Double Share (3 page)

The
Ellis’s
small workout room—it wasn’t big enough to be called a gym—was available around the clock, of course, and the treadmills and sauna saw a lot of me even during the first few days underway. There was a smallish open space where I could run through my tai chi exercises as well. After four years with Sifu Newmar, I had a good grasp of the basics, and felt my energy, strength, and balance develop as I had gotten deeper into the discipline during my time at the academy.

So when I ran out of things I wanted to read, I headed to the gym. During the middle of the morning, I usually had the place to myself. Without distractions I could zone out, my mind not so much disengaged as completely focused. I worked on getting each movement where it needed to be—each finger, each toe, the shifting of weight.

“Your back knee isn’t bent far enough.”

I blinked out of my focus and saw that one of my fellow passengers—a man I knew only as Kurt—had come into the gym dressed in loose fitting workout clothes. He didn’t smile, but then again he never smiled. As near as I could tell, his face never changed from his blank, neutral expression. His eyes were always focused on whatever he looked at, but his expression seemed like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear. He traveled with a small man I took to be his employer.

“I said, your back knee isn’t bent far enough. It needs just a touch more to free that flow.” His voice was a smooth tenor, almost too light for his bull like frame.

I looked down and realized he was right. I was getting sloppy and slightly adjusted my back knee a bit more.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile, “that feels better.”

“May I join you?” he asked.

I shrugged and adjusted my position to make room for him. He stepped into my routine without hesitation and followed along, one step behind and to the left of me, as I completed the Wu Long Form. From the corner of my eye, I saw his large body working smoothly on Wave Hands Like Clouds, but I had a bit of advantage in Snake Creeps Down. His larger frame bent, dipped, and lifted into Golden Cock almost effortlessly, but since I was shorter, I could get lower—although not by much. His movements were smoothly controlled and carried the graceful power I recognized in Sifu Newmar, but tai chi was obviously not his main discipline.

After a few ticks, I put him out of my mind and moved directly into the Yang Short Form, before starting the Wu Long once more. At the end of the Wu, I stopped and let the chi settle, intending to head for a sauna and shower.

“Do you Push Hands?” Kurt asked.

“I have, but I’m not very good,” I said with a rueful smile. “The academy master said I have all the fighting instincts of lawn furniture.”

Kurt didn’t smile, exactly, but I caught a twinkle in his eyes. “You studied with Sifu Newmar at the academy, then?”

I nodded.

He took the beginning pose for the Push Hands technique and waited for me to step in. I did so, and we worked slowly through several cycles of the drill—inside, outside, up, across, swap. We moved faster until I pushed and he wasn’t there, rocked back on my heels from a touch to my shoulder.

He did smile, then, and proceeded to show me a few things.

After two solid stans, the sweat rolled down my legs under my pants and I had that firm, burning glow from a good workout. When we broke, Kurt bowed and I returned it, bowing much lower to him than he did to me.

“Thank you for the workout,” he rumbled. “This is the time of day that Mr. Blalock does most of his work, so I’m free if you’d care to meet me tomorrow.”

It was less a question than a statement.

“Thank you,” I said, and bowed again.

I went to the sauna then while Kurt fired up one of the treadmills and started a run. Half a stan later when I came out of the sauna, he was still running and nodded to me as I headed for the showers.

Afterward, I gravitated to the galley where Paul Mueller held court. I didn’t know if it was the same for other people, but my early days on the
Lois
had given me an appreciation for the mess deck and galley as the heart of the ship. The galley on the
Ellis
was no exception.

My first exposure to small ship life had been on the voyage from Dunsany Roads to Newmar on the
Bad Penny
with Pip’s Aunt and Uncle. The
Penny
was a family ship with an eat-in galley where we’d spent many an evening gathered around the table, sailing through the Deep Dark. The
Ellis
had a dining room for the passengers and crew. The actual galley itself was tucked away around the corner with a cleverly concealed pass-through and door that connected it to the dining room.

Breakfast and lunch were typically buffet style at the pass-through—always a hot dish or two and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Dinner was something else and served family-style, with platters and bowls on the large table in the dining room. The captain presided at the head of the table with passengers rotated via some formula that I hadn’t been able to discern after only a few days underway.

Because of the long work out, I almost missed lunch. The others had come and gone and Paul was already beginning to clear.

“Mr. Wang,” he said, “I wondered if you were skipping lunch today.”

I snagged a few pieces of fruit, a couple of rolls, and a small block of cheese from the buffet, then stood back to let him work. “Wasn’t my intention, Mr. Mueller. I was working out with Kurt and lost track of the time.” I waved a hand vaguely at the set up. “Please, don’t let me interrupt. I know how hard it is to keep up with the galley.”

He smiled and started his clean up routine.

“You’ve worked the galley, then, Mr. Wang?” he asked as he worked.

“Mess hand on the
Lois McKendrick
. Had some of my happiest times on that mess deck.”

I smiled to myself as the warm memories slipped through my mind.

Paul finished clearing the buffet and closed the pass-through after wiping everything down. I finished the fruit, bread, and cheese and noticed the crumbs I’d scattered while I was standing there eating and talking to Paul. While he was clattering in the galley, I grabbed the sweeper from the bracket on the bulkhead and picked up my crumbs and—since I had it out—did the whole floor.

In a few ticks, Paul came into the dining room through the connecting door and caught me with the sweeper in my hand.

“You didn’t have to do that, Mr. Wang,” he said with a concerned look on his face.

“It was my pleasure, and please, my name is Ishmael. You can call me that. We’re gonna be cooped up here for a while yet. Might as well get comfy.”

His wrinkled face folded into a lopsided smile and his eyes danced at me as he held out a roughened paw.

“Paul, then, Ishmael, and tell me about working in the galley while I finish cleaning up, if you don’t mind.”

So I stood in the doorway regaling Paul with stories of the mess deck on the
Lois
as he proceeded to clear and clean everything in the three by five meter galley. The galley itself was a marvel of compact installation. The cook top was a four burner design, but instead of the normal two by two, the four were lined up on a narrow counter. The ovens—there were three of them—were recessed into the bulkhead. Instead of the big steam kettles we’d had on the
Lois
, the
Ellis
had an honest to gods pot rack and I couldn’t help but admire the big chillers, larders, and carefully laid out cabinets and counters. It was perfectly designed for a one person operation.

In just a few ticks, Paul finished up his after-lunch routines and shooed me out of the galley. “It’s time for my nap, Ishmael,” he told me playfully. “Baked chicken for dinner,” he said, as he secured the pass-through door, and I heard him clicking off the lights as he exited through the main entry on the other side of the galley.

My brief foray satisfied something I wasn’t sure I could name. I found there was another book or two I wanted to read, and I suddenly looked forward to picking up where I’d left off on my reading list. I grinned to myself and headed back to my stateroom.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR
D
IURNIA
S
YSTEM
2358-
J
ULY-1

After an adjustment period, the days settled into a comfortable pattern. My workouts with Kurt took up the mornings. He helped me focus my discipline from a kind of theoretical exhibition to a more practical mode of self-defense. He was fond of saying, “The most effective defense is avoiding the fight.” In spite of that, he had a lot of good tips on how to cope when avoidance wasn’t possible. By the time we were preparing to dock at Diurnia, I was not so foolish as to think I’d win against somebody like Kurt, but I was a lot more confident that I could at least survive.

The trip was not without its surprises. The passenger list included Kurt and his boss, Harvey Blalock—who was some kind of wiggity wig on Diurnia who rarely left his stateroom—and an older couple, the Hokensons—who turned out to be rabid bridge players. They soon had a standing foursome comprised of them, a dour sales agent named Philip Jameson, and Georgina Fredericks. Whenever they played, Georgina’s husband, William, hung about and behaved like a sulky boy being forced to entertain himself while the adults were occupied. Georgina always exhibited a shy and demure air, even while running a seven no-trump hand. Her jubilation manifested as a smile, which was perhaps just a tiny bit broader than normal.

While the Hokensons and their partners played bridge in the common room most of the afternoon, cinema viewings consumed the after dinner hours. Leslie March, a middle aged woman heading for Diurnia to open a clothing store, turned out to be a very pleasant and knowledgeable film connoisseur. At 20:30 each evening the big viewer in the commons became our movie theatre, and regardless of which film we picked, Leslie had a ready stream of information about the story, characters, actors, director, and even producer. She managed to carry on her running commentary without interfering one iota in the viewing experience. She was one of those uncanny people who knew exactly when to speak and—more importantly—when to shut up. As the trip wore on, and we watched more movies, I came to appreciate her ready wit and insightful observations. Leslie would often spend a few ticks before the film talking about it and sometimes we’d sit around for as much as two stans afterward discussing what we had just seen.

The transit from Newmar to Diurnia took forty days. Given the distances involved, that had been pretty darn good. The
Ellis
reached the Burleson limit only sixteen days out of Newmar. Compared to what I had been used to, that was an astonishingly short run out. We had spent six days and three jumps in the between spaces of the Deep Dark running through the un-populated middle of the Western Annex, followed by an eighteen day run into Diurnia Orbital. The published transit time was forty-two days but Captain Lochlan brought the ship in two days early.

One of the differences between being a passenger and being crew was the sense of unreality. I had a feeling of being wrapped in a cocoon—each day largely like the one before. I knew enough not to dwell on the duration of the journey, but my brain went into a kind of contemplative loop that consisted of the daily workouts with Kurt, the quiet afternoons reading in my bunk, and the bridge games providing a homely—and sometimes not so quiet backdrop. Mr. Hokenson tended toward the boisterous at times, but his wife shushed him with a stern, “Please, William! There are other people on the ship.” Then he would quiet down as the next hand began.

We were a day out of Diurnia when Captain Lochlan put the view from the bridge monitors up on the large screen in the common room. The familiar orbital shape hung like a tin can in space. The light from Diurnia’s primary glinted from the sides during its daylight passages, and the station’s lights gleamed in the dark whenever it passed into the planet’s shadow. The view served as a kind of wake up call for me. Suddenly the end of the voyage was in sight. In a few days I’d be back on ship, trying to be a good third mate.

William Hokenson found me staring into the monitor just before lunch on our last day underway. “Looking forward to a new ship, Mr. Wang?”

I shrugged. “It’s going to be different,” I said. “I had summer cruises at the academy, so I know every ship is unique, but my first one is still kinda like home to me. I hope the next one will be too.”

He chuckled and nodded. “First job out of school?”

“Yes well, intellectually I know this won’t be the be-all and end-all, and I’m not anywhere near as good as I think, but part of me hopes that I know at least some of what I’m doing.”

He gave me a pat on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine, Mr. Wang. You’re already ahead of many. The academy is a good school.” When I glanced from the screen, his eyes held a twinkle. “Of course, it won’t be easy, but in the end? A hundred years from now, who’ll know?”

I grinned at that. “Well, I hope I will,” I answered.