Temporary Duty (7 page)

"
Kh kh kh
." They were getting used to the Grallt laugh; it didn’t sound so much like choking any more. "We like coffee, it is probably our favorite Earth food, and it should be excellent trade goods. We are buying all of it we can store, from a place called Colomba, I think. To the south of Mexico." Dreelig talked to the waiter again, listened to the response. "Zeef says this is special coffee, for today only. It is called Blue Hills, or something similar. From Zhamaka, is that correct? An island. There is not very much of it, so we probably won’t get it again, because it is valuable for trading."

"Tell him it’s real good," said Peters. "Fixed right, too."

Dreelig relayed that, translated the response: "He says thank you for the compliment. He is glad that a human finds it prepared correctly."

Peters raised his left hand, nodded; the waiter responded in kind, with a sharper nod, and took himself off. "Jamaica, that’s the name," he said. "Where the coffee’s from."

"I believe you are correct," said Dreelig. "The second vowel is difficult for us, we don’t use that sound. Please eat. It will cool quickly, and we have much to do."

Peters finished everything but the chili, which he found a bit too spicy; Todd cleaned his plate. When they were done they got up and left, piling napkins on top of the plates, the sailors looking back, still not accustomed to just walking off without taking the dirties to the scullery.

"What now?" Todd asked.

"I am taking you to Znereda, the language instructor," Dreelig said.

"Language lessons," Peters drawled disgustedly. When Dreelig started to say something he waved it off. "Yeah, I know, we gotta be able to order lunch," he said. "I just ain’t lookin’ forward to it, y’know? Languages ain’t my thing."

"It should not be difficult," Dreelig said. "The language is very simple."

Peters snorted. "It better be. There’s places in the United States I need an interpreter." Todd’s laugh earned a scowl.

The language teacher had his establishment farther forward than they had yet been, off a pale-pink corridor two decks up from the dining hall. The deck wasn’t so much carpeted as padded, with something dark maroon that was soft underfoot and deadened sound. Dreelig gave them the salute and nod. "Znereda is waiting, and I will leave you now. Dee will meet you at the dining hall at the next meal."

Peters returned the salute gravely. "We’ll be there," he said, and watched as the Grallt turned on his heel and shambled off.

At that point the door opened and a voice said, "Good morning, gentlemen. Won’t you come in?"

The speaker was the first old Grallt they’d seen, if white hair and lined face was any indication. He was short and slight, dressed in the loose jumper and trousers combination, white above and dark blue below. He regarded them with head cocked to the side and bright eyes half closed, like a lurking tomcat.

"Good morning," Peters said. "Are you Znereda?"

"Oh, yes," said the Grallt. "And you must be Mr. Peters and Mr. Todd. Come in, come in, I’ve been waiting for you." He backed away from the door and waved them through into a room with more of the maroon padding on the floor. Comfortable chairs faced a desk and a blank wall, painted dark green, with scrawls across it.
Graffiti? Here?
Peters thought, before he realized that here was a genuine antique. He’d had chalkboards in the country school he’d gone to as a kid, but hadn’t seen one since.

"Not ‘mister,’ Todd corrected. "Just ‘Peters’ and ‘Todd’. Only officers are ‘mister,’ and that’s only until they make commander."

Znereda chuckled, human style instead of Grallt choking; it sounded artificial. "We’ll discuss that at another time," he declared. "Today I’m the teacher, and you are students." He gestured at the chairs. "If you’ll please sit down, we’ll begin."

By the time Znereda let them go it was almost time for the second meal, and they knew that that was the beginning of the second
ande
. They knew that there were six
ande
per
llor
or watch cycle, eight
utle
per
ande
, sixty-four
tle
per
utle
, and sixty-four
antle
per
tle
. They could count to "ten"–actually eight–in the Grallt numbering system, and say the number-names to a "hundred," actually sixty-four. They knew the names of a few common foods, and how to say "yes," "no," "please," and "thank you." They were also exhausted from the mental effort.

Dee wasn’t in the mess hall when they got there. Peters looked at the watch; it was still half an
utle
before the second
ande
, and people would be drifting in over the next half hour–
utle!
–or so. The waiter came up; they struggled through the food names they thought they knew, and earned a deeper nod than before when they got it out comprehensibly. What they got was what they’d expected, which was quite a little triumph when they thought about it, and they fell to.

When Dee came in a little while later they were almost finished. "I see you have learned a little of the Trade language," she commented. "That will be a great relief for me."

"Gettin’ tired of dealin’ with sailors already, are you?" Peters asked.

"No, not at all." She moved her lips in her "wrinkled nose" gesture, a sort of three-cornered pout, the points where her facial cleft met her mouth protruding more than her lower lip. "It is just that I am not anticipating the next
ande
with pleasure."

"Why’s that?" Peters asked. He noted that Todd had looked away, and realized with a start that he felt no aversion. Sometime in the past few hours Dee had changed from "funny looking creature" to "person, a little odd" verging on "pretty girl, but different." Her eyes were light brown with a distinct pinkish cast.

She made the expression again. "Cleaning," she said. "The quarters the officers will be using must be cleaned and stocked. It will not be pleasurable work, I think."

Peters decided the expression meant "distaste." "Well, I reckon it won’t get no better for waitin’," he commented. "You eat already?"

"Yes, I ate with friends before I came here." She stood and breathed out, a humanlike sigh. "And you are correct, of course. Shall we go?"

She led them back to the entry to the officers’ quarters, where they met three more Grallt, all male. Dee gave the newcomers a short pep talk, with gestures at the two sailors, and they turned to, beginning on the third level and separating into a division of labor. Two of the Grallt went ahead, dusting, while the third cleaned the fixtures in the heads, and Peters and Todd followed behind, Peters with a broom and Todd with a swab. Dee vanished, and the three Grallt spoke no English, so they communicated by handwaving.

It was a lot of space, and was going to take a while, even with the lick-and-promise approach the Grallt seemed happy with. "No white gloves here," Todd remarked somewhere on the second level. Peters just grunted and shoved dirt around. About the time they were finishing up the second level Dee reappeared, which the other Grallt took as a signal to down tools and vanish, and the sailors followed suit with relief.

"More next
ande
, I reckon," Peters said as he stowed his broom in a closet on the second level, between the kitchen and the heads.

"Yes, none of these areas have been used in a long time, and they are very dirty," Dee told them. "We should finish this part by the end of the
llor
. After that, we will clean the area where you are."

"Oh, no," said Peters, an admonition rather than a groan. "We ain’t cleanin’ no enlisted quarters. That’s what seamen are for."

"I don’t understand," Dee admitted. "Should the quarters not be clean?"

"Yeah, sure, but not by us," Peters told her. "When the detachment gets aboard everybody’ll clean his own quarters, then turn to and get the rest of the space shipshape. You’ll see. Officers gonna have to clean their own space? Durin’ the trip, I mean?"

"No, of course not," Dee told him. "The three who helped you will be assigned to that area. They will clean, and make the beds, and so on."

"Stewards," Todd said with a grin. "All the comforts of home. The jaygees and ensigns’ll be pleased as Hell."

"Not if they don’t do better’n they did this time," Peters warned. "Enlisted can clean their own space, but we better go over this place again, and this time, you stick around, Dee. What we did ain’t good enough, and I need to be able to explain that to them yahoos."

"If you say it is necessary, then that is what we will do," Dee said resignedly.

"What next?" Todd wanted to know.

"Next is another meal," Dee told them. "Would you like to clean up before eating?"

"Oh, hell, yes," said Peters. "You can probably smell me ten meters off."

"Not quite that far," Dee said, suddenly looking very, very alien. He missed being able to read her facial expression; was that an impish joke or not? Her tone said it was. "How long do you need to clean yourselves?"

"Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes," Peters told her.

She looked at her watch. "A little less than one
utle
. I will meet you at the, ah,
mess hall
you say? At the mess hall when you have finished. Can you find your way?"

"Not a problem," said Todd, and Peters nodded.

"Good. You might bring a sack," she suggested.

"A sack? What for?" Peters asked suspiciously.

She mimed pulling something over her head. "Several of my friends have been asking about you," she said. "You might need a sack." And with that she took herself off.

"Well, now we know what a grin looks like on a Grallt," Todd observed when she was out of earshot.

"Yeah. Funny lady. Come on, me for a shower."

* * *

When they arrived at the mess deck, bathed, shaved, and combed, Dee was sitting at a table near the entrance arch, already tucked in to her meal. She waved them over. "No sacks," she observed.

Todd and Peters exchanged looks. "It’s a little early for us," Todd explained.

"If that is what you choose. What would you like to eat?" Now they were sure what amusement looked like on a Grallt.

The waiter was hovering. "We still don’t know what’s good," Peters reminded her. "You’ll have to choose for us."

She gabbled at the waiter, gesturing at the two sailors, then addressed herself to her food, not speaking. Peters and Todd sat quietly, looking around. Several of the Grallt returned their looks, and one or two nodded heads in greeting. Silence continued after they got their food, Dee toying with the remnants on her plate and the two sailors eating steadily.

Finally the last blue leaf was gone. "Back to work, I guess," Peters said resignedly.

It was a long five hours. The workers were incredulous and resentful at the level of cleanliness the sailors insisted on. Dusting the top edges of hatch coamings seemed ridiculous to them, clearing out the grime under the sinks had them gabbling at one another at top speed, and they didn’t at all enjoy dustbunny hunts under the bunks. Finally they seemed to grudgingly accept the requirements, and among them they got one floor of sleeping area pretty well squared away.

One of the workers asked Dee something, sounding aggrieved. Dee gabbled in Grallt, then translated, "Peer asks, will this be the same all the time? He wants to know if they will need to keep it this clean constantly."

"This here’s just barely acceptable," Peters told her bluntly. "Stewards’d be on report if they let it get like this back home." When Dee translated that, the worker–Peer?–hunched his narrow shoulders and said something plaintive, and Peters shook his head in disgust. He was starting to hear words in the language they used, even when he didn’t know what they meant, and he didn’t need Dee’s translation to know Peer thought they didn’t have a big enough crew. If they were all this sloppy, he was undoubtedly right.

"That is all we can do for now," Dee said firmly. "It is almost the end of the
ande
, and we are all tired. We will meet here again after the meal and continue."

* * *

"This is what apprentices are for," Todd grumbled as he piloted a swab down the passageway.

"Yeah. I been an apprentice," said Peters. He was pushing and flicking a dust mop with the sure hand of long practice. "If that po-face Bolton was to see this place lookin’ like it did, I might get the chance to be doin’ that again. Do good, boy."

Todd scowled. "You’re right, dammit. I don’t have to like it, though."

Dee had made herself scarce again, so they got by with handwaving, grunts, and the few words they knew. The Grallt did well enough, if grudgingly, and it was amazing how far "please" and "thank you" went. They all had simple names, Zif and Peer and Dree, Don (no shit), Yod (Peters figured out it was really Llod after he’d heard it once or twice) and Se’er, and one individual, harder-working and more cooperative than the others, who rejoiced in the moniker of Pis. "Shit," said Peters when he heard that, and Pis pointed solemnly at another who hadn’t been introduced yet. Peters didn’t respond except to wince.

The place was starting to shape up, at least as regarded general cleanliness in the living quarters, but the decks were a problem. Peters wasn’t ready to try to get "wax," "stripper," and "buffer" across in dumbshow. It was hard enough to manage "no, goddammit, you have to get rid of the dirt, not just move it around," although that got easier with enough repetitions. On the other hand, "Down tools and go home" was understood immediately when he called it, an
utle
or so before the end of the watch.

Dee met them at the hatch. "Did it go well?"

"Well enough," Peters said, "but I’m beat."

"Yeah," said Todd. "Peters, you want to tell me the time?"

Peters fumbled the handheld out and pressed buttons. "0110 on a fine Wednesday morning."

Todd winced. "Ouch. Dee, I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep this up. Your day is lots longer than we’re used to."

"That may be true," Dee agreed calmly. "Perhaps you will adjust. If not, we can modify the watch schedule."

"Right." Peters sighed. "Me for a shower and hit the mess hall again. I wouldn’t even eat if it wouldn’t be ten hours ’til we’ll get back, but we gotta, right, Todd?"