The watchman tugs at something behind him, and a faded red flag unfurls on the rig. “So they know you’re coming,” he explains.

“Thank you.”

“Now go. Before the dust hits.” The flag flaps gently above him, teased by a breeze that hasn’t existed all day.

I turn southeast and run.

Chapter Three

I thought the oil rig was large, but the tanker makes me feel no bigger than a beetle.

It waits ahead, partially swallowed by the earth and leaning to the side, as if it sank into the ocean’s drying floor off kilter before the mud hardened. Sand has gathered at the tanker’s base, a big rounded hull that extends up toward the deck. Like Zuly’s watchtower rig, a railing surrounds it, but here, mounted torches flicker in the strengthening wind.

“Hello?” I call.

There’s a creak, and something descends from the shadows. A miniature version of the tanker, lowered to the ocean bed by a series of pulleys. The mini-tanker has no deck or railings, and its curved hull is actually hollow. I’m supposed to sit in it, I realize.

I heave Indie from the dragger and into our ride. Completely limp, she seems to weigh a ton, and sweat beads her brow. Her eyes are closed, but moving behind her lids.

“Indie?” I ask her as the ropes creak and we’re lifted into the air.

She murmurs something, but her eyes stay shut.

I hate this damn baby. I’ve hated it since I learned of it, and it must know, because now it’s trying to punish me.

When the pulleys creak to a halt, the mini-tanker is level with the deck of the tanker itself. Hands grab me and pull me over the railing. My feet hit the pitched deck. It’s massive. Floors are a rarity in the wastes, and the sheer size of what stretches before me is confounding. In the flickering torchlight I can make out rows of boxed plant beds and lattices filled with vines, all growing beneath cloth canopies. Basins for collecting water. Looms filled with wool. This high off the ocean bed, the wind is stronger, and several pack-members pull linens over the goods to protect them from the incoming storm.

I move toward Indie, only to find that two women are already hauling my sister onto the deck.

“You have payment?” a voice says.

I turn and find an old woman before me. Her skin is scored with wrinkles, her matted hair a white knot atop her head. Instead of goggles, she wears the remnants of a vulture’s skull like a mask, and it covers her forehead and nose, making her appear birdlike herself. The hem of her long, dark wool robe is adorned with feathers.

This is Zuly of the Ark.