Islands in the Sky

3.10

Sema walked. She passed the eating house she had been in before, and almost went inside and asked if she could scrub pots for food. She almost did, but she didn’t want to impose when they had been so kind to her earlier, and she was a little concerned that if they said yes, but that she should start right away, then she would have a problem since she wasn’t actually hungry again yet. It seemed better to wait, and to think a little more first.

It was her best idea so far, though.

She went back to her dock, wondering what to do. She might have to ask the dock manager for help, she decided. Even though it might look weak, and might make him decide to take advantage of her, she was probably better off just to ask. He had seemed to think he could be of use, and she might find out something useful.

She decided she would ask.

The dock manager was sitting in his doorway in a chair when she got back. She could see inside his building, and see it was a house.

She stopped and said, “Hello.”

“The quiet one,” he said. “I didn’t see you leave.”

“I know,” Sema said. In the hope that seeming sly or clever might encourage him to be honest.

He grinned at her, and didn’t seem to care if she was sly or not. “Was it a nice walk?” he said. “Did you find what you needed?”

Sema shook her head.

“That’s a shame,” he said. “What did you not find?”

“I need to trade. Or to work. And I’m not sure where to do either.”

He nodded, and smiled, a little smugly, as if he had expected her to say something like that, sooner or later.

“Could you help me?” Sema said. “Can you think of anything useful I might do?”

He kept looking at her, but didn’t say a thing. Sema looked back. She wondered about his silence. She wondered why he wasn’t speaking.

She waited, hoping he was deep in thought, and considering her question. If he was, she didn’t want to disturb him. She waited, but he still didn’t speak. Almost as if he was waiting for her to say something else.

He was waiting for that, she suddenly realized. He was waiting to be offered something of value to help her. This was Anew-Hame, where everyone seemed to be trying to trade. He hadn’t been trying to be kind, with his offer to help. He had been trying to do business.

Sema needed to pay him.

Even though she had nothing to pay him with.

Sema thought. She thought of what she had already seen of the city, walking around. She thought of the traders with the boatload of plastics, and their arrangement of a share of the profits as shipping fees to move a cargo. She thought of that, and the way the trade was offered, but how the payment not actually made until the cargo was sold and the money earned.

Suddenly she understood what she had to trade.

“Oh,” Sema said. “I could give you something to help me.”

The dock-manager smiled. “Then I should think I can help,” he said.

Sema had no idea what kind of fee to offer, so she decided just to let him take what he liked, and hope, since he didn’t know for certain that she didn’t know what was reasonable, that he wasn’t too greedy, and she didn’t end up paying more than twice or three times what she should.

“I’ll pay a fee for anything you can suggest,” she said. “If you have a good idea. I’ll pay you what you say is fair for the suggestion you make.”

The dock-manager nodded, and seemed happy with that. “Are you staying here?” he said. “In Anew-Hame.”

Sema was surprised. “I don’t know. Why?”

“People often stay. Once they arrive, they do. Especially those who arrive with very little, as you did.”

Sema looked at him, thinking.

“It makes a difference to what you might do now,” the dock manager said. “That’s all. Depending on whether you intend to stay forever or go home later. It is useful for me to know. So perhaps, if you have run away from home, or fled some famine and can never return…”

Sema thought about that. “I think I shall stay. For a time, at least.”

“Then welcome.”

“Thank you.”

“And I think I can help you.”

“For a fee,” Sema said. “Which I shall pay.”

“Indeed.”

“So tell me,” Sema said. “I will pay if I do what you suggest.”

“If you are staying, and no longer wanted your boat, then it would be worth quite a lot as firewood.”

Sema was surprised. Then she thought a little, and wasn’t. The city was big, and built-over, and full of people who needed to cook, and keep warm, and seemed to have no trees.

“Wood,” she said.

He nodded. “Firewood,” he said. “Timber. It all needs to be brought in. Any wood here is worth a lot.”

“How much?”

“To a merchant? Perhaps enough to live on carefully for a month, for what you have there in the boat. Or if you sold it directly to others, and not though a merchant, then twice that I would think.”

“Oh,” Sema said. It was a lot. Or rather, it sounded like a lot, to live for a month. It was especially a lot for something which she had always taken for granted, and just picked up as she needed to, from underneath trees, at home.

“I know a merchant,” the dock manager said. “I also know some people who would purchase it directly. If there was a share for me…”

Sema nodded. “There will be a share if I do,” she said. “But let me think on it a little first.”

“Of course.”

“Since there is no hurry,” Sema said. “Since I have a week docked here to decide, at least.”

“Of course,” the dock manager said, smiling again. “Of course you do. Think for as long as you’d like.”

Sema nodded, and said, “Thank you,” and went back to her boat to consider.