Excerpt from “Day’s Hunt”,
They broke out of the foam just after
sunrise. The sun hung low on the horizon, fat and bloated and rust-colored,
streaks of rusty orange streaming out of it, leaking into the shit-brown
air.
The steady sshh of the brown and
yellow foam rubbing against the ancient hull was replaced, intermittently
at first, and then with a constant display, by the thumps and scrapes and
rubbings of the topmost layer of the landfill sea. Davies, searching the
horizon for their prey, leaned over the side and watched for a moment as
the refuse of centuries past bumped and bobbed to the surface.
The ship, Ew York Tim, fought its
way through the mixture of liquid and solid with a special engine built
hundreds of years before Davies’ time, and kept running with scavenged
parts dredged up from the depths or cobbled from other such vessels after
they had finally been committed to the dumps. Admiral Yates was especially
talented at finding and magically recycling, and Kelly, his engineer, had
a knack for keeping the worst-sounding junker running another day.
The others were coming out on deck now.
The Admiral and Smythe were joined by Jimbo, Kelly, Rohan, Domingo, and
Archambault. Blackie climbed up the ladder to the nest, Martins came forward
to stand with Davies.
The Admiral stood on the top deck, held
an ancient brass spyglass to his right eye, the metal battered and burnished
with age. So far the horizon yielded nothing of import, so Davies turned
his attention back to the Admiral, who would most likely be quicker to
spot any action.
The Admiral's cap feather ruffled slightly
in the breeze, and his pigeon, Heinz, danced anxiously on his right shoulder,
nervous at the cries of the gulls as they awoke and launched themselves
towards the ship, hoping for scraps of whatever. Spots of white marched
a line down the front and back of the Admiral’s coat, joined now by two
more as Heinz shat up his discontent.
