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Chapter 10

ST. CLOUD ORBITAL
2352-FEBRUARY-21

The mess deck was crowded with all hands back aboard. The captain scheduled pullout for 14:00 and I knew that Cookie, Pip, and Sarah would have their hands full with people hanging around until 13:30. Francis and I stood together in line and he kept his tablet where he could see it. I glanced at mine periodically, but nothing showed up. I kept waiting for the automated systems check to pop up but it had the decency to wait until we were seated.

“Shouldn’t we go back down?” I asked as Francis settled in at a table beside Brill and Diane.

Brill said, “You can if you like, but as long as your tablet is displaying properly,” she nodded toward mine and continued, “and yours is, then you can see anything from here that you could see from there. Alerts and alarms will pop up on your tablet. We have it a bit easier than the bridge and engine room crew because of that.”

Diane asked, “Well, Ish? How’s your first morning as part of the Foggy Bottom gang?”

“Well, let’s see—it started out slogging and freeze drying sludge, then a marathon hike down the length of the ship and back up, but we’re all still breathing so I guess all in all not too bad so far.”

Francis patted me on the back. “You’re doing great.” He cupped a hand around his mouth, leaned over to Brill, but spoke loudly enough for me to hear, “I didn’t have to use the cattle prod once!”

Brill tsked. “He’s spoiling all your fun, Francis.”

“Maybe later,” Diane added with a mischievous grin.

“Okay,” Brill said, “here’s the drill. I’m first section, Francis—and by extension Ish—second, Diane third. We’ll be setting second watch when we secure from navigation detail at around 17:00, so Ish and Francis will get off at 18:00. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you two will be back on duty at 06:00.”

Francis added, “When underway, we run a modified twenty-four stan watch schedule, Ish. You already know we change on the sixes and twelves, but only two sections get the duty in any given day. That means we get one day off out of every three. The basic pattern is six on, six off, six on, twelve off, then six on, six off, six on, twenty-four off and it repeats every three days.”

“Ah! Disorientation,” I exclaimed. “Something I’m used to.”

Francis and I finished up quickly and headed back down to environmental.

“Now what?” I asked when we got settled back in.

“Now we watch and wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“End of watch, or something to go wrong.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “It’s a good time to study. The trick is staying alert. About eighty percent of your watch will be just sitting here, but the other twenty percent is stuff like the VSI and acknowledging the system integrity checks.”

“How do you spend the time?”

“It varies. I like to take a walk through the section periodically. Check for valve leaks, and keep an eye out for physical signs of malfunction. Just kinda keeping my fingers on the pulse as it were. Sometimes you spot something going wrong before it gets to the point where the sensor picks it up. That’s usually a good thing.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“Study, read.” He shrugged. “I’m not too motivated right now. I don’t want to leave the
Lois
and there are no spec two slots in environmental here. I should get the rating eventually I suppose, but like I said I’m in no hurry. It’s not like I need the extra money a promotion would bring, and I like life on the
Lois
.”

I frowned a little trying to remember what he had told me back on Gugara. “You’ve got a doctorate don’t you?”

He looked surprised that I would remember a casual dinner conversation from months earlier but shot me a rueful grin. “Yeah. Astrophysics, but don’t hold that against me.”

I smiled. “I won’t. My mother had a doctorate in ancient lit. I know how it works.”

He laughed at that.

“So what brought you to the
Lois?
”

He chuckled a bit bitterly. “Well, a Ph.D. isn’t what it used to be and astrophysics has gotten very political these days. Most of the money is in corporate positions in R&D.”

“R&D in astrophysics?”

“Yeah, almost all of the big corporate conglomerates have what they call R&D branches. It’s really exploration and development. They send ships out to sit in the Deep Dark and look for new systems to exploit. They take about a hundred little probes with them and send them out in likely directions. The probes jump out, do a programmed survey, and jump back. Usually they jump back where they get picked up. The companies extract the data, refurbish the probe, and send it out again.”

“But don’t we know where the nearby stars are?” I asked.

Francis shrugged. “Yes and no. We need a pretty clear spot to put a ship in when we jump into a system. The Burleson drive gets unstable otherwise. You probably wouldn’t want to be on a ship that jumped into, say, a dark-matter cloud.”

“Why? What happens?”

“Dunno. We’ve never had anybody come back to tell us. I suspect it’s not because it was so nice that they just decided to stay.”

“Oh, that put transition in a whole new light for me. I’m glad I didn’t know that all this time.”

Francis saw my expression and gave me a reassuring smile. “In the shipping lanes, it’s not an issue. They’re scouted out well in advance of any big ship rumbling in. To answer your other question, yes. We do know mostly where the nearby stars are, but we don’t know a lot of detail about their systems. There are a lot of systems out there that are in exploration range that aren’t necessarily within commercial jump range. So, finding a commercially viable system usually means finding some way that it can be of value.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

“Typical trip is eighteen months between ports.”

“Ouch! That’s a long time without fresh stores.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I thought forty days was long. So, you used to work on those ships that did the probing?”

“Yeah. Eighteen months at a whack is a lifetime, or at least it feels like it. First trip, I thought I was going to go out of my mind before we finally got back, but I was contractually obligated to make a second trip. While I was out there, I needed something to occupy my time so I studied”

“Ah, I see so that’s how you got into environmental?”

“Yep, when I got back I took the spec three test at the Union Hall and caught the next freighter out of the system with an open berth.”

“After three years in the Deep Dark, I’m surprised you wanted to ship out!”

“I got into astrophysics because I love it out here. I just didn’t like what they had me doing. Those long treks were just too hard to take. I much rather prefer life on the freighters. I like sailing out for a few weeks, getting to a port and then going out again.”

The automated systems check popped up again and Francis acknowledged it before continuing, “Three months I could have handled. No sweat. Even four. Maybe even six. It was interesting work and in my field of expertise but eighteen months in a tin can was way too long.”

Brill and Diane came in and I noticed that it was almost 13:30. Pullout in environmental was no more exciting than it had been on the mess deck. Francis and Brill sat in the only two chairs. Diane got a folded blanket out of a storage locker and put it down on the deck next to a bulkhead for us to sit on. We did not expect anything bad would happen, but things were occasionally known to go wrong on pullout so we settled where a little bumpiness would not send us crashing into each other or some critical ship’s component. We got the familiar announcement, “All hands, brace for pullout. All hands, brace for pullout,” over the ship’s speakers and I felt the familiar thump of the docking ring letting us go from the bow. This was followed by the weird
moving elevator
feeling for just a few seconds. The speakers then told us, “All hands. Pullout complete. Tugs cast off in three zero ticks, mark.” That was it. We were underway again. I wondered, briefly, how Sarah fared in the galley.

It felt strange to be just sitting there so I asked Diane, “Well, we’ve got three stans. If nothing else is happening, should we replace that algae matrix?”

“Good idea, but it’s against standing orders. We have to keep all the shipboard equipment up and available during navigation detail. When we shut down gear while underway, we need to notify the bridge and actually get permission first. They never turn us down, but it keeps everybody running the ship informed as to what’s happening down here.”

“So, we sit.”

She gave me a grin and a half shrug. “Unless you brought some playing cards.”

I sighed. “This is going to take some getting used to, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Welcome to the other side. It’s not harder, just different. You’ll adjust.”

I thought for a while. “What’s the regulation about project work?”

“What do you mean by project work?”

“Oh, I don’t know. What if I wanted to experiment with making a growing medium out of sludge, for example?”

“You can do what you like so long as you can see the readouts. Anything that keeps you from falling asleep is always good, like reading and studying. Watching holos isn’t considered good form, but Brill would just ask you to put them away. If you’re gonna play with growing compounds though, I’d check with Big B. She’s the plant sciences expert, and it’s a good idea to keep the section chief informed about stuff like that.”

“Big B?”

She laughed. “Yeah, that’s Brill”

Three stans was a long time, and I had to find something to do. My tablet was okay, but I kept thinking about the courses in my duffel and my portable computer. I pulled up the Spacer’s Handbook and started researching the full share ratings. The Handbook was the encyclopedia for everything there was to know about life in the Deep Dark. It was huge and going through it all would take a lifetime, but it contained training material for each rating and practice tests to help get you prepared.

My original plan was to get a full share rating in each division as a kind of insurance policy to maximize employability. Having all the ratings would mean I would be qualified for just about any open slot. As I sat there, it seemed almost pointless and perhaps naive. There did not seem to be much likelihood of me getting stranded, and I could not imagine leaving the
Lois
. Still, the extra mass allotment would be nice so I brought up the calendar. Sixty-eight days until the next test period—about ten days the other side of Dunsany Roads. The
Lois
was authorized to have a third spec three in environmental. I turned to Diane and asked, “Do you think if I passed spec three, I could get the promotion?”

She grinned. “In a heartbeat!”

“I’ve got sixty-eight days to study. Think I can do it by then?”

“Two months? Wow. That’s ambitious. It took me two tries, but I wasn’t working in environmental at the time.”

“What’s the downside? I skip the next test period and maybe hit the Union Hall at Betrus?”

“Yup,” Diane agreed. “That’s about it.”

I started reviewing the various environmental exam materials with Diane’s help. When the ship set normal watch, Francis showed me the log keeping functions, and we handed the duty off to Diane in time to catch some dinner. I was more than ready to get out of the section.

While waiting in the mess line, I saw Pip behind the serving station standing next to Sarah. She seemed like she was settling in well enough for having been aboard for such a short time. It was both good and strange to see Pip from this side of the line.

Pip waved when he saw me. “Hey, Ish! How’s life in engineering?”

“It’s still a little soon to tell, but I think it’ll be all right. I’m off now until 06:00. Wanna get together when you get cleaned up here?”

“You betcha. We’ve still got business to deal with from St. Cloud.”

After I ate, I stretched out in my bunk and read for a bit to let dinner settle. I did not want to repeat my mistake of running so soon after eating.

Around 19:30, I found myself beginning to nod off as I read, so I decided it was time to run. I was into my fourth lap when Rhon Scham caught up with me. Rhon was one of the watch standers and I was used to seeing her through bleary eyes when she woke me for mess duty. “Hi, Rhon.”

She gave me a friendly smile, and asked, “How’s life in engineering?”

“It’s a living. I think. It feels like I’ve been on duty for the last twelve stans, though. I’m off now until 06:00.”

She smiled. “Second section. Me, too.” We ran a half a lap before she continued, “Shifting from port-side duty to being underway is always a pain. You’re getting it over with early, though, so you’ll be in the groove sooner.”

“In the groove?”

“Yeah. Watch standing is boring and tedious, but it’s also crucial. These ships don’t fly themselves. When something goes wrong, the ship can tell you, but you need to interpret the data and take corrective action. Sometimes that means like RIGHT NOW!”

“I can buy that.”

“So, as time goes on, you get into the groove. Just like you’re probably used to getting up at 04:30 every morning. In a couple of days, you’ll be in sync with the new schedule. You’ll be in the groove.”

“What do you do on watch?”

“Sit, wait, study, read. It depends. The bridge is a pretty active place. We’re moving really fast and there are adjustments we need to make to the sails and keel, sometimes as much as several times in a stan. The solar wind isn’t constant and it’s not uniform. We find pockets and swirls that require us to pay attention to stay on course.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said, remembering my last watch with Francis.

“I’m building it up. Mostly it’ll make you numb from the sheer boredom.”

I chuckled and we ran our remaining laps in silence. When we were done, I waved to her and headed to the showers to rinse off before my sauna. I hoped I was not going to regret leaving the mess deck. At least there, I had Pip for amusement.

At 21:00 I headed over to deck berthing and ran into Pip and Sarah just getting in from the galley.