Seabound (Seabound Chronicles Book 1) by Jordan Rivet Page A

pulled her knees up to her
chest. Breathe . “I started an extra
load of water through the system, like we always do after a storm. Best I can
figure, there was some sort of blockage that Frank forgot to tell me about. I
fell asleep, and the pressure must have started building. Everything overheated,
and the filter material started to fry. Then a bunch of the tanks exploded.”
    “While you were in
there?” Neal was gaping.
    “Yeah, I could
have stopped it if I’d been monitoring the gauges like I was supposed to . . .
Rust! I’m so stupid.”
    “At least you’re
okay. You could have been killed,” Neal said.
    Esther slapped her
palms flat on the floor. “I’m not okay, Neal. None of us are okay. The system
is fucked. We don’t have a water supply anymore.”
    Neal leaned
forward, his hands moving restlessly on his face, his chin, the back of his
neck. “Can it be fixed?”
    “No, we don’t have
the materials. The tanks, the pipes, the RO membranes. Everything is
destroyed.”
    “Doesn’t Frank
keep extra filters? That’s the important bit, right?”
    “He’s supposed to.
He told me today some of the spares decomposed in storage. They weren’t sealed
properly back when he assembled them.”
    She should have
asked Frank if there was a reason he hadn’t started running the extra water
through the system. Maybe he knew about the blockage. This could have been
avoided so easily.
    “Can’t we do the
evaporation thing again?” Neal asked.
    Esther pulled her
pocketknife from her belt and twisted it around in her fingers. There was still
water on the blade. She’d retrieved it from a steaming puddle in the desal
room. “For a while. But we don’t have enough power to sustain everyone that
way. Back when we were kids and they used evap the whole time, they still had
fuel.”
    “Guess it’s been a
while since we’ve had that,” Neal said.
    “We have enough
diesel to get us to the Amsterdam once a year and to run from one storm, maybe two,” Esther said. “If we start
using it to evaporate salt water, we won’t be able to make it to the Amsterdam for new parts, and we’ll all
die anyway. We can use wind and solar, but there are just too many of us for
that to last long.”
    Neal nodded. “So
we need to head for the Amsterdam now?”
    “It’s March.”
Esther slammed her pocketknife into the wood of the floor, causing Neal to
jump. “With these currents, the Amsterdam is too far south.”
    “You don’t think
we have enough fuel to make it?”
    “Are you listening
to me?” Esther pulled out the knife. “We don’t have water.” Dug the knife back
into the floor. “We can’t use our fuel to produce water and to sail halfway to
salting Antarctica at the same time.” Esther felt panic bubbling up in her
stomach. She thought she might throw up.
    “Yes, I’m
listening,” Neal said, still relatively calm. “I’m trying to understand. How
long will our current water supply last us?”
    “A week. Maybe ten
days if we’re lucky.”
    Neal leaned back
in his chair. “That’s all?”
    “Yeah, I was
trying to replenish our reserves when this whole mess happened.”
    Esther pushed her
forehead into her knees, trying to think of something, anything, that would
make their circumstances less dire. They’d become too confident in their
ability to survive at sea, floating endlessly over the ocean. In truth, they
were always one disaster away from extinction. In one careless moment, she’d
allowed that disaster to happen. Her hands found the flat planes of the floor
on either side of the quivering pocketknife. It was something to keep her steady.
    Neal was quiet, as
if he too were trying to process the magnitude of their situation. Finally, he
spoke.
    “It’s not your
fault, Esther.”
    She snapped her
head up. “Of course it’s my fault. I fell asleep. How is that not my fault? I
should have listened to Judith and rested up to perform my community duties.”
    “I don’t know what
to say.