Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper) (55 page)

“Well, there’s still a lot of time for it to go bad on you, Ms. Maloney. Try to keep a proper perspective.”

She snickered, and headed back to the galley. “I better get that replenishment order together for you, Captain.” She waved as she left.

I eyed the cargo cubes lined up and waiting for the loaders to come grab them. On the way into Ten Volt, the number of single and double cube priorities surprised me. Sagamore Systems owned the lease on Ten Volt, and they made an array of communications and systems gear—shipping small amounts of cargo to a huge number of customers. During our sail in from the jump limit, I had snagged several dozen priorities heading back to Diurnia. Since
Iris
could make the jump to Diurnia in a single hop, I planned to keep my eyes and ears open for more of the small, high-priority shipments. Given that we could carry three hundred cubes when fully laden, the aggregated priorities would add up to a considerable amount.

In the meantime, I needed to pick up my Steward endorsement so we could legally carry passengers. After that, I needed to find a passenger or two to make the trip to Diurnia with us. As if that were not enough, sometime during our stay, I needed to replace the ShipNet communications bus board to get a more speed and accuracy in the shipboard systems.

I headed up to Compartment B. Mr. Herring met me at the top of the ladder.

“Excuse me, Captain,” he said with an apologetic smile. “Will we be having liberty here?”

A pang of remorse stabbed me. “Of course, Mr. Herring. We’re too small to hold a brow watch while in port. Just check in once a day, and keep your tablet handy. I’m planning on shaking the dust off on the second, and trying to get our share values up a bit for the run back to Diurnia.”

He cocked his head. “Really, Captain? Until Friday?”

“Well,” I said with a small laugh, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t just disappear, but sure. Keep your tablet handy, and don’t get so tied up that you can’t leave on a half-day’s notice in case we grab a hot priority and I decide to get out of here early, but...” I shrugged.

“Thanks, Captain!” He beamed, and headed for his compartment.

Ms. Maloney was hip deep in a stores order, but looked up when I stepped into the galley. “Any idea how long you’ll be with that, Ms. Maloney?”

“I don’t believe it’ll take more than a stan, sar. I’ll forward it to you when I’m done.”

“Thank you, Ms. Maloney.”

That scotched the idea of installing the communications board for the moment, but remembering all the disconnected screens, I headed around to tie up the loose ends. The task lasted less than a stan, but reminded me that I needed to find a place for what I’d started thinking of as the steward’s supplies—spare linens, supplies for the head, and extra towels.

On a ship as well thought out as the
Iris
seemed to be, it didn’t make sense to me that the builders left out some facility to store the materials necessary for the smooth operation of the ship. A brief investigation of the port-side head turned up a storage closet tucked under the curved portion of the hull, and I made quick work of splitting the supplies among the closets in each of the heads.

My rummaging about woke Ms. Arellone who had taken advantage of our port stay to get a little extra sleep.

“Sorry, Ms. Arellone. I’m just trying to get some of these loose ends tied up.”

She shook her head. “Not a problem, Skipper. I needed to get up anyway. Can I help?”

I pointed to the pile of empty boxes and packing material. “If you’d bundle that up for disposal? It would save me some time.”

“Of course, sar. Anything else happening?”

“The cargo handlers should be here in about half a stan to clear out Dr. Leyman’s shipment. I’m going to swap out the ShipNet boards so watch out for the network to go down briefly.”

“Okay, Skipper.” She looked at me with a raised brow. “You’re not planning on any trips ashore are you, sar?”

“Not at the moment, no, but I’d like to grab a bit of down time—maybe explore the flea market and see if there are any hangings.” I considered. “Might not be today, but at some point, preferably in the afternoon.”

She grinned at me. “That’s what the guys used to say back on the
Agamemnon
. Better deals in the afternoon.”

That made me laugh, but also reminded me of a certain sapphire smile, and that made me sigh.

Ms. Arellone caught both of them I think but made no comment about either. “Okay, skipper, if you’d clear the passage, I’ll get this litter cleared up.”

“Oh, sorry, Ms. Arellone.” I grabbed the box with the system board in it and headed for the systems closet in engineering.

As I slipped down the ladder, I caught a whiff of scrubber and frowned. “Chief? You down here?” Getting no answer, I stood the board beside the engineering console, and went to inspect the scrubber. When I opened the case, the whiff got stronger, and the filters looked like they were due for replacement. I sent a note off to the chief, asking him to replace them before we got underway. The memory of Captain Allison was still fresh. I had no intention of reliving her experience.

As I finished sending, Ms. Maloney’s replenishment order dropped into my inbox, and I took a moment to review it. It had several new items on it including some new herbs and spices. I forwarded it to the chandlery and then sent an “all crew” notice to the ship to notify everybody that ShipNet would be secured for a few ticks.

Unwrapping the new board brought back memories of the
Lois
. In hindsight, Mr. von Ickles had been a huge influence. That influence helped shape my career in systems which, in turn, pointed me to the Academy. I hoped he was doing well, and wondered if he was still sailing.

I popped the catch on the systems closet, and soon had the old board swapped out for the new. I used the chief’s console to reboot the subsystem. By the time I got to the right screen, the hot swap routines had already tied off the loose ends, fired up ShipNet, and re-established communications with the orbital. My tablet bipped with the order confirmation from the chandlery. A few diagnostics later, and I felt confident to send an all clear to the crew.

The klaxon went off, startling me with how loud it sounded even in engineering. Glancing at the chrono, I realized it must be the cargo handlers. I beat feet for the lock. By the time I opened the hatch into the back of the cargo bay, Ms. Arellone had already let them in and lowered the ladder to the deck. I crossed to the lock, carefully avoiding the carriers as they whizzed in and out of the hold. In less than a stan the hold was empty again. The lead cargo handler and I exchanged thumbprints for receipt and delivery documents.

Ms. Arellone closed the big lock behind them. When she turned to me, there was a huge grin on her face. “First time I’ve seen them from deck level, Skipper. That’s impressive.”

“It is, indeed, Ms. Arellone.” A whiff of funk reminded me that I needed to find the chief engineer, and soon .“Have you seen Chief Bailey this morning, Ms. Arellone?”

“Yes, sar. He went ashore a few ticks before the cargo people arrived. Said something about stretching his legs a bit.”

I pulled up my tablet, and sent him a priority message on ShipNet, attaching a return receipt request. If I were any judge of scrubbers, ours was about to have serious problems, and I didn’t want to stink up the ship before taking on passengers.

Which reminded me of four other things that needed doing, and I sighed.

“Problems, Skipper?” Ms. Arellone asked.

“Too much to do, too little time, Ms. Arellone.”

“Anything I can help with, sar? I’m not planning on going ashore anytime soon.”

“Yes, there is,” I told her. “You remember the punch list of discrepancies we did during the first few days we were aboard, Ms. Arellone?”

“I sure do, Skipper.”

“Do me a favor? Run through that list—not all of them, just spot check maybe a dozen or so. See how many are fixed?”

“Sure thing, Skipper. My pleasure.” She pulled out her tablet, and I flashed the combined list to her.

As she went in search of some of the items on the list, I went into the cabin and began looking for passengers.

Being used to freight hauling, the passenger system always seemed a bit backwards to me. I suppose it made sense, but it just felt odd. When somebody had freight to ship, they could contract with a hauler if they knew of one, or they could add their cargo to the “cargo available list” and the ships would book the cargoes they could take. It worked well from the ship side because we could fill our ships with the cargoes that fit our ships and our schedules.

Passenger traffic got handled differently. Most passenger carriers set up regular routes, and had regular runs between and among the systems, but those were the big carriers. They had dozens of ships with passengers crammed into the hulls to generate the most revenue possible. The little carriers—like I hoped Icarus would become—carried freight and passengers on a kind of “ship for hire” basis. Most of the fast packets carried a few passengers on the side to help add to revenue without running over their mass limits. Instead of the passengers signing up on a clearinghouse, the ships with open spaces registered their sailing specifics, and waited for passengers to pick them.

I fired up the passage clearing house on the console in my cabin and scrolled through it, familiarizing myself with how it looked, and what information the postings needed. They were not precisely free-form—each listed a destination, a sailing time, an estimated arrival date, a passenger limit, a fare price, and then a small box listing the amenities. Scanning the list it seemed that most of the packet berths were for systems that were fairly close to Ten Volt like Kazyanenko and Foxclaw, with a smattering for systems a bit further out. I saw one for Martha’s Haven and one for Diurnia with transit times around twenty days.

That information gave me what I needed to position the
Iris
, but still I needed to visit the local office of the CPJCT. Over two weeks had passed since I took my test, and I had not received my steward’s endorsement. I needed that before I posted for paying passengers.

Chapter Forty-Eight
Ten Volt Orbital:
2373-January-30

For lunch Ms. Maloney served up a pair of savory quiches with a bean salad in a tangy vinaigrette. Her crusty breads had become a staple, and even if we had no customers to appreciate it, the crew did.

Well, to be more precise, Ms. Arellone and I did. The chief had neither returned nor, apparently, even read his messages. There were three reasons I did not expect to see Mr. Herring any time soon. He was young, male, and had credits to burn. With no watch schedule to constrain him, I suspected he would stay out until he ran out of credits—money being in shorter supply than stamina at his age.

When we gathered for lunch, the group seemed small after nearly two weeks with the lively companionship of Andrew Leyman and the youthful exuberance of Perc Herring. I wondered at how well the chief faded into the background. When spoken to, he stood out well enough, but between times he had the knack of being nearly invisible.

After the initial cutting and first bites of quiche, we got down to business.

“What did you find, Ms. Arellone?” I asked.

She swallowed the bite of quiche, and shook her head. “I checked maybe two dozen, Skipper. One had been fixed.”

“Which one was it, Ms. Arellone?”

“A lighting panel in engineering stores, sar.”

I sighed but the quiche was delicious and the counter point with the crusty loaf and tangy salad struck sparks off my taste buds.

“After lunch, I need to go to the CPJCT office here and find out what happened to my endorsement.”

“You haven’t received it yet, Captain?” Ms. Maloney asked.

I shook my head. “No, and they told me it would be only five to seven working days.”

“Ah, bureaucracy,” Ms. Maloney said. “We can get gossip across the quadrant in days but official correspondence takes weeks.”

“Gossip, Ms. Maloney?”

She flipped open her tablet and spun it on the table so I could see a rather blurry photo of me in my civvies coming out of The Plum Blossom in the company of a stylishly dressed Ms. Maloney. The words “Playboy Flyboy Dines In Style” scrawled across the image and only partially hid her face.

“Ouch,” Ms. Arellone said, taking in the photo. “Chris, you’ve been reduced to the unnamed.” She looked over at the older woman. “How insulting!”

Ms. Maloney smirked. “Actually, in the story they tease with references to somebody who’s supposed to be in mourning but is really living the high-life in secret.”

“I’m a playboy?” I asked. “How am I a playboy?”

The two women just looked at me like I had grown another head. After sharing a look, Ms. Arellone said, “Skipper? It’s a headline. It’s not supposed to make sense.” The two of them shared a small laugh at my expense.

Something about the photo bothered me. I couldn’t quite place it but there was something odd.

“Do you have to deal with this all the time, Ms. Maloney?”

“What’s that, Captain?”

“Publicity? Gossip?”

“I’ve been pretty lucky, although occasionally some newsie will take an interest in me.” She shrugged. “It’s worse when I’m on Diurnia, and there’s something going on with the company or my family. It’s been pretty quiet ever since Mother left.”