Quarter Share

by Nathan Lowell

  I slugged him on the shoulder as we arrived at the captain’s door and I knocked before he could say anything else.

  The captain acknowledged our knock with a single, terse word from the other side of the door, “Come.”

  When we entered the cabin, we found her seated at her desk. We stood in the approved handbook fashion and I did the honors. “Carstairs and Wang reporting as ordered, sar.”

  “Thank you for coming, gentlemen. Please, sit.” She nodded toward two chairs. “Make yourselves comfortable and tell me how the enterprise is fairing.”

  I gave my recap and Pip gave his. We tried to be brief and succinct. When we finished she looked back and forth between the two of us.

  “You’ll have enough to sell for the rest of our stay, then?” she asked.

  Pip smiled. “It looks that way, Captain. Although it really depends if the pace can be repeated, and how many of the crew have goods to sell.”

  “Of course.”

  Pip grinned. “If we sell everything we have before we leave, I don’t think I’ll mind.”

  The captain chuckled. “No doubt.” She turned serious. “Now, about this reimbursement to the ship?”

  Pip glanced at me before going on. “Well, Captain, this isn’t, strictly speaking, ship’s business…”

  She nodded. “Go on.”

  “While it’s not a lot of creds in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem like a ship’s expense.”

  I nodded. “Yes, Captain, I agree with him. I appreciate…we appreciate…the opportunity to sell our stuff and help the crew, but—”

  Pip finished for me, “Well, actually, we had no idea what the right thing was, so we just split the cost to reimburse the ship.”

  “Who is we?” The captain looked back and forth between us.

  “Pip and I, Captain.”

  “So you two are underwriting this, and the rest of the crew can just take advantage of you?”

  Pip and I glanced at each other before he answered, “Well, I don’t know that we thought of it that way, but fundamentally, yes, Captain.”

  She nodded. “Very altruistic of you— and also extremely short sighted.”

  Pip looked startled. “Captain?”

  “If this little hobby of yours takes off, the crew will be selling hundreds, if not thousands of creds in your booth. The booth you two will be paying good creds for.”

  We shrugged almost in unison. Pip answered, “True, Captain, but we’ll benefit as well. The overhead is low and fixed. The cost doesn’t go up with more sales.”

  She nodded. “That’s true, but I don’t think you’ve thought this through. Are you going to use up your personal mass allotments for the materials needed in the booth? Are you planning to continue this beyond Margary? Will you both use up all your liberty time for every port we visit?”

  Pip started to object, but I could see where the captain was heading so I spoke first, “You’re right, sar, we haven’t considered these things. With your permission, we’ll finish Margary the way we’ve started, and we’ll have five weeks to St. Cloud to figure out a better plan. Can we come back after we’ve had a chance to put our heads together in the Deep Dark?”

  The captain nodded. “Not a bad approach at all, Mr. Wang. Permission granted. Any time you want to talk with me about this, please bip me for an appointment. Anything else?”

  Pip and I shared a glance before we both said, “No, sar.”

  She smiled. “Very well then, gentlemen. Dismissed.”

  As we made our escape down the passage, Pip turned to me. “She never did say what she was going to do about the forty creds for the booth rental.”

  I shrugged. “It’s probably coming out of petty cash. If regs say we can’t rent the booth, then it will probably go on the books as a ship’s expense.”

  He nodded as we continued down the passage. “Yeah, I can see that, but technically it’s not rented by the ship.”

  I remembered then where the reservation confirmation had come from. “What is the McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative?”

  He shrugged. “I thought I knew, but I’m not so sure now.”

  “I just remembered something else odd.”

  He looked over at me but we didn’t stop walking.

  “When we came back aboard and made our mass adjustments, the banner was pretty heavy. I wondered where it would be charged…you, me, or Bev.”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Rhon had the watch this morning and said it came with the captain’s compliments.”

  “So it was charged back to her?”

  “No, it was charged to Lois McKendrick,” I answered.

  “You mean the ship?”

  I shook my head. “No, ship’s gear gets tagged as ship on the logs. This was the name, Lois McKendrick.”

  Pip thought for a tick before speaking, “But…she’s dead, isn’t she?”

  I slugged him on the shoulder. “Dead or not, she’s not a member of the crew, ya goof.”

  We didn’t say any more until we’d made it to the gym for our nightly work out. I was in a fog from the exhaustion of the long day at the flea market and the confusing evening that followed. I wanted to run a few laps, steam my sore muscles in the sauna, and then take a cold shower to forget about how that belt had looked strapped low around Bev’s hips.

  When I got back to my bunk, I started thinking about Lois McKendrick again. I remembered the captain’s comments about a proud tradition and the way her fingers had stroked the fabric of the banner under our trade goods. I took out my tablet and pulled up the ship’s records. Sure enough, I found an entry on the history from the ship’s origin. It was built in a Manchester yard over in the New Hebrides Quadrant. The ship itself wasn’t all that old, nineteen stanyers—just one more than me. It explained that the ship was named for one Lois Marie McKendrick, a trade organizer.

  The entry said that stanyers ago McKendrick had changed the face of company owned planets. Back in the bad old days, they completely controlled all dirt-side production. At that time everything an employee did belonged to the company. So if you gardened for a hobby, or your spouse knitted sweaters, or you made anything at all, it belonged to the company who ran the planet you lived on. I remembered reading about this in history, but my schoolbooks didn’t really explain what happened to change the system. Mom often said the company texts didn’t always reflect the unvarnished truth.

  If this blurb was correct, Lois Marie McKendrick organized an opposition against the New Anglican Planetary Development Company on New Edinburgh. She and her group won the right for people to make things that the company didn’t own. Her movement caught on and spread not just through the New Hebrides Quadrant, but throughout the organized galaxy. In many ways, she was responsible for the burst of trade that heralded the deployment of the big sailing freighters and prosperity of the trading houses that have grown ever since.

  Apparently, Lois McKendrick died shortly before the ship was completed, but her great-granddaughter christened the vessel when it launched. The article featured a blurry digital of a young woman swinging a bottle of champagne against the airlock. I didn’t recognize her until I read the caption, “Cargo Second Alys McKendrick Giggone christens Federated Freight’s newest solar clipper, the forty-three thousand ton Lois McKendrick.” Under that was another digital of a group of people standing in front of a familiar blue banner with silver letters that read McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative. Front and center, was a straight-backed woman with a warm smile holding the shoulders of a young girl standing just in front of her. On either side of her were a half dozen folks of various ages and the caption read: “Lois McKendrick (center) stands with the members of the McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative outside the courthouse at New Edinburgh.” Judging from the looks, I guessed this was when the Galactic Circuit Court ruled in their favor. I also couldn’t be sure, but I was willing to bet that I recognized that little girl.

  Chapter 22

  Margary Station
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  2352-January-12

  Next morning in the galley, Pip stopped by for breakfast before heading out to do his stint at the flea market and I shared with him the information I found about Lois.

  Pip nodded slowly. “Okay, that explains where the name and banner came from. But why did the captain give it to us to use?”

  “I understand that part,” I said. “It’s probably been sitting around in storage for the last, I don’t know how long, and when we started renting the booth, she broke it out.”

  Cookie tossed a tidbit of his own onto the table as he walked by. “The captain was in cargo before she went to the Academy to get her officer stripes. As I understand it, her whole family is involved with trading in one way or another.”

  I nodded. “See, that’s all part and parcel. Very consistent. I mean this ship is named for her great-grandmother and if that’s really her in this picture, then they were close.”

  Pip nodded with a shrug. “So? What part are you confused by?”

  “Who is Lois McKendrick?”

  “You just answered that.”

  I shook my head. “Not that Lois McKendrick. The one who has that banner registered on her mass allotment.”

  Cookie over heard and chuckled. “Oh, that’s tradition, young Ishmael. Lois is the ship’s pooka—a kind of spirit. There’s always an honorary berth for the person that the ship is named after. It’s an unpaid position, of course, and they don’t appear on any duty roster, but that berth shares all the other benefits of being any other crew member. By tradition, a vessel’s captain can use that berth as a kind of alter ego to do things for the benefit of the ship. Usually they are a kind of conduit for random acts of kindness.”

  “So over on the Duchamp there’s actually a berth for Marcel Duchamp?” Pip asked.

  Cookie nodded. “Exactly so. It gets peculiar on some vessels, especially those named for cities or animals, but the tradition is common.”

  Pip just shook his head. “Live and learn.” He rose to take his dishes to the galley and while he was gone, Cookie pulled out a package and placed it at the table where Pip had been sitting. He winked, held a finger to his lips, and then followed Pip into the galley.

  When Pip got back and saw it, he turned to me. “What’s this?”

  I just shrugged.

  Looking inside, Pip pulled out some drapery clips and a dark blue tablecloth. “Oh, perfect. Where’d this come from?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno. Must be from Lois.” I could see Cookie peeking out from the galley.

  Pip chuckled and called out as he left, “Thanks, Lois.”

  Some of the watch standers came in for breakfast, and I told Cookie to finish his coffee. Omelets, I could manage. It felt good, but before long, he was helping and eventually elbowed me off to make coffee and set bread. That man wasn’t happy unless he was feeding somebody, so I left him to it and just filled in where I could. Beverly came in and I told her about the meeting with the captain and showed her the entry about Lois McKendrick with the picture of the banner.

  “That’s interesting. What do you suppose it all means?”

  “Which part? The fact that she rented the space in the name of the cooperative, or that she gave Pip and me a short but blistering lecture on letting the rest of the crew take advantage of our booth? Or the strong sense I have that she’s expecting Pip and me to do something, and that she’ll support us if we do, but she wants us to figure it out on our own.”

  Bev shrugged. “I dunno. All of the above, I guess.”

  I sighed. “I have a lot to figure out.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t take up any more of your time then. I need to get back to my duty station anyway.” She left me and I went back to the galley to let the daily routine distract me from thinking any more about it. The routine felt good and I sank into it like a hot bath letting it carry me through the morning. I decided after lunch, I would go down to environmental.

  ***

  When I stepped through the hatch, Diane and Brill were there examining one of the oxygen scrubbers. I overheard them talking. “It looks like we’re going to have to change out the matrix, I guess.”

  Diane nodded with a grimace. When she saw me, she grinned. “Just in time. You here to work or flirt?”

  I chuckled. “Both if I can get away with it.”

  Brill smiled as well. “Well, you’ll have to flirt with her. I’ve got quarterlies to finish.”

  “What’s up?” I nodded toward the oxygen scrubber.

  “This matrix is starting to die out and it needs to be replaced.”

  Brill sighed. “It really is a two person job, but I have got to finish this paperwork today or I won’t be able to get off the ship tomorrow. Unfortunately, Diane is alone this watch.”

  “How long will it take?”

  Diane shook her head. “Not long. Two stans if we work hard.”

  “I got two stans before I have to be back in the galley. Let’s get cracking.”

  “Thanks, Ish.” Brill chucked me on the arm. “You’re a peach.”

  “Yeah, soft, fuzzy, with a hard wooden core, I know.” I grinned at her then turned to Diane. “Okay, I’m at your disposal. Where do we start?”

  The time went by really fast. Diane was as good with the scrubber as she had been in the booth the day before. The work consisted of stripping out the old algae matrix from the frames, washing them down, stringing up new material, and re-inoculating it. It would take about half a day before the algae settled in and started producing oxygen so it was important to do it as soon as one started to die off. Diane told me it was one of the least favored jobs in environmental, made worse by the fact that every scrubber had to be reworked about once a month.

  The process wasn’t difficult. A metal frame sandwiched the matrix foundation and held it taut. This film gave the algae something to adhere to. We pulled each one out of the scrubber, released the clips that held the front and back together, separated the halves, and rolled the old material out like a kind of slimy, brown jelly roll that was a meter long and half a meter thick. Then we had to wash the frame down and roll in fresh matrix material then stretch and smooth it down before locking them together again. Diane used a sprayer to coat it with new algae in a uniform layer. The completed assembly was then ready to load into the scrubber. While the process wasn’t difficult, it was time-consuming with forty-eight units that needed to be replaced. We had to prevent cross-contamination, so we stripped and washed everything down before we started re-assembling and hanging the fresh frames. It was tedious, wet, and slimy work for the entire duration. When we were done, I was soaked, filthy, and exhausted. What’s more, I needed to get back to the galley to help Cookie.

  Diane and Brill both thanked me repeatedly for helping out, but I had to admit it was really kinda fun. Diane is what my mom would have called good people and had a wicked sense of humor that made even a boring exercise like changing out algae matrices enjoyable. Besides, she looked good in a mucky, wet shipsuit. Who could argue with that?

  I was a little late but Cookie waved it off. “Brill called to explain you might be delayed, young Ishmael.” He smiled in his understanding way. “If you can spend your free time helping out in another department, then I can forgive your being four ticks late to fix dinner. One thing, though—”

  I finished for him, “Let me guess…we’re out of coffee?”

  He smiled beatifically. “Just so, young Ishmael, just so.”

  ***

  Dinner consisted of a mushroom, ham, and spinach quiche with fresh crusty rolls and green beans. Cookie made one of his amazing granapple pies for dessert, which made a nice treat for the watch standers. About half past dinner, Pip came in, still in his civvies, looking tired but happy. He grabbed a wedge of quiche and some green beans and sat with us at a mess table to compare notes.

  “Good?” I slid a cup of fresh coffee onto the table beside his tray.

  He nodded. “But you were right about a long day standing there.”
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br />   “How much did you sell?”

  He strung me along a tick, pretending to be too hungry to answer but finally did, “Everything.”

  I looked at Cookie and back at Pip. “When you say everything, you mean what exactly?”

  “Everything that we planned to sell and then some more. I left ten belts for St. Cloud here in my locker, but I probably could have sold those, too. The prices started going up as the pile dwindled. I don’t even know what the final total is. I haven’t had a chance to look.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  He shook his head. “The banner looked really good hanging up and the tablecloth was exactly the right size and shape. The color showed off the belts perfectly. That Lois is really clever.” He pulled out his tablet and opened the accounting function. “Okay, we took in three thousand five hundred and forty creds, less the three fifty it cost for the seventy belts. We made about three thousand one hundred and ninety creds today.”

  There was silence for at least a full tick before Cookie spoke, “Young Ishmael, you might want to close your mouth now.”

  I did so but immediately opened to ask the next question. “How did the others do?”

  “Well, Rhon and Biddy did very well. Rhon had some very nice fabrics and a huge collection of entertainment cubes. Biddy had small wooden and stone carvings, mostly animals, that were very popular and expensive. They both sold out. I don’t know how much they made. It seemed rude to ask, but they were both giggling like schoolgirls afterward. Sean Grishan had lace doilies and they evaporated off the table. He sold out by noon.”

  “Lace doilies? You mean like the little round things?”

  Pip nodded. “He makes them, and by the looks, he’s darn good at it, too.”

  “He makes them? Here? On the ship?”

  Pip nodded. “Yeah. He knits, too. Claims sailors on the clipper ships used to do it to pass the time and he’s been teaching himself for the last couple of stanyers. They sold well, so, to each his own, I guess.”