Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

this phenomenon”—Simon
put a hand on Esther’s shoulder—“even if we don’t fully understand it.”
    “Way to go, mate,”
Reggie said. “I knew you’d come up with something eventually if I kept sneaking
you parts.” He grinned at Esther.
    Judith shot him a
dirty look. “Yes, well done, Esther. Now, is that all?”
    “No,” Esther
began, glancing at David again. He stood casually between her and Dirk, arms
folded. “We’re getting to the Amsterdam soon, and this new technology is going to change how we trade with them. First
of all, we won’t need any crude. And we should think about how we’re going to
share the technology with the other ships.”
    “My proposal,”
David cut in smoothly, “is that we should sell the separator idea. I’m sure you
all know how valuable it is to have an energy-efficient method of travel,
especially one as innovative as this. I’d be happy to handle the arrangements—”
    “Hold on,” Judith
said. “I don’t think we should distribute this system to anyone. You’ve done
well, Esther, but the technology should stay with the Catalina .”
    “Why not just give
it away?” Esther said. “You know how this technology will change things. It’d
be pretty self-serving to keep it.”
    “Need I remind
you, Esther,” Judith said, “that we’ve acquired a rather dangerous enemy in the
form of the Galaxy Flotilla ? You stole their ship and a group of
their citizens. We have to protect the Catalina above everything else. The best way to do that is to keep any advantages to
ourselves.”
    “I agree with
Judith in part,” David said, smiling at her with all of his straight white
teeth. Judith was unmoved. “I’m fairly certain the Galaxy captains decided not to chase us when we got away on the Lucinda because it would waste too much
fuel. It was a simple cost-benefit analysis, but that doesn’t mean they won’t
cause problems for us later on down the line. That’s exactly why we should sell
the technology. We have the opportunity to make ourselves some powerful
friends.”
    “The Catalina is better off without friends,”
Judith said. “I think your ‘friends’ on the Galaxy proved that, don’t you? And if we release the technology to anyone else, the Galaxy might get their hands on it.”
    “Another option
would be to produce the biofuel and sell it ourselves,” Simon said. “We’d
control the means of production at least.”
    “Absolutely not,”
Judith said. “We cannot expose ourselves to regular contact like that.”
    Judith had always
kept the Catalina as isolated as possible.
They only met with the Amsterdam once
a year out of necessity.
    “You can’t just
close yourselves off from everyone,” David said. “Where will we get parts in
the future? I’m sure Reggie can tell us that the raw material we have on board
this ship won’t last forever.”
    “The problem is
rust and salt,” Reggie said. “Simple as that. Everything is going all rusty and
salt-corroded. If we can’t trade for new shit to patch things up, eventually
we’re going to lose the hull.”
    “You are correct,”
David said. “We need to think about the future.”
    Esther frowned. David
was walking a thin line. He wasn’t even one of them—not really. He seemed
a little too eager to help the Catalina for
someone who was planning to leave it. Still, David’s plan could work, and she
had been trying to improve their quality of life. He was right about one thing:
the Catalina was falling apart. Rust
and corrosion were taking an ever more exacting toll. They needed to increase
their access to resources—and not just energy—if they were going to
sustain their way of life.
    Simon was studying
David, but Esther couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “If you try to sell it to
only one party, you may gain enemies,” he said after a moment.
    “That’s true,”
Esther said. “Wouldn’t we make more friends by giving the technology away?”
    “This isn’t a
question of