Preparations · The Cartographer's Daughter · Pulse Beat
It took her three weeks to make the boat fit to sail, and she learned more about engines than she wanted to. The harbour mechanic, an ancient man called Bhaskar who had known her father, took pity on…
It took her three weeks to make the boat fit to sail, and she learned more about engines than she wanted to.
The harbour mechanic, an ancient man called Bhaskar who had known her father, took pity on her. He showed her how to bleed the fuel line, how to listen for the particular knock of a failing bearing, how to read the colour of exhaust smoke. "Your father," he said, wiping his hands on a rag, "was the only man I ever met who could find a leak by smell."
"What was he like? At the end?"
Bhaskar considered. "Frightened." He said it flatly. "He came here in March, white as a sheet, and asked me to check the boat from stem to stern. He said he might have to leave quickly."
"Leave? Where?"
"He didn't say." The mechanic's eyes were kind. "He told me, if anything happened, to give you the key to the chart chest. Not the office one. The small one."
He opened his tin and took out a brass key, no longer than a finger. "I've kept it six weeks. I wasn't sure you'd want it."