How many lives was she willing to risk to save one man? At what point did the good of her crew outweigh that of Charlie?
You might think this an unfair moral problem to force upon a simple window washer, but there’s a certain arrogance in that kind of reasoning. A window washer can think, same as anyone else, and their lives are no less complex. And as I’ve warned you, “simple” labor often leaves plenty of time for thought.
Yes, intellectuals and scholars are paid to think deep thoughts—but those thoughts are often owned by others. It is a great irony that society tends to look down on those who sell their bodies, but not on those who lease out their minds.
As Tress set the final flare in the row, Huck trailed off.
“So…I guess now we have to test them,” he said. “Any thoughts on how to do that?”
“Well,” she said, “the Dougs have mostly been staying on the upper deck lately. And the hold is empty of goods.”
Huck nodded; it was the most obvious choice. She set him on her shoulder, then packed her flares, gun, and notebook in her bag. She went and explained to Laggart that she wanted to inspect the handiwork Ann had done patching the hull down below. It might, Tress explained, help her understand how to make better roseite patches in the future.
It was an unremarkable lie, but if Laggart saw through it, he likely thought she was trying to make work to stay busy. The cannonmaster gave his permission and said he’d keep anyone from bothering her. The exchange was so relatively pleasant, Tress briefly wondered if something was wrong with him.
On her way down, a Doug called from the rigging, pointing into the distance. Another rainline had been spotted. Tress’s breath caught, but the rain—this time—swerved away from the ship and vanished soon after.
Tress tore her eyes away and hastened down to the ship’s cavernous hold. She latched the trap door at the top of the steps for a little extra security, then set out her three oil lamps—something denied to common sailors. It was unwise to leave too many things burning when you lived in what was essentially a giant dry, hollow piece of firewood.
The hold was half empty, having disgorged its goods at the last stop before the Crimson. Foodstuffs and water supplies made up her audience as she loaded a charge, then a flare, into her weapon. She then turned and raised the gun toward the empty aft portion of the hold.
Huck, to his credit, didn’t run, though he did cower a bit in her hair, which she left unbraided more often these days—in a tail or just unrestrained, waving free. She paid for that with the brush at nights, but it felt…liberating. At home, she’d always been embarrassed for how her hair behaved. But out here, there were so many more pressing things to worry about.
Tress pulled the trigger—which caused the gun’s hammer to hit the flare with enough force to break the tiny glass vial in the charge. Zephyr spores exploded, releasing air, faintly blue. The flare popped out the front of the gun…
…then flew approximately a foot before nose-diving into the floor. She probably should have used a tad more zephyr.
Unfortunately for Tress, the rest of her work had been meticulous. She’d fundamentally grasped the nature of the mechanisms from the schematics. And so, her design functioned perfectly. When the flare hit the deck nose-first, the shock pushed the silver point inside into the sphere of roseite, releasing the water.
Verdant vines exploded outward, seizing Tress and enwrapping her with dizzying speed. She felt an initial spike of fear and some discomfort as the vines constricted, lifting her up a good two feet. But there was no actual pain, and once it was over she felt more humiliated than frightened.
“Tress!” Huck said. “Oh, Tress! Are you all right?” He scampered off her shoulder and onto the vines.
She wiggled her fingers, then started laughing.
Tress’s laugh was a silly thing, involving snorts and hiccups. It was an honest laugh, validated by its ridiculous nature.
In that moment, the last vestiges of Tress’s spore fear died away. She’d made a mistake, and she would be careful in future experiments. But today, her mistake had merely cost her a little dignity—traded away for the pleasure of knowing what it felt like to be a grape trellis.
“In my bag,” Tress said, still chuckling. “Fetch me the silver knife.”
As Huck scrambled to obey, Tress noticed the ends of the vines were still growing. As before, when she thought about them, they turned toward her. In this particular case, she didn’t want them to constrict her further, and so she thought of them pulling away. Remarkably, they did.
It wasn’t perfect control. Plus, she couldn’t do anything about the already grown vines and had to use the knife to cut herself free. But it left her wondering how far her control could go.
She carefully added more zephyr spores to each of her charges. The next experiments were less amusing. All three flew as she wanted, though one of the flares bounced free without releasing vines.
The other two exploded with vines just as she’d hoped. During the last experiment, she tried thinking about the vines as they grew, willing them to not grab onto anything. This time, instead of taking hold of the wall and the ribs of the ship, the vines stretched toward her—then the entire mass fell to the floor.
She spent the rest of the afternoon cutting the vines down and taking them up to dump out her window. She hid everything incriminating in her room with Huck—chastising herself for forgetting to lock the door on her way out earlier—and rushed to help Fort with the day’s dinner. He found her a distracted helper, as her mind was elsewhere. Why had one of her flares failed to release vines? What if she fired a dud when she was facing Crow?
She’d need to do more testing before initiating a confrontation. But she finally had a weapon. A surprise.
Crow was looking for someone who didn’t fear the spores. And that was just what she was going to get.
THE PROTECTOR
The captain authorized opening a keg of something intoxicating after dinner, which Tress considered a nice gesture. It proved the captain wasn’t completely heartless. （Granted, that meant Crow did have a conscience, but ignored it most of the time. Which is verifiably worse.）
Tress did not partake of the brew. She’d only been drunk once in her life, two years before at a holiday gathering when she hadn’t realized how much punch was in the punch. That day, she’d blathered endlessly about her favorite recipes. While Charlie had found it endearing, she worried a little alcoholic grease today might make her plans slip out as freely.
Instead she gathered up a plate of the night’s meal: biscuits and a strong meaty gravy with vegetables. It was basically stew you ate with your fingers, but it at least gave the illusion of variety. There was only so much she could do with the ingredients at her disposal.
The crew loved it anyway. After months of meals that bore an uncomfortable kinship with tile grout, one did not complain at a little repetition on a delicious theme. And—though one might not believe it after experiencing the variegated ways the Dougs could assault a language—the crew was not stupid. They saw that Tress was helping Fort. And suddenly their meals contained food rather than something merely—by the strictest definition of the word—edible. So when they cheered her as she left, it wasn’t only because they were mildly inebriated.