Salvage Read Online Free Page A

nodded and peeked up.
    â€œYou’re some odd girl,” he said. “You’re the same age as Soli, right?”
    I shrugged and nodded again.
    â€œI’m only two turns older than you, then,” he said. “What’re you doing calling me so?”
    I shook my head and wished a breach would open in the hull below me and suck me out into space. “I didn’t mean any harm.”
    Luck started cleaning again. “All your crewe is odd.”
    I let myself look on him. His bangs swung back and forth over his eyes as he scrubbed the floor. His shoulders tensed and rounded with the motion. A strange, light tickle lifted my stomach, and my ears fizzled, as if I’d come too near the engine’s electromagnet.
    â€œIsn’t it the same on your ship?” I asked.
    Luck snorted. “No.” He looked up and saw me watching him. “Well, some. Except we clean our own messes and Soli can be on Fixes.”
    I sat cross-legged in the hay and straightened my skirt over my knees. I looked over at Soli, sitting on top of the junk locker, eyes narrowed in concentration. “I could never do that.”
    â€œYou could,” Luck said. “You’re on Livestock, right so?”
    I nodded.
    Luck went back to scrubbing. “Fixes is a lot like Livestock, except with less to muck and more figuring. You can do figuring, can’t you?”
    I could count, sure, and even do some addings and takings away. But Modrie Reller always told me not to be proud and flaunt, especially not in front of men. I started to shake my head but caught Luck’s eye again. Something about how he was talking to me, how he was looking at me and not past me made me want to step full into recklessness. I changed my shake into a slow nod.
    Luck nodded with me. “You could do Fixes, then.”
    â€œBut you have to read, right so?”
    Luck frowned. “Can’t you read?”
    I hesitated. “Course,” I lied. It sounded like what he’d want to hear.
    Luck smiled. “You’d be good as Soli after a turn or two.”
    I put my hand on the hay between us and leaned forward, mouth open with the start of a question. Blood surged into Luck’s cheeks, brightening them as red as ther thread. Our eyes met again.
    â€œIt’s up.” Soli called. She wove through the goats, holding the coaxer aloft so its tubes didn’t drag the ground. “Who wants to try it?”
    Luck and I both stood. He held Chinny still while I strapped the coaxer to her and bunched the tubes into the neck of a jug.
    â€œTry knocking that over,” I said to the goat. She glared back at me.
    I toggled the controls to green and flipped the regulator switch. The coaxer whirred to life. Chinny bleated unhappily at me, but she didn’t cry out in pain or give me the smug look I knew meant the coaxer wasn’t doing its job. Milk filled the tubes and trickled into the jar.
    I clapped my hands. “It’s up!” I grabbed Soli and danced her around. “You did it!”
    â€œTold you she’d have the fix,” Luck said, and grinned at his sister. He leaned over and slapped her on the back, the way I’d only ever seen men do with each other. Then he looked at me, and his blush crept back.
    They stayed only a few more days while their father finished trade talks with my great-grandfather Harrah and our crewes sealed the agreement with a pair of marriages—two of our girls to two of their men. I let Soli show me a few fixes on the sly, ’specially some to do with the coaxer and the lift to the chicken coops, while Llell kept a cool distance.
    I hardly saw Luck, except for across the room at meals, when the women stood waiting against the wall while the men ate. But he looked at me sometimes, twice at the weddings, and smiled at me once when he passed through the livestock bay with his father, on the way to inspect our copper bales. That was when I started daydreaming,