Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 59 of 63

The harbor sat an hour off when Cora spotted the scout. She had the owl out for a routine wind check and it came back fast, wing joint ticking hard. She read the belly dial, then looked up. "Something's east of us. Small ship. Moving toward our line." Bram took the glass and found it. A stripped courier scout, single tank, running low over the ridge shoulder. Not Kesh. The paint was wrong. "Whose colors?" Omondi asked. "Trellin's second." Bram lowered the glass. "He works salvage on the side." Omondi's face changed. "Salvage." Bram had dropped three crates two harbors back to clear a mast. Sand crates and a fuel drum. He had marked the drop pins on a page of his journal and moved on. A courier bag lying off-course in unmapped country looked like a down. Salvage rights went to whoever filed first at the next harbor. "He's racing us to the counter," Bram said. "If he files on our drop before we sign in, the drum and crates become his. Any bag matching the drop line becomes contested. He can hold our stamp for a week while it clears." "We lose the circuit," Omondi said. "We lose the bag." Cora was already writing. "I can send the owl ahead with the drop-pin log. If our page hits the harbor first, salvage is moot. It's not a down. It's a marked drop." "Wing won't take another long run." "It'll take one." Bram tore the drop page from his journal. He signed the margin, stamped it with the depot seal he kept in his jacket pocket, and folded it into the owl's carry clip. The leather cracked where he bent it. He had folded that jacket around too many papers this month. Cora threw the owl underhand. It dropped, caught wind, and cut east and low toward the harbor line. The scout was closer to the counter by miles. The owl was faster than the scout by a hair, if the wing held. They flew straight. Bram kept the vent by feel. The crown seam ticked once when a warm updraft lifted them and he fed the vent open a quarter turn to lose the lift. He would not climb again in this bag. Forty minutes on, the owl came back empty-clipped. Cora read the return tag with her thumb. "Stamped. Filed as marked drop, seven minutes before the scout landed." Omondi let out a breath. Bram did not. They moored at the far pin. The harbormaster met them on the boards with the drop page in his hand and the scout pilot behind him, still arguing. The harbormaster lifted the page. "Marked drop. Salvage denied. Sign in." Bram signed. His hand shook on the down-stroke. The seam above the bag ticked once in the wind and went quiet. He would not leave this harbor in this envelope. The bag needed a full seam repair before another climb, and the repair would cost him a day he did not have.