By Darkness Forged

by Nathan Lowell

  A shop window across the street caught my eye. I crossed to get a better look. The display showed two dolls in fancy dress sitting across from each other, having tea. An ornate teapot stood on a silver tray, the cups—too big for the dolls—on the table between them. Decorative tins of tea stood in stacks around them. Of course, I went in.

  The scent of tea leaves filled the place. The mélange tickled across my nose with hints of jasmine and bergamot layered on a musky, black-tea base. I wasn’t much of a tea drinker but the scent of exotic teas soothed something inside me. Several other shoppers wandered the store. The cashier did a steady business, his smile broad for each new buyer who stepped up to the counter. The long side wall held shelves of tea—some in tins, some in paper boxes wrapped in film, some in ornate wooden chests. I followed the wall all the way to the end, all the while wondering if I would buy some while arguing that I probably wouldn’t drink it. Ms. Sharps already stocked tea for the crew. Brewing my own felt almost sacrilegious. The end wall held cubbyholes—every hole held exactly one cup, each different from the rest.

  The wall reminded me of Sifu Newmar’s studio with the wall of cups in the kitchen. I scanned the collection, wondering for a moment if she’d been here, if this shop had been the inspiration for her wall or—vice versa—some academy grad had settled here to establish the shop. A lot of the cups reminded me of styles she had. Simple round clay cups in dun and white, some ornately shaped and colored, some with intricate blue scenes of birds and branches, some with simple flowers. The sight was almost dizzying. I remembered an empty slot in Newmar’s wall at the same moment I saw one of the fancier, delicate cups—red hibiscus trumpets practically glowed around the sides. I reached for it at the same moment another customer did, bumping hands before we both retreated.

  “Sorry,” I said, turning to her—a youngish woman, well, younger than I was by maybe three or four stanyers. She wore a leather jacket, much worn but clearly loved. I lost myself in the dark brown pools of her eyes. In short, she was stunning. Literally. She stunned me into silence for a moment that felt like forever but probably was only a few heartbeats. “Sorry,” I said, again.

  She withdrew her hand and cleared her throat. “We both want the same cup,” she said.

  I took half a step back and waved her forward. “I can find another.”

  “No, that’s fine,” she said. “It’s not important.”

  A woman nudged her shoulder. “Nats? You all right?”

  The first woman blinked a couple of times and looked over at her friend. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  The second woman—slightly taller with a hint of epicanthal fold—looked as striking as the first. Not as stunning as her friend, Nats, but with the command bearing of a senior deck officer. She placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder as if to protect her from me. She wore an academy ring which gleamed in the spotlights aimed at the various cups. It didn’t surprise me.

  I took another half-step back. “Sorry,” I said, a third time.

  “They probably have a box of them in the stockroom, Nats.”

  A clerk hovering nearby stepped in. “Actually, we don’t. Each cup is unique. Some are very old. My partner and I have been collecting them from all around the Western Annex. Estate sales, flea markets. You’d be surprised what you can find at a flea market.” He winked at me.

  I laughed. “I started out in a flea market. I’ve seen a lot of things there.”

  He gave me a nod. “Then you know.” He scanned across the row and pointed out a different cup. “There, the blue hibiscus on the end. They’re from the same source, the same maker. Both very old bone china. They may have come from the same set. At one point in time, it was fashionable to have a set with different colors of the same pattern on all the cups. The hibiscus was a common choice because the real flowers come in a variety of colors, making a tea service look like a garden of mallows.” He smiled at each of us in turn.

  “I can take the blue,” I said.

  She glanced at me and nodded. “I’d like the red.”

  Her friend narrowed her eyes at me. It wasn’t quite a threat, and I wondered if she thought I might be one. Honestly, I didn’t blame her being a little jealous of her partner.

  The helpful clerk nodded. “Wonderful. Let me get some boxes for you.”

  He reached into a drawer under the display and pulled out two flats and some tissue paper. It took him almost no time to assemble the glossy white boxes, line them with tissue and nest the cups inside. He left the tops open and handed the blue one to me, the red one to her.

  I thanked him and stepped away to pick up a canister of tea to go with the cup.

  “You sure you’re all right, Nats?” the second woman asked. She spoke softly but clearly didn’t care if I overheard.

  “Yeah. I’m good, Zee. Let’s check out and head back to the ship.”

  I watched them complete their transaction with the cashier and leave the store. I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t their looks, although neither of them lacked. It was the way they moved. Nats moved like a cat. She reminded me of Bev from the Lois. She had the same smooth, contained gait. I wondered if she was as deadly as Bev could be. Her friend was definitely fleet. The way she stood. The way she looked around the room. The ring gave away her academy background but she didn’t strike me as engineering or cargo.

  “Excuse me?” A man beside me pointed at the shelf I was blocking. “I just need to grab a can?”

  “Oh, sorry.” I stepped back, the spell broken. I found a kilo tin of green tea to go with the cup and checked out. The chrono on the wall behind the cashier told me I needed to head back to the ship and drop off my purchases. I’d spent more time than I’d realized.

  I stepped along sharply on the way back. I told myself it was because I was late, but I got to the lock and felt a little let down that I hadn’t been able to catch another look at Nats and her friend.

  Chapter 39

  Dark Knight Station: 2376, March 26

  Pip, as always, found the places with good beer. The “little bistro” turned out to be the least likely looking restaurant I’d ever seen. To begin with, it had no chairs. The tables were on long poles bolted to the deck. They fell at about the right height for most people—a little tall for me and Pip, a little short for taller people. When he had said, “just off Main Street,” he wasn’t kidding. It was—literally—in the alley between two buildings, Tammy’s Music on one side and a Fidelity Cargo office on the other. I never did figure out where the kitchen was.

  He led me to a table and leaned his elbows on it, propping up his head in his fists. “Somebody will be along shortly.” He nodded at a display on the wall of the music store. “Beers du jour. The pilsner is nice. The lager is terrific. The stout is so-so. Stay away from the wheat.” He made a face. “Watery would be understating it and failing to convey the nature of the actual crime.”

  I laughed. “Judgmental at all, are we?”

  He held up his hands, palm out. “I’m just saying. You might like it. I won’t think any less of you as a person.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “Yes, I will,” he said with a shrug.

  A guy on roller skates zoomed up to the table. I looked down at them. “Snazzy. How do you stand up?”

  “Practice and a grav unit on my belt,” he said. “Food? Beer? What?”

  “I’ll have the Squire Lager. What’s the special?”

  “Spicy barbecue pork loin sandwich. Side of fried potatoes.”

  “Real barbecue?” he asked.

  “Got a pit and everything.”

  “How spicy?” Pip asked.

  “Just regular but the pork has a bit of fire on it. It doesn’t exactly bite you back but you know it’s there.”

  “Yes. Skipper?”

  “Got a porter?” I asked.

  “Knight Time,” he said. “Nice color, good heft. A solid brew with some coffee and chocolate notes in the malt. Light on the hop so you don’t get bitter
at the end.”

  “He’s always bitter,” Pip said.

  The guy looked at Pip. “Really? That’s the best you got?”

  Pip shrugged. “I’m out of practice.”

  The guy looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “I’ll take it.”

  “You want the special or should I recite the menu?”

  “Special,” I said.

  He snapped his fingers. “Darn, I was hoping to recite the menu. See if I remembered it from this afternoon.” He shook his head and tapped on the table with a knuckle. “Be right back.” He zoomed off.

  “Roller skates? Is he really wearing roller skates?” I asked.

  Pip nodded. “A little gimmicky and I can’t imagine how much food and beer they spill a night.”

  A woman wearing skates circled the table. “Less than you think,” she said with a wink and rolled away.

  “Ya have to admit,” he said. “It’s different.”

  “I can’t fault you there.”

  The guy slid to a stop and placed two pint mugs on the table. “Food’s up in a sec.” He was gone before I could speak.

  “Can’t fault the service, either,” Pip said, taking a pull from his pint and sighing in satisfaction. “Not Clipper Ship but damn fine.”

  I tasted the porter and found it to my liking. I toasted Pip with the mug. “If the food’s as good, we have a winner.”

  He clinked his mug to mine and we settled in.

  The sandwiches lived up to the beer and, after the second round, I didn’t mind the table height as much, but I was ready for a sit-down. We settled up and headed back to the ship.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  Pip looked at me. “I thought we were going back to the ship.”

  “Not now now. Now next.”

  “We only had two rounds,” he said.

  “We found the mega. Patterson is dead. Do you have some other secret mission to drag us around the Western Annex on?”

  Pip looked down at the deck and stayed quiet for so long I thought he might be sleepwalking.

  “Spit it out,” I said.

  “I quit. That was my last outside job.”

  “That’s not going to sit well with your boss, is it?” I asked.

  “Well, I haven’t actually quit. I need to do a sit-down with them when we get to Port Newmar.”

  I looked at him, really looked. “You’re serious.”

  He nodded.

  “Is it because you got kidnapped and roughed up?”

  “No. Not that. It’s not the first time, actually. These people were amateurs.”

  “Yeah, our hijackers were, too. I screwed up on that one,” I said.

  He glanced at me. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I assumed that they were all amateurs. I only went out of my way to check out the Davie character once, but never made it a point to actually track him down. In the end, the only thing that prevented that plan from succeeding was his mistake in trusting his client.”

  “Not the way I heard it,” he said.

  “What did you hear?”

  “Overlooking the star-struck renditions of the Captain and the Snake, you spotted the smoke hoods, alerted the chief who spread the word through the crew. The hull breach alarm killed any chance the plot had of succeeding in killing the crew. Even if Patterson had been wearing a full hazmat suit, the plot ended there. Dealing with him afterward would have been a lot dicier, but you beat him at his own game. Fair and square.”

  I shrugged. “Eh, I just keep thinking of things I could have done differently, better.” I kicked an empty paper cup. It skittered across the deck and bounced off the bulkhead in front of us. I stopped to pick it up and crumple it into a recycle bin. “It took me forever to tumble that they didn’t care about the can. They wanted the ship. They almost got it.”

  Pip slung an arm over my shoulder—which must have appeared comical because he was about three centimeters shorter—and leaned in. “This is what you do, Ishmael. You need to stop it. You’re second-guessing yourself. In the heat of the moment, you’re one of the best. I couldn’t have dealt with that situation. I’d have probably lost the ship by smart-assing the wrong thug. It’s not like you were out there alone.” He craned his neck around to look at me. “The chief was there. Did she do anything?”

  “No.”

  “How about Al?”

  “No.”

  “So what would you have done to hold them if you’d rounded them all up? They were scattered all over the ship and you couldn’t be sure to take them all down at once. You couldn’t even take them down one at a time and keep the others from learning about it.”

  “Well. One of the coolers, maybe,” I said. “If we’d moved on them while they were separated.”

  “You still would have had to deal with Patterson and he wasn’t one of the stooges. He was dangerous enough that his boss needed to kill him. You’ve seen him work. Do you think you could have gotten the drop on him? His bosses didn’t try.”

  I felt somewhat mollified. I still couldn’t stop the debriefing in my head.

  He pushed me to the side. “Stop it.” He laughed and punched me in the arm. “Did you really wrestle that weapon out of Snake’s hands, unload it, and give it back?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You did it in front of the whole crew.”

  “So?”

  “So, your crew watched you pour a coffee, stare down an armed intruder, get up into his face, take the gun away from him, unload the gun right in front of him, give the gun back, make him look like an idiot—”

  “He did that on his own,” I said.

  “Shut up. I’m telling you what they saw. Then you basically ignored his ass for over a week, trotting him up and down the ship like a puppy dog while taking the short-handed crew to a pirate base and back after defeating the plot to kill them all and steal the ship.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It made Mary Torkelson’s revelations earlier in the day make a little more sense. “I only did what needed doing,” I said.

  He stopped in the middle of the docking gallery and just stared at me for almost a tick. “Say that again. Out loud.”

  “I only did what needed doing.”

  “Think about that. Meditate on the words. I’ll wait.” He propped his shoulders against a bulkhead, crossing his arms and ankles.

  “I have no idea what I’m supposed to think about that.”

  “Start with ‘only.’ You only did what needed doing. That’s exactly right. No wasted movements. No harebrained ideas. Only the things that needed doing. You didn’t try to round them up, potentially setting the plot off early—or, heaven forfend, cause them to trigger a bomb you knew they were capable of detonating. You did what was needed. Necessary. You took care of the crew. You took care of the ship. You didn’t even have a whole crew aboard—not that I’d have been much use to you, but Keehn and Penna might have served some purpose because that’s—you know—why they’re on the payroll to begin with. Get over yourself. Stop being an idiot. You won. Next time you’ll do better. Next time you’ll have practice. Next time you won’t win by the skin of your teeth. Or with your head up your butt.”

  I stared at him. He seemed really angry—breathing hard, flushed face, fists actually clenched where his arms were crossed.

  He took a deep breath. “Now. If we’re through with the histrionics, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do next because we’re docked and I’m the CEO of this operation. We’re going to make a stupidly large profit on that can of tellurium and go call a meeting of our stockholders to tell them we’re all getting stinking rich and we want to buy another ship. Then we’re going find another cargo and keep going because that’s what we do.”

  “Another ship? Why?”

  “To get rich twice as fast.”

  “That’s not how it works,” I said.

  He took a figurative step back and blinked at me. “You sure?”

  I continued walki
ng toward the Chernyakova’s lock. “Yeah. Pretty sure. We’re getting crew shares and I’m getting captain’s share. The company gets the owner’s share, not us. That gets split up to the shareholders. We’re going to get a piece of that but a new ship will only contribute the owner’s share to the company, not to either of us.”

  “We’re still going to get rich faster,” he said.

  “Well, yes.” I nodded. “But not twice as fast.”

  He laughed and clapped me on the back. “Come on, we got cargo to move.”

  Chapter 40

  Port Newmar: 2376, May 15

  The conference room at the Windbreaker took up half the top floor and gave a gorgeous panoramic view of the bay and surrounding coastline. I could see the academy’s sloop beating to windward just off shore.

  Alys Giggone stepped up beside me, sharing the view.

  “That went well,” I said.

  “It did. Was he serious about buying another ship?”

  “I think it’s just a negotiation position. He’d have to delegate cargo-picking to somebody else and it would kill him.”

  She laughed. “You two scoundrels have done pretty well. Was he right? You’re going to just keep on hauling freight?”

  I snorted. “That’s all we were supposed to be doing in the first place. Everything else just piled on to us.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” she said.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I need to go visit Margaret Newmar. I have a gift for her.”

  “How soon are you shipping back out?”

  “We’ll be here a couple of weeks all told. I want to give the crew a chance to come planetside. They’ve earned a bit of sun and sand.” I shrugged. “I’ll be spending a little quality time with Mal Gaines. Try to get back into tai chi. The chief says she needs some extra time in the engine room for some maintenance.”

  “You talked Al out of retiring, I hear.”

  “For now. I put her in for the captains’ board. Even if she doesn’t pass it, she’s earned a seat at the table.”

  “You think that’ll keep her?”