?”
    “I’m not off,” Nailer said. “I’m back tomorrow.”
    “Yeah?” His father’s bloodshot eyes narrowed suspiciously. He nodded at the rag sling holding Nailer’s shoulder. “With a gimp arm? Bapi doesn’t do charity work.”
    Nailer forced himself not to back down. “I’m still good. Sloth got cut, so I got no competition in the ducts. I’m smaller—”
    “Smaller than shit. Yeah. You got that going for you.” His father took a swallow from his bottle. “Where’s your filter mask?” he asked.
    Nailer hesitated.
    “Well?”
    “I lost it.”
    Silence stretched between them. “Lost it, huh?” was all his father said, but Nailer could tell that dangerous gears were turning now, fueled by the rattle of drugs and anger and whatever madness caused his father’s bouts of frenzied work and brutality. Underneath the man’s tattooed features a storm was brewing, full of undertows and crashing surf and water spouts, the deadly weather that buffeted Nailer every day as he tried to navigate the coastline of his father’s moods. Richard Lopez was thinking. And now Nailer needed to know what—or he’d never escape the shack without a beating.
    Nailer tried an explanation. “I fell through a duct and into an oil pocket. Couldn’t get out. The mask couldn’t breathe, anyway. It was full of oil. It was done for.”
    “Don’t tell me it was done for,” his father snapped. “That’s not your say.”
    “No, sir.” Nailer waited, wary.
    Richard Lopez tapped his booze bottle idly against the back of the chair. “I’ll bet you’ll want another mask now. You were always complaining about the dust with that old one.”
    “No, sir,” Nailer said again.
    “No, sir,” his father mimicked. “Damn, Nailer, you’re a smart one these days. Always saying the right thing.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth all splayed out like a hand, but still the bottle tapped against the back of the chair. Nailer wondered if his father was going to try to hit him with it. The bottle tapped again. Richard Lopez’s predatory eyes studied Nailer. “You’re a smart little bastard these days,” he murmured. “I’m almost thinking you’re getting too damn smart for your own good. Maybe you’re starting to say things you don’t mean. Yes, sir. No, sir.
Sir
.”
    Nailer could barely breathe. He knew now that his father was mapping out the violence, planning to catch Nailer, to teach him some respect. Nailer’s eyes went to the door. Even with his father sliding high, the man had a good chance of catching him, and then everything would be blood and