––––––––
Manda steps carefully along the metal grating of the gangway ramp, always wet, always slippery. The littered ocean foams beneath. On both sides of her conveyor belts clatter up from the scoop of the bow and into the ship. Across the middle belt is another ramp and beyond that the third belt, all three carrying debris from the water into the vast maw of the ship as it churns through the endless swirl of trash surrounding them.
“Ears on, Lucas,” she yells at the belt tender nearest her, ghost-like in the morning mist, a hooded druid in his yellow raingear. He is her brother, who now ignores her, or so it seems. Maybe he can’t hear her in the din of the clanking belts, but she suspects he can. He is a troubled soul, often haughty, angry, especially with her, something she has neve
