The Lost Wreck of the Spero

by Nemo West

Table of Contents

Chapter 3: Cavender’s Cabin

“Wow, I can’t believe this place is still standing,” Triss said as Sam cautiously maneuvered his rover into the narrow channel beside Cavender’s Cabin.

“I can’t believe it either,” Chelle added, gazing at the dilapidated cabin that represented the last trace of one of Etruria’s most notorious lost treasure-hunters.

More than fifty years ago, the minor celebrity Jace Cavender had led a team of hopeful explorers into Toboso Marsh. A former teen pop star, Jace had battled to remain relevant as age and ego eclipsed his days in the limelight. Aiming for success as a vid-caster, he’d streamed a publicity stunt search for the wreck of the Spero.

The grim footage from his expedition’s final days had prompted a boom of incoming rescuers and disaster-gawkers. Although no one ever found Jace or his last surviving crew, the resulting media circus had made a substantial contribution to the local economy, funding a latest-gen upgrade for New Tuscany’s fermentation vats, with artificially intelligent monitoring systems for molecular flavor cultivation.

Over the past five decades, almost every resident of New Tuscany had scrawled their initials somewhere on Cavender’s Cabin. So, too, had hundreds of Jace fans, who also littered the site with votives, glossy glamour photos of their idol, and little thumb-sized plastic jam cards that played his most celebrated song, Forever You, on a loop until their batteries died. As a result, despising that song had become an ingrained part of local culture, provoked by all the tourists who insisted on blaring it when they visited New Tuscany.

Cavender’s Cabin itself was an easy-up model designed for endurance camping in rugged terrain. Although really more of a robust tent than a cabin, its alliterative nickname had proven catchier with the locals. Fifty years of accumulated rainwater stains and mold had dimmed its once bright, reflective colors. The original build had included a working bathroom assembly and kitchenette, as well as flex-alloy tarps that could magnetically tether to the floors and ceilings for modular bedroom partitions. However, souvenir-hunting visitors had looted everything they could pry loose from the site over the years.

Sam, Triss and Chelle had used this cabin as the official headquarters of their old explorers’ club, and a base for all their ambitious forays among the mangroves. Returning to it now marked a fitting start to their final excursion through the marsh.

After Sam docked his rover, they gingerly leapfrogged across the path of old boards they’d nailed among the prop-roots during their exploring days. Years of neglect had taken a toll on some of the wood, but enough remained serviceable for them to unload what they’d need for a night in the cabin.

Chelle and Triss spent the rest of the afternoon remarking on all the little changes they noticed since the last time they’d been there: some new graffiti here and a particularly gaudy new memorial to Jace there. Sam had never stopped coming out to the cabin, so nothing there was new to him, but he grinned as nostalgia worked its potent magic on his friends.

Chelle also noticed that Sam seemed truly at ease, a state of mind for which she had few memories. Around the colony he always had a fitful, impatient air, making it clear there were other places he’d rather be, and other things he’d rather be doing. Now, however, he was right where he wanted to be, and an enviable contentment twinkled in his eyes. With a grimace, Chelle remembered how much she used to wish that twinkling gaze would settle on her one day.

For dinner, the trio shared homemade cicchetti and a bottle of Sangiovese with a muscular leather undertone punctuated by notes of bright cherry. Chelle’s mother had overseen the production of this particular vintage, which had won a few offworld awards and thereby earned her a prestigious reputation back on Etruria. Curiously, that success had also translated into a host of new responsibilities around the winery for Chelle, seen now as the heir apparent to her mother’s talent.

One such responsibility — managing supply vendor contracts — had led Chelle to discover a natural talent of her own, as a shrewd negotiator. While she didn’t entirely resent all the extra work that had come along with her mother’s newfound status, she did resent how little work some other members of her generation got away with doing. She rolled that lingering bitterness around her palette now, along with a mouthful of her mother’s handiwork, while she reclined against her backpack, facing Sam and Triss.

Meanwhile, Triss finished a morsel of burrata, helped herself to a second glass of Sangiovese, and then focused her attention on Sam. “So, explain to me how things are supposed to be different this time,” she prompted in an interrogative manner.

Still nibbling at a handful of stuffed dates, Sam looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean: hundreds of other people have scoured Toboso, using satellite scans, sonar sweeps, and grid-search patterns, but none of them ever found anything.” Triss narrowed her eyes. “So, how are we supposed to do any better?”

Sam leaned forward with a conspiratorial demeanor and revealed, “Because this time we have an advantage no one has ever had before.”

Triss sat back slightly. “We do?” She cocked a curious eyebrow “And what advantage is that?”

“Do you remember that big project, the summer before last, when our parents expanded the vineyards?”

“Triss wasn’t here for that,” Chelle pointed out.

Triss flashed a brief, impatient frown at Chelle. “I may not have been here, but my parents told me about it.” She turned back to Sam. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, when they expanded the vineyards, they also expanded the irrigation system,” Sam explained. “And the extra draw must have affected the water table or something, because the water level in the marsh has dropped significantly since then.”

Chelle blinked. “It has?”

“Yeah, if you look at the moss rings that indicate the high-water marks on the prop-roots, they’re more than two feet above the current water level,” Sam said. “Now, the water margin normally varies between seasons, but not this much.”

“Are you sure?” Triss asked.

Sam glanced at her with a did-you-really-just-ask-me-that expression. “I practically live out here; yes, I’m sure.”

“Okay, so the water level has dropped,” Triss accepted. “So what?”

“Well, marshes can have a lot of deep lakes and channels, but for most part they’re generally pretty shallow.” Sam couldn’t help interrupting himself to add, “Although, did you know, technically, Toboso is a swamp, not a marsh?”

Chelle and Triss blinked but weren’t sure how else to respond.

“Swamps have trees. Marshes don’t.” Sam shrugged. “Whichever one of our great-great-grandparents named this place obviously wasn’t a botanist.”

Triss pursed her lips impatiently. “Do you think you could get to the point?”

“Right, right; sorry,” Sam nodded. “So, when the water level drops in a place like Toboso, then a lot of land that used to be under water ends up above water, which means we can see things now that no one ever could before!”

“That’s how you found the buckle,” Chelle suddenly realized.

“Yes! Three years ago, the land where I found it was underwater, but now it’s not!”

Chelle’s eyes widened. “Then we really do have an advantage no one else has ever had before!”

Sam grinned. “Yep!”

“Wait.” Triss waved a hand as if calling a penalty on the conversation. “Even if there’s more dry land in Toboso now, there’s no way an entire mining freighter could fit below just two feet of water.”

“Well, no,” Sam agreed. “But, like I said, there are plenty of deep channels, and the mud beneath the marsh is always water-logged, so it’s soft and squishy, like wet sand. Over time, something as heavy as a mining freighter would have sunk, to say nothing of how deep it probably burrowed in the first place when it crashed here.”

Triss frowned. “Then what difference does it make if the water level has dropped? We still won’t be able to find anything.”

“Well, hold on.” Sam held up a placating hand. “Okay, yes, the Spero is probably buried,” he admitted. “I mean, I’d actually be shocked if it wasn’t, otherwise, it’d be pretty hard to explain why no one else has ever found it.”

“Then what the hell are we even doing out here?” Triss challenged. “We have to get into the ship in order to get the amrathyte. How are we supposed to do that if it’s buried?”

“That’s why I’ve been carefully tinkering together a bunch of siphons, tills and other digging equipment over the years,” Sam replied. “All we need to do now is find part of the hull or a tail fin or something sticking out of the mud. Once we do, I can get us into the ship, and then... all of our dreams can come true.”

Triss let out a slow breath and stared pensively into the middle distance, visibly weighing how much hope to portion out for this enterprise. “All of our dreams,” she murmured.

Chelle studied the expressions on her friends’ faces with a skeptical pout. “Right,” she muttered. “All of our dreams.” Crossing her arms, she added, “Minus ninety percent, of course.”

Triss turned to her in surprise. “Minus ninety percent? Why?”

“Salvage rights,” Chelle answered with shrug.

“What?” Triss turned to Sam. “What is she talking about?”

Sam sighed and clicked his tongue. “Something we never really thought about much when we were kids, but... under Colonial law, the owner of a starship retains salvage rights over a wreck for two hundred years.”

Triss’s brow wrinkled. “So, what does that mean for us?”

“It means even if we find the Spero, the amrathyte still legally belongs to Terra Nova,” Chelle said.

“But... hasn’t it already been two hundred years?” Triss asked.

“Not quite yet,” Sam answered. “The clock starts from the date the ship is reported missing. In the Spero’s case, the official two-hundred year mark won’t be until sometime next summer.”

“Next summer?” Triss scowled. “So, after the evacuation? After the volcano has already blighted our homeworld? That’s when the salvage rights will expire?”

Sam cleared his throat. “Well, um, yes.” Sensing that he needed to change the course of the conversation, he quickly added, “But that doesn’t mean we’re wasting our time.”

Triss suspended the outburst seething behind her gaze. “How so?”

“Because there’s a finder’s fee,” Sam explained.

Triss vented a sharp breath. “Let me guess. Ten percent?”

“Right. By law, the owner of a shipwreck has to pay no less than ten percent of the salvage value to whoever finds it. That’s why so many explorers have come to Etruria over the years. The Spero was hauling the last cache of amrathyte from the mines on Croesus when it went missing.” Sam gestured excitedly with his hands. “That cargo is worth a fortune, so even just the finder’s fee would give us more than enough to afford the atmosphere scrubbers.”

Triss processed that information for a moment. Then she looked Sam in the eye. “And after the atmosphere scrubbers... will there be anything leftover... for us?”

Sam blinked. “Well, yeah, I’m sure there will be.” He grimaced. “But... you know that’s not why I’m out here.”

Letting out a long, slow breath, Triss nodded. “Yeah, Sam. I know that’s not why you’re out here.”

Sam opened his mouth to reply but stopped. He glanced at Chelle, who could only frown and shrug. Uncertain what else to say after that, each of them slowly retreated into their own thoughts. The resulting silence seemed poised to consume the rest of their evening. However, their surroundings gradually exerted a propitious influence. The three of them had spent most of their youth camping in this cabin together. Being back in it now stirred memories of better times.

To Chelle’s surprise, Triss broke the silence first. “You know, I remember the first time we spent the night out here,” she said. The others turned to her, almost bewildered by the unexpected warmth in her tone. Up to that moment, she’d only been curt and aloof since her return to Etruria. She surprised them again when she turned a mischievous grin toward Chelle. “And you snuck along a bottle of that really yummy white,” she said. Then she snapped her fingers to herself, trying to remember. “What was it called again?”

“Vermentino,” Chelle answered, basking in the first smile she’d seen from Triss in more than five years.

Triss pointed a congratulatory finger. “Vermentino, that’s right!” Her grin broadened. “Even though we grew up at a winery, that was the first time I ever got drunk.”

“Me, too,” Sam said.

“And me,” Chelle added as a hesitant grin dimpled her cheek.

With a blissful, faraway look, Triss said, “That was a lot of fun.” She sobered slightly to add, “I’m glad I got to share it with you guys.”

By reflex, a catty response leapt to the tip of Chelle’s tongue, but she stopped herself, reluctant to spoil the unexpectedly pleasant mood. Instead, she cautiously replied, “So am I.”

Inspired by Triss’s example, all of them soon began trading stories from the vanished all-for-one-and-one-for-all days when they’d roamed Toboso together, dreaming of what they’d do with pockets full of Croesine amrathyte. Their conversation grew livelier as they emptied the first bottle of Sangiovese and followed it with a second.

The voluble mood and rose-hued memories reminded Chelle how important their old explorers club had been to all of them. Stranded on a flyspeck colony in a backwoods star system, their options and opportunities had always seemed meager. The fantasy of finding the Spero had given them more than just a reprieve from the fitful boredom of pastoral life; it had also given them hope that one day they might be able to escape Etruria’s narrow horizons.

As her mind began to float with the familiar buoyancy of a wine buzz, Chelle found herself reflecting on how dearly she used to love her friends. A substantial part of her bitterness toward them now stemmed from how hurt she’d been when they all drifted apart, and how badly she’d missed them. Their company had been a refuge during her fraught formative years.

Short, chubby, and cursed with an unmanageable tangle of frizzy hair, Chelle realized early on that life had dealt her a sparse hand. When puberty brought its urgent new desires, she’d watched Triss effortlessly enjoy dozens of blushing, giggling dalliances with the sons of visiting tourists. By contrast, Chelle had once directly propositioned someone, desperate for that most primal form of validation after years of fruitless flirting. The awkwardness of her rejection still scalded her with shame. Growing up, she’d had a lot to be miserable about, but her friends had helped her through it.

Over the next few hours, the three of them laughed, drank, and sang a loud, mocking rendition of Forever You when Sam rolled over and accidentally triggered an old jam card beside his sleeping bag. Gradually, they reminisced themselves to sleep.

As she drifted off, snuggled between the others, Chelle thought about the eager, determined gleam in Sam’s eye when he’d pitched this trip to them yesterday, back at Dante’s. She’d almost forgotten how special the bond between the three of them had been, or how compelling Sam’s charisma could be. While he snored softly beside her, she smiled at him, sincerely glad he’d remembered that bond and had never given up on resurrecting it.

Proceed to Chapter 4...

Copyright © 2022 by Nemo West

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