"At least seventeen punctures below the waterline." She counted off the inspection results on her fingers. "Nine spots have corrosion deeper than one-third of the plate thickness. If we tow the whole ship away, it'll come apart within ten nautical miles of leaving port."
Su Li said nothing. His palm rested against the ship's rail, rust flakes biting into his hand.
Eight hundred tons. Sixty years. A ship that had never sailed the open sea.
"Take the core." Elonore said. "Remove a sample piece from the buffer layer, cut off a section of the keel for comparison. That'll be enough."
Su Li's gaze swept over the deck. The vegetable crates had long since been dismantled, but the chicken-coop frame remained, its wood rotten black. Farther in, the stove in the half-open kitchen was still standing. Someone had overturned an iron wok on top of it, now buried beneath a thick layer of dust.
There was a scorch mark on the wall behind the stove.
It was from the first time Saina had fried fish aboard the ship and splashed oil everywhere. Elonore had retched for ages, Elena had chewed Saina out, and Saina had shot back, "Then don't eat it if you think it stinks." After that, the three of them had fought to finish every last bite of fish.
Su Li walked over and measured the deck around the scorch mark with his hands.
"Take this piece off too."
Elonore looked at that wall but didn't ask why.
"All right."
Dismantling the core took an entire day.
Every weld between the base and the keel had rusted solid, hard as one solid block of iron. Su Li stood directly above the base, fifth-tier ether pouring from both palms to support the bottom of the core. Dark golden light