by E M Gale
They were silent. I slurped my hot tea on purpose. None of them took the bait and told me off for buying tea.
‘Shame.’
“OK, Clarke,” said Rob, “your air of smug superiority and the fact that you’re not yelling at us makes me think you have a solution. Spill it.”
I grinned at them. “How about if I told you I found you a source of income and a way off this planet?” They looked interested. “All you have to do is sell a kidney each.”
“What?” said Anna, looking astounded. I laughed.
“That’s not funny,” said Mark.
“All of us?” said Jane darkly, with a sideways glance at Rob. “Some people have two.”
I chuckled and held my hands up. “OK, OK. I was joking about the kidneys.” They still looked perturbed. “I got us a job, good pay apparently, a chance to see the stars, get closer to Earth–though it’d be hard for us to go any further out.”
“Where?” asked Anna, looking around her for some reason, as if a job might be sneaking up on her.
“How?” asked Mark suspiciously.
“Oh? And what sort of work is it?” Jane was frowning at me.
I grinned. “A… trading ship. A spaceship. They need new deckhands.”
“And this pays well?” queried Jane incredulously.
‘I don’t see you suggesting any jobs.’
“Huh, any pay is better than what we’re currently on. There’s the free travel and board, and factor in that people with valid galactic IDs are hard to come by in this neck of the woods, it’s not that surprising they’re willing to pay for it.” I shrugged.
“Clarke!” yelled Rob. “We don’t have valid ID.s! That’s the problem! Weren’t you listening?”
I pulled out the IDs and tossed them on to the low table in front of me.
Rob strode across the room and picked up an ID and held it up to the light. Jane sniggered, and then lit herself another cigarette.
“Are these genuine?” asked Mark, staring at me like a wide-eyed boy on Christmas morning.
‘Don’t ask stupid questions, Mark.’
I shrugged. “Genuine enough for our new employer.”
“Clarke! How did you get these? Don’t tell me you went to the yakuza!” yelled Anna. The nearby ryokan staff studiously ignored our conversation.
“No, of course not, Anna, I told you they were too expensive.” I took another slurp of hot, sweet tea and grinned at her. “The local independents, on the other hand, were much more reasonable.”
She was staring me in shock.
“Free trade is a wonderful thing,” I added.
“What? Clarke, where did you–”
Something alerted me, a rustle, perhaps of the staff leaving. I looked around and the ryokan was deserted and three perfectly ordinary-looking businessmen were heading into the ryokan.
“–get these? Is–”
‘Are they yakuza? Why else would the staff leave? Fuck, they probably called the yakuza, Anna was shouting about them. Or the yakuza just decided to check all the cheap hostels in the area…’
“–it legal–”
‘My friends will give everything away, and it’s not really their fault, but what would the yakuza do with time travellers?’ I stood.
“–to buy–”
“Go to the room and pack,” I said, “and wait for me at the spaceport.”
And then I ran.
“Clarke–”
The yakuza, if that was who they were, stared at me in recognition. I ran towards them and then turned off through the kitchens. There the inn owner stared at me wide-eyed. I ran, slipping slightly on the floor as the house slippers were not made for running. The door to the kitchen crashed open and three gangsters followed. One shouted something in Japanese and the inn owner ducked. Then I was at the exit. I crashed against the door. There was some resistance but it couldn’t have been locked as it juddered open and I was through into a narrow alleyway, complete with a cat which hissed, bicycles and a broom which I threw behind me. More shouts behind. I ran, one foot cold as I’d lost a slipper somewhere in the tangle of bikes.
* * *
I ran and ran. Then I scooted back to the ryokan, and, when I spied my friends leaving, I led the yakuza lying in wait for me off on another chase. Once I’d lost them for a second time, I slunk into the spaceport, hot and sweaty, my besocked feet and combats sodden from a high-speed collision with a water butt, leaving a trail of muddy soggy footprints behind me.
“Hi,” I said. Anna shook her head.
‘Oh, here it comes…’
But she merely handed me a plastic bag containing my boots.
“How did you piss off the yakuza?” asked Rob.
I shook my head. “Who knows.”
They watched me putting my boots on. Then I stood and waited. None of them told me off, so after a quick glance round to check there were no likely-looking businessmen around, I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. “Let’s be off, shall we?”
Mark was frowning and shook his head, but they all picked up their bags.
I decided to take my friends the long way. I’m like that, I enjoy making things more difficult for myself. They followed me through the spaceport towards the door marked ‘Staff Only’. They hesitated as I opened it.
“Clarke–” started Anna. I’m sure she was building up to an objection against trespassing.
“C’mon, we are staff.” I walked through and they followed me.
Really, I only took them that way for Rob. When the tunnel opened out onto the docking bays and he saw the spaceships, he let out a long, awed: “Wow!”
“Cool, huh?” I smiled at him. “But c’mon, and try to look like you’ve seen this sort of thing before.” I suspected no one believed that. A few dockworkers recognised me. I got a few nods and we shared grins at the rookies’ excitement.
We headed into the gloom of the bar; I could take my shades off inside. I glanced back to see them by the door, stunned and disgusted by what lay before them.
‘A clean-up job, eh? The clean-up crew haven’t so much cleaned up as scraped up then painted over the top.’
As my friends stood out like coppers on the Old Kent Road, I sent all of them, except Anna, over to a booth where they would draw less attention.
My bartender was working this shift. He all but bounced over. “Hi, Clarke.” He shot me a wicked grin. “How you doing?”
“Good today.” My mouth quirked up in a saucy grin.
‘Hmm, his blood would probably taste nice too.’
I bit down on that thought before my teeth could respond.
‘Now is not the time!’
“Uh… anyone been looking for me? Asking around?”
“Just me.” He leaned forward. “I finish at eight.”
I nodded and gave him the drinks order and he jogged off to get it.
“Honestly, Clarke.” Anna’s face was a picture of disapproval. “You are terrible.”
“What?”
“You are like a cat,” she muttered. “Was this the sort of thing you were up to? Pulling random unknowns?”
“He’s not a ‘random unknown’, his name is Hiro Watanabe.”
She sighed. The bartender came back and handed over the drinks.
“If anyone asks for me, you haven’t seen me, OK?” I leant over the bar to play with his hair, mostly just to wind Anna up. He grinned and then Anna and I retreated back to our booth. We weren’t there for long before the doctor headed in and, spotting me, made his way to us.
“Cleckley,” I said by way of a greeting.
“Good morning.” He sat down next to Rob.
He and my friends eyed each other with open curiosity as I introduced them quickly, finishing with Rob and Mark. “Rob, technical genius; he’ll know nothing about your systems, but put him to work in the engine room or something and you’ll not be disappointed. Mark, computer guy, same kinda thing.”
Cleckley nodded. “I’ll tell the captain that, but he’ll pr
obably want to meet you all before allocating tasks.” At this point he was looking primarily at me.
‘Oh, dear. What have I gotten myself into?’
“Well, I see you’ve all got your luggage,” said Cleckley. “I know you can down your drink, Clarke, so drink up and let’s go.”
* * *
Cleckley led us back to the docking bays. Stopping at one, we regarded the ship. It wasn’t one of the biggest I’d seen round there, but it was registered with E-grade engines.
‘That can’t be right, they’re much too big for a ship of that size. That is unless it is really, really fast.’
I grinned.
“Welcome to the Silvered Cloud,” said Cleckley, gesturing at the ship.
“Oh, wow!” Rob’s eyes were shining with love. “She’s beautiful!” Cleckley looked amused at this.
The ship was rounded, silvered and shaped roughly like an egg. It was as if the designer had taken a sphere and pinched a part of it and pulled it out, then slightly flattened part of the long side, perhaps for easier landings. My guess was that it needed some streamlining for atmospheric landing and the like, which it could obviously do, but in space the most efficient shape for a spaceship would be a sphere: it gave more room for guns on the outside and stock on the inside.
This smugglers’ ship seemed to have more than its fair share of guns. The outside lacked the markings most ships had, and was reflective, presumably to deal with radiating heat, but I suspected that reflecting dark space might make it a little harder to spot. Though surely people would look for ships with radar? Maybe that was another reason for the odd shape? If a 2D radar slice displayed the pointy end the ship would be mistaken for an asteroid or something much smaller than it was.
The ship was propped up on moveable ramps. The back end, the bit shaped like the bottom of an egg, was opened up so that people could walk on to it or load cargo on and off. It was a nice, fast, shiny, shiny ship. I wanted it.
We went up the ramp into the ship’s loading bay. Various well-muscled men were loading things I couldn’t identify, either by hand or using the anti-grav forklift trucks that were ubiquitous in the spaceport. I had forgotten that the others hadn’t seen those yet. They stopped, mystified at the boxes floating an inch above the forks, until I urgently whispered to them to keep up.
Cleckley led us straight up to the bridge. It was a big room, split into two levels. The upper part contained the captain’s chair, the lower part was dominated by screens with lots of terminals, buttons, controls. It was all I could do not to start playing with them. We walked through the bridge and out of a door from the captain’s level to a meeting room, which was dominated by the captain himself. He was standing behind a large desk and the chairs in the room were piled up at the side, so we had to stand. The captain was tall, broad-shouldered, and grizzled. He wore his uniform well, but lacked any peg legs or eye patches. He smelt a bit odd to me and had long-ish, thick brown wavy hair, designer stubble and bushy eyebrows. From under them he was glaring, most noticeably at me.
‘Great.’
“The new hands, Captain,” said Cleckley.
“Welcome, lads,” bellowed the captain in a Texan accent, completely ignoring the fact that the women were the majority. “I’m Captain Samson.”
‘Heh, I wonder if he loses his powers if someone cuts off those lovely locks.’
“I run a tight ship here. You cross me, you die.” He seemed to be aiming his words at me.
Anna gasped. He softened both his voice and his scowl to address her.
“But other than that you’ll find I’m perfectly reasonable.” He smiled at her. “Any questions?” he asked the rest of us. My friends looked around at each other.
“Yup.” I held my fingers up to count them off. “How much is the pay? How much shore leave do we get? What’s the rota system like? Where–”
“Later, Clarke!” he snapped. I was a little perturbed. “Any other questions from anyone else?” He was smiling again.
They were shell-shocked and shook their heads.
He held his hands out. “IDs.” My friends looked at each other. I handed them over. The captain took a moment to look them over and glanced back at us curiously. “I keep these and any weapons or alcoholic spirits you have. You can get them back when we dock.”
“No booze?” I asked.
The captain looked at me. “No alcohol in your quarters. There are bars on the ship.” He looked at the others. “Your first task will be reading the rules, I think. Now, I’ll talk to you one by one to figure out where you’ll fit into the crew. Starting with you.” He pointed at me.
‘Now he pretends he doesn’t know my name?’
“The rest of you can wait outside in my ready room.”
I didn’t move as my friends filed out. Anna was watching me, presumably to see if this was OK. I ignored her and eyeballed the frowning captain. Cleckley walked over to the captain and smiled encouragingly at both of us.
The door shut. There was silence whilst the captain tried to stare me out and I wondered whether my friends would be able to listen in. Since it would be rather poor spaceship design if they could, I assumed that I was safe.
“So, Clarke,” said the captain. “What are you after?”
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
‘Will calling him ’sir’ put him at ease or aggravate him?’
“Same thing that everyone who signs up is after, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “Money, travel, something to do with my time.”
“Uh-huh, and why my ship?” He lowered his bushy eyebrows and I was sure he couldn’t be able to see me under all that hair.
“It’s a nice ship,” I said. The captain’s eyes narrowed, so I decided to be a bit more specific. “But it just so happens that your doctor was the first person to offer me employment. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ so they say.”
‘Specially not those on the run.’
“So… you’re happy to just serve under me with the rank and file?”
I was confused.
‘Why wouldn’t I be? OK, I have a few issues with authority, but he ought not to know that. Can he tell that from the way I’m dressed? Is all this because I didn’t throw a salute? Do smugglers salute their ships’ captains? Well, too late now. I’ll salute him twice tomorrow.’
“Well, of course, you’re the captain,” I said.
“You’re telling me you’re just after a little adventure, is that it?” He was eyeing me closely.
I shrugged again.
‘Is avoiding destitution adventure? But they do say that the best way to get a job is to look like you don’t need it.’
So I grinned and nodded. “Yup, that’s pretty much it.”
He considered me for a moment.
‘This captain is pretty suspicious; probably goes with the job.’
I looked back at him with guileless good humour. It didn’t seem to help.
“OK, fine. I don’t like suckers as a rule–”
‘’Suckers’? I don’t like that sort of terminology!’
“–but I could do with you on my side.”
‘Eh?’
“So I’ll let you and your companions work on this ship on two conditions.” He paused to glare at me. “One, you swear that you will not mutiny and will work to protect my life whilst in my employ. Two, you work to protect my ship and crew.”
“Oh, work to protect your ship? You already have an idea about where to put me then?”
“Yes, we have a s of mercenaries on board this ship.” He grinned. “They get the nasty jobs, boarding, self-defence, combat, that sort of thing. That’s what I want you to do.”
‘Combat, eh?’
I thought this over.
‘It seems weird, him wanting me to do that. I suppose because I’m a vampire, he assumes I have extra strength or some sort of immunity to death. Except I have no idea if that’s true or not. It’s not the sort of thing I want to spend much time testing.’
‘But then again, it sounds more interesting than being stuck in engineering. I’ve already decided to hide my almost-PhD background as I really don’t feel like learning more science. There are more interesting things to learn about here. But the military? I never thought I would end up as a mercenary. I wonder what my father would say if he knew…’
‘Then again it might be kinda refreshing. All I gotta do is follow orders, not figure out how my friends will get home, not sort things out for them, not be in charge anymore. OK, let’s give this crazy idea a go.’
“So you want me to go military, then? Fine,” I said.
Both him and Cleckley were waiting, obviously expecting something else. I was at a bit of a loss to know what they were after. So I stayed silent.
Eventually, the captain said, “I want you to swear that you won’t mutiny on my ship and will not harm me or my crew.”
“Uh, OK.”
He was looking sterner and Cleckley was starting to smell worried.
‘What the hell does he want?’
“No,” said the captain, “I want you to swear.” I was tempted to say an expletive then, but I got the feeling that would go down like a hot air balloon.
“To swear?” I hoped that a leading question would illuminate the situation without giving away how little I knew.
“Yes. I do know that vampires can’t break their word once it’s been given.”
‘What? Since when?’
He grinned at this, mistaking my surprise. “I am not badly informed when it comes to suckers.”
“So let me get this straight. If I swear not to kill you blah blah blah, you’ll trust me with the defence of your ship?” That probably wasn’t the wisest way to say it, but I was frankly quite incredulous.
“Stop dicking around, Clarke, and do it if you’re going to!”
‘Hmm, intriguing.’
Well, as I had no choice, I decided to be flamboyant about it. I crouched down on my right knee, put my right hand in a fist over my heart and bowed my head slightly–I was thinking about medieval knights–shut my eyes and swore: