Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper) (10 page)

I could hear her silvery laugh echoing back down the passage and in two more ticks the lock opening and closing.

The whole time, Avery Wyatt just sat there considering me with a dour look on his face.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He paused to sip his coffee. “You think she’s gonna get her master’s ticket?”

I nodded, spinning my near empty mug around on the table with my fingertips. “I do. According to Kingsley, she only just barely missed it before. Maloney wrote a letter, she has a new performance report, and there’s the rather dramatic change that’s come over her in the last few months.” I smiled at him. “You’re good for her, Avery.”

He smiled back and his eyes went to the overhead where her stateroom would be on the deck above. “She’s good for me, too, Skipper. I would never have guessed.” A gentle smile filled his face.

I might have enjoyed that conversation more if it hadn’t felt quite so much like salt in the wound, but I was truly happy for him. I also needed to get off the mess deck and find some time to think. “Well, I’m going up to the cabin and work on the reports. Don’t want to hand off the ship with that not caught up.”

He stared at me. “You’re really going?”

I shrugged. “As far as I know, if she gets her ticket, you’ll be making the next trip without me.”

He winced. “I don’t know if I should hope she does, or hope she doesn’t.”

I snickered a little. “Hope she does, Avery. She’s a good woman and deserves a little break. I’ve had more than my share of good breaks and I can weather whatever this storm will bring.”

He laughed a little in response. “It’s hard to feel too sorry for the quadrant’s newest multimillionaire.”

“Well, it hasn’t happened yet,” I pointed out. “But this has been a profitable year. I’m okay.” I stood and headed off the mess deck with a wave.

“Sleep well, Skipper,” he called after me.

I headed for the cabin but at the top of the ladder, the thought of looking at the scarred orbital made me climb the ladder to the bridge. I clambered up and took my seat in the captain’s chair, swiveling it so I could look aft, out into the busy space around the orbital and the smooth darkness beyond.

I sat there for a long, long time.

Chapter Eight
Diurnia Orbital:
2372-December-19

For once, the quarterly ratings exams came around while we were docked. All the ratings showed up for breakfast and Mr. Hill had the only exam out of the three. I made a mental note to prod Ms. Arellone along the trail before remembering that Ms. Arellone and her training wouldn’t be my concern for much longer. That sobered me. I could have wished they’d all moved up the ladder, but Mr. Hill was doing nicely in his cargo specialty, and Mr. Schubert already held his Spec One Shiphandler, we just weren’t rated to pay him that.

Mostly, the breakfast conversation was low key and quiet. Mr. Wyatt had been up all night as OOD, and looked a little the worse for wear. I suspected the massive breakfast spread was due as much to his trying to stay awake in the wee hours of the dog watch as to his culinary drive. Ms. Thomas seemed alert and chipper enough, if a bit keyed up. She filled her plate and cleaned it twice before settling back with a satisfied smile. Only her furtive glances at the chrono gave away her nervousness. The chief looked a bit ragged, which surprised me. It wasn’t like her to over-indulge readily enough and tucked away a healthy amount of Avery’s handiwork in her own right.

By 0700 we’d all had enough and scattered to our duties. Ms. Thomas headed for her stateroom to change into a dress uniform, and Mr. Shubert headed for the brow. I sent Mr. Wyatt off to get some sleep and Mr. Pall helped me clear away breakfast. Ms. Arellone disappeared in the direction of the flea market, and if she felt uneasy about running the booth on her own, she didn’t show it. Mr. Hill helped us clear the table and swept the mess deck before heading for crew’s berthing. He stuck his head in a few ticks later, looking sharp. “I’m off to the Union Hall for exams, Skipper.”

Mr. Pall and I both waved and Mr. Pall gave him a thumbs-up. I looked at him curiously as Mr. Hill headed for the lock. His old happy-go-lucky smile was still missing, but something like his old spirit showed in his face.

The cleanup drew our collective attention and we settled into an easy rhythm, splitting the tasks and working methodically through them. I’d been so wrapped up in myself, I hadn’t noticed that Mr. Pall appeared much more lively.

As we finished the cleanup, I leaned back on the counter, drying my hands on a side towel and eyed him. “You’re looking a mite less piqued, Mr. Pall.”

He grinned at me and finished stowing a stack of mixing bowls under the cupboard. “Is that a good thing, Skipper?”

“Yes, Mr. Pall, it is.”

He shrugged. “I’m feeling a bit better, Skipper.” He grabbed a stack of clean plates out of the sanitizer and shoved them into the plate rack. “I credit Ms. Arellone, actually.”

“The weapons training?”

He looked around for something else to stow, finding nothing he leaned against the work island and rested his palms on the edge. “In a way. Mostly it’s her outlook.”

“Really?” His answer surprised me. “Her outlook?”

“Well, maybe attitude,” he amended. “It’s just...” He looked up at the overhead, as if the words he struggled to find were up there. “She has not had an easy time of it, yanno?”

“Well, I don’t know the particulars, William, but I suspect that she’s had her ups and downs.”

He grimaced. “Yes. Mostly downs if half the stories are true.” He looked at his boots for a few heartbeats. “She made me look at myself and think.”

I could feel my eyebrows rise a bit on my forehead. “A frightening experience for anyone, William.”

He saw my smile and grinned back. “Yes, well. The thinking was something I’d been doing but not enough looking. Compared to her, I’m a spoiled brat, rich kid, with more advantages than brains. I figured I needed to get over myself and get on with my life.”

His words echoed in my head and I had a very uncomfortable moment before he went on.

He looked up at me and gave a bit of a shrug. “It’s not something she said as much as how she is. You look at her and you see one thing, and sometimes that’s really her, but sometimes it’s not. She has this intensity when she’s doing knife work, or the unarmed moves. It’s like she goes someplace else in her mind, and then she cracks a joke about my grip or my balance and tosses me on the deck.” He shook his head. “I’m not explaining this very well.”

“I think you’re doing admirably well, William.”

He sighed once before continuing. “So, yeah. Billy the Buccaneer seems a bit...” He groped for a word. “...sophomoric.”

I was surprised by his use of the name that I’d assumed most people used behind his back, but it pulled a short laugh out of me. “Well, you certainly left an impression.”

He barked a laugh in return. “No doubt, Skipper. No doubt. I can see how some people might have found that aggravating.” He shook his head. “So, this last trip I started actually thinking about it. I don’t know what, or how, or anything really, but—working with her? She’s got such amazing control of herself and I began to think that’s all we really have—control of ourselves—and it’s up to us how we deal with that.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eyes.

“You’ve come a long way, William.”

“Thank you, Skipper. I feel like I’ve still got a long way to go.”

He got a laugh out of me with that. “Don’t we all!”

Ms. Thomas sailed past the mess deck, looking resplendent in her dress uniform and we both gave her a little wave in passing. When we heard the lock start to close he turned back to me. “She’s going to be the new captain, isn’t she?”

“Well, I think she’s going to pass this time, yes.”

He gave me a hairy eyeball in return. “That’s not exactly what I asked, Skipper.”

I could feel the corner of my mouth curling up. “Yes, I believe she is, William. Is that a problem?”

He looked at the empty door again and thought for a moment. “No, Captain. I don’t think it is. It’s all part of the ride, isn’t it?” He seemed about ten stanyers older all at once.

I nodded slowly. “Yes, William. I do believe it is.”

My tablet bipped me. I pulled up the incoming message, read it quickly, and forwarded it to Chief Gerheart.

“Looks like good news, Skipper.”

I grinned and shrugged. “Not sure if it’s good or bad, but Kirsten Kingsley’s meeting me at the maintenance dock at 0900.”

He grinned back as Chief Gerheart burst onto the mess deck.

“I’m ready,” she said.

With a nod to Mr. Pall, I followed the chief out to the lock and we headed for the maintenance docks.

As we approached, we met Kirsten coming in the opposite direction. She had a knowing smile on her face. “Liked the looks of it, Captain?”

I shrugged. “It seems like it might fill the bill if we can come to an agreement on price and I can get the financing together.”

She nodded sympathetically. “Financing is usually the problem.” She keyed the lock to maintenance and asked, “Did Richard Larks get to you?”

“Yes, he did.”

She looked over at me. “That doesn’t sound promising.”

I shrugged. “His advice was take the money and retire to the country.”

We were halfway along and Kirsten stopped to look at me. “He what?”

Chief Gerheart and I both fetched up. Greta looked a bit amused, but I just shrugged. “He said it’s not enough money to go into business for myself so I’d be best advised to retire and collect the income on my investments.”

She made a rude noise. “Did he offer to manage those investments for you, too?”

“Not yet.” I smiled at her.

She tsked and shook her head. “I thought he was better than that.” We continued toward dock three. “Did he at least ask you want you wanted to do?”

“Oh, yes, and his advice was to buy a nice yacht so I could sail around to my heart’s content.”

She shot me another look. “A yacht?”

“Yeah, he seemed to think they were just like fast packets only smaller.”

The chief snorted quietly beside me.

“I looked at them, but they just don’t have the legs to be much use.”

Kirsten shook her head and muttered, “I need to look at the advice he’s giving us. He’s obviously not as connected as I thought he was.”

We stopped in front of the lock and Kirsten keyed it open. A slight over pressure in the hull gusted a green smelling miasma onto the dock and Kirsten all but retched at the smell.

Beside me the chief said a very unladylike word that would have fit right in on any engineering deck in the universe. She looked at Kirsten. “You might wanna have an engineer look at the scrubbers.”

Kirsten eyed the chief engineer flashes on Greta’s shipsuit. She grimaced. “Um? You wouldn’t happen to know of one that’d be willing to look at this for me?”

The chief grinned and pulled a small flashlight out of a pocket at her thigh. “Matter of fact, I do.”

“I’d take it as a favor, Chief...Gerheart, is it?”

The chief looked once at me and I nodded. She took a deep breath and plunged into the funk. I followed and Kirsten brought up the rear.

Chief Gerheart didn’t waste time looking for light switches, but her beam flashed once across the broken console as she headed into the ship. As she walked, she pulled her tablet out of its holster and I could see the schematic of a ship glowing on the panel.

Once we were inside the ship, the funk wasn’t quite as bad. It still caught the back of my throat, but by breathing shallowly, I kept from retching. I heard Kirsten gasping as she struggled to follow. “Breathe through your mouth, it’ll help a bit,” I suggested to her.

“Ugh.”

I had to admire Ms. Kingsley’s ability to pile freight on a single word.

The chief headed deep into the hold, walking past the ladder up to the first deck.

“Hatch to engineering is up the ladder, Chief,” I called after her.

She shot a glance over her shoulder and kept going.

Kirsten had found a handkerchief to breathe through and had it clamped over her mouth and nose. I couldn’t imagine it helped much, but if it made her feel better, I wouldn’t deprive her of the comfort. The taste of the air caught at the back of my tongue.

She looked at me over the top of the hanky. I just shrugged and followed the chief into the dark, the flashlight making a brilliant puddle of light as it jerked along the decking.

I was about five steps behind by the time Chief Gerheart reached the after bulkhead. Her light scanned back and forth at waist height until it stopped on a door latch. “There we go,” she said almost to herself. She grabbed the latch and pulled it up to disengage it. It didn’t budge at first so she shifted her leverage on it and got it moving. As the handle got vertical, some mechanism in the door lifted it away from the after bulkheak. She got her shoulder on the exposed edge and started shoving it sideways. I put my weight behind hers and we got the hatch open enough to slip through.

The hatch opened into a good-sized spares locker, most of the bins empty, a couple of them broken. I had the presence of mind to register when the chief’s flashlight picked out the light switch on the bulkhead and closed my eyes as her hand reached for it. I could see the lights blaze behind my lids and opened them tentatively. Kirsten edged through the hatch behind us, her eyes blinking away the glare and the tears from the smell.