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“Very well, Mr. Wang,” he slapped his desk with an open hand. “How do you respond to the charges that you’re inciting the crew to flout authority?”

“By asking who’s making such charges and on what evidence, Captain,” I answered.

I really didn’t know which possibility was scarier at that point—that the captain was a vicious psychopath with delusions of grandeur and a side order of megalomania or that he was an incompetent actor following a poorly written script in a play that somebody else directed.

“Come now, Mr. Wang. You’ve told the crew that they can skip ranks in the ratings exams. Do you deny this?” he asked sharply.

“No, Captain, that’s true. I have told crew that they can skip ranks. The current CPJCT regulations for ratings exams specifically permit the practice of taking a higher rating exam in order for those individuals who have the demonstrated skill and knowledge to leapfrog the lower level ratings.” I took a breath. “That’s not flouting authority, Captain. It’s following the rules set forth by the Confederated Planets Joint Committee on Trade. The crew still has to study for the exams, take the exams, and pass them.”

“And then what happens, Mr. Wang? Have you thought farther than the end of your nose?” he snapped.

“I’m not sure I follow, Captain. Then what happens, when?”

“When we have a ship full of crew who have ratings above their station, Mr. Wang. I realize you’re a junior officer, but don’t tell me the academy has started graduating fools!”

By this point, the scene was lacking only a small white rabbit, and I was pretty sure the Red Queen was sitting at the captain’s desk. I took a breath before answering.

“Then we proceed to port, Captain, and some of them will, undoubtedly, find other berths and move on.”

“Exactly!” he said with great vigor and another slap on his desk for emphasis.

He held up his forefinger pointed at me in what appeared to be a very well practiced gesture of threat.

“Mister, this is your only warning. I brook no interference in the smooth operation of my ship. You will toe the line from this point forward or, by the gods, I’ll have you thrown off the ship at the next port. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Wang?”

“Crystal, Captain,” I said as confidently as I could. I was having a very difficult time keeping a straight face.

“This reprimand will go in your personnel jacket, Mr. Wang. This is hardly an auspicious start to your career in the Deep Dark. You may go.”

“Yes, Captain, thank you, Captain.”

I turned and left the cabin as smoothly as possible, closing the door as gently as I could and still be certain that it latched.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-FOUR
B
REAKALL
S
YSTEM
2358-
A
UGUST-12

The chrono said I had time to wash the sweat off my face before lunch in the wardroom. I made sure the door to my stateroom was secured before I went into the head. I didn’t think it would help much if Burnside wanted to come in, but it was psychological distance as much as anything. I kept trying to make sense of what had just happened, and I wondered where and how Burnside was going to exact his retribution. One thing was certain, I needed to finish the coding so my tablet would turn on the microphone for whatever room I was in. I had a very bad feeling that I’d need it.

At 12:30 I made my way to the wardroom and slipped in. Burnside was there, but so was Mel. Fredi came in right behind me, and after a couple of heartbeats of uncomfortable silence, Ms. Davies entered with the first of the servings, and we took our seats. The meal was typical midday fare with some kind of noodle in a sauce. There were some green vegetables that looked like banapods—but a bit chewier—and an isolated bit of white mystery, which could have been meat or possibly bean curd. In my month or so aboard, I’d come to miss good food.

It was odd, really, that the food on the summer cruises wasn’t all that memorable. Some of the ships had good food, some were mediocre, but none of them really stayed with me as much as Cookie’s spiced beefalo casserole. I was half inclined to pay the galley a little visit and talk about recipes, but given the session in the cabin, I thought that keeping my head down, and my nose pointing straight ahead, might be a better idea. After all, the food wasn’t bad—just not good.

Conversation offered little refuge to the meal. Burnside’s concept of polite table manners was difficult to talk over, and his contributions to the discourse usually consisted of inarticulate grunts and the odd belch. Fredi, as was her habit, sat hunched over her plate while Burnside was in the room, and Mel just occasionally smiled sadly in my direction.

Still, on the bright side, he had been on watch as often as Arletta and I, so we managed to have some lively and enjoyable meals when he had the duty. Even Ms. Davies seemed more relaxed.

Through the course of the meal, he never referred to the interview with the captain or indicated that anything at all had happened between my leaving the bridge and appearing in the wardroom. Yet, I knew that he was upset, and I couldn’t help but fret over all the ways he could attack me.

Luncheon ended in good time, and Burnside left the wardroom with his usual lack of grace. When he’d left, Fredi said, “There are few things so constant in this universe.” Then she snorted a small laugh through her nose.

“More’s the pity,” Mel agreed and turned to me. “So, did the captain call you down to the cabin?”

I blinked at her a bit stupidly before finally saying, “Yes. Why?”

She smiled. “You had that look when you came in.”

Fredi, who was already sitting up straighter, added, “And it’s his pattern.”

She turned to look at me carefully.

“Are you all right, Ishmael?” she asked after a moment.

“I think so. At least for the moment, but I didn’t make any friends in the exchange.”

Fredi gave a little shrug at that. “Nobody does.”

“Any insights into that subject we talked about in my office, Ishmael?” Mel asked.

“Some significant progress, in fact. I just need a few more stans to finish up, but I’m feeling pretty confident that the next time the Bumble Brothers bother me, I’ll be ready.”

Fredi smiled a crooked grin. “You heard that name, huh?”

“Yeah, my watch section is a wealth of information.”

Mel and Fredi both chuckled.

Penny Davies came in to clear, and we all stood and helped her load up the first tray before getting out of her way. As we stepped out into the passageway, Fredi stopped me with a friendly hand on my forearm.

“Be careful. Now that the captain has had a chance to reprimand you on the record, David has fewer constraints,” she said softly.

She looked up into my eyes and I realized just how short she was.

“Not that he had all that many before,” she said with a trace of bitterness.

“Thanks, Fredi, I’ll be as careful as I can.” I shrugged. “But if he wants me badly enough, he’ll do it when I’m asleep in my bunk—with no witnesses.”

She nodded, just a little rocking of her head up and down.

“Yes,” was all she said before turning to head down the passage toward her stateroom.

I checked the chrono and I had about four stans before watch: time for a short nap followed by a long run. I headed back for my stateroom and pulled out my tablet to set an alarm. That was when I noticed that the intercom in the cabin was still open. I triggered the microphone off and wondered what I’d recorded.

On the one hand, I was horrified that I’d left it that long. It was one thing to record my conversations with the captain. I had a feeling I might need them. The ethics of self-defense had priority, but it was another to record conversations that I had no part in.

I could easily find part of my brain that said, “Just because you’re not in the room, doesn’t mean they’re not plotting against you.” There was another part that recoiled from the idea that I might be a person who bugged the ship. A few stans before I had been paranoid over who was listening.

Would anybody be happy to find out that it was me?

There was also the issue of legality. Was it illegal for me to record people without their knowledge? In a corporately owned vessel in the Deep Dark was there any real expectation of privacy?

A cold chill raced down the small of my back. Would I be in more trouble if I produced the recordings than not? Considering what I thought the group might be capable of, I wasn’t sure.

I stumbled back to my stateroom, peeled off my shipsuit, and crawled into my bunk, pulling the covers over me. The conflicting demands of self-defense and ethical behavior warred with each other. I didn’t know if I could sleep, but the narrow circle of concern ended with a dark curtain of exhaustion.

Say what you will about the watch stander merry-go-round. After over a month in the Deep Dark, your body will sleep if it can. Minor concerns like ethical conflicts will not stand in its way.

A small sudden sound woke me with a start. I lay there blinking and listening, trying to make out where the noise had come from, when my tablet bee-bee-beeped again. I punched the alarm off and let my breath out. The chrono read 16:00 and I wanted to run before I got ready for watch. That much stress was a heavy load to carry, and I knew from extended experience how to bleed that off.

I was glad to see Lignaria stretching when I got to the gym. The lanky engineman had been my running companion on more than one occasion. She was in the third watch as well, but as power section watch stander, her duty station was in engineering central.

“Ah, somebody to run with!” I said.

“Sure, sar. These six-on-six-off-six-on days are a killer, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yeah,” I answered with a rueful grin. “Intellectually, I know that it’s only eighteen stans from start to finish and with a little nap in the middle, it’s really not that bad, but some days it sure seems like a long day, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, sar,” she agreed. “Very long.”

She finished her warm up and started up a treadmill. While she was occupied with that, I triggered the local intercom to record anything that might happen in the room. I did a few stretches of my own, then stepped on the machine and fired up my favorite program. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lignaria casting little glances my way and grinning.

I smiled and asked, “Is there something funny, Ms. Lignaria? Do I have my shorts on backward?”

“No, sar, although your shirt is wrong-side out,” she answered.

I glanced down at the sleeve and saw she was right.

“So much for the dignity of officers.”

“Sar? I don’t think you ever need to worry about that,” she said.

“What are you trying to tell me, Ms. Lignaria?” I asked with a mock frown. “I have no dignity to begin with?”

She blushed a little, or maybe it was the running that was coloring the back of her neck.

“No, sar, that’s not what I meant. I was just thinking of Mosler calling you a ‘girly man’ and—” She stopped then, and a look of panic skittered across her face.

I recognized the look. It’s the one I probably got when I discovered I was about two-thirds of the way across a conversational mine field, and I really didn’t want to take that next step. The look that I probably got when I realized that the only thing keeping me from stepping on the mine was the fact that my foot was firmly planted in my mouth.

She cleared her throat and looked straight ahead.

“That is, sar, I can’t believe he’d think you were a girly man.”

“I can’t believe he’d pull up such a stupid phrase and think it was in any way insulting,” I answered, trying to put her at ease. “I mean how do you follow that? ‘Doo-doo head’?”

The ludicrousness caught her by surprise and she barked a single laugh.

We slapped along awhile in silence before she glanced at me again.

“Can I ask a personal question, sar?”

“I reserve the right not to answer,” I told her with a smile, “but sure.”

“You really had ratings in all divisions?”

“Yup, when I started out, circumstances forced me into taking a job on the mess deck of the
Lois McKendrick
over in the Dunsany Roads quadrant. I didn’t like being helpless—being in a position where I had to take whatever job was available.”

I glanced at her and she nodded her understanding.

“I liked being aboard ship, and I figured the best way to make sure I could stay there was to become qualified so I could work as many different jobs as I could.”

“Makes sense, sar, but why not just climb the one division’s ladder?”

“It was a trade off. Keep in mind that I was a land rat. I had no background in space at all. Being a spacer was almost totally incomprehensible to me. I reasoned, for whatever it’s worth, that it would be faster to get two or three half share ratings than a half and a full. I learned a lot about ship’s operations that way.”

“You don’t come from a spacer family, sar?” she asked, genuine curiosity obvious on her face.

I shook my head.

“No. My mother taught ancient literature at the University of Neris before she died.”