Captain's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper)

by Nathan Lowell

  “He’ll be ambulatory and aboard. I have no idea what kind of shape he’ll be in. He may not be able to take a deck watch, but I don’t want to sit here if he could be healing up on the way. Ms. Thomas and I can go watch-and-watch for a short time if we need to, but it would work a lot better if you could hold the bridge watch down.”

  “But I’m not qualified, Skipper,” Mr. Wyatt said.

  “You’re a senior officer of the ship, Avery. Any boot third mate is qualified. I’m pretty sure you can hold down bridge watch for a few days.” I realized that my fork was scraping plate and I stopped trying to eat the china. “We can split the galley duty up so you’re not stuck doing both, and it may not be necessary. I’m just laying in contingency plans.”

  “What about me, Captain?” Chief Gerheart threw her hat into the ring.

  “You want to do bridge watch, Chief?”

  She shrugged. “I could in a pinch. I’ve got a full engineering console up there so I can keep track of the girls while we’re underway. Only problem would be if I needed to leave the bridge to physically check something. It wouldn’t be any worse than if it went wrong in the middle of the night when I’m asleep.” She shrugged. “These systems are pretty reliable so long as you keep up with maintenance, and I do.”

  “That’s a good point, Chief. Thanks. Let me get back to you on that. It’s good to know we’ve got some options. Now, if we can just get him back aboard.”

  I slotted my dirty dishes in the cleaner while Chief Gerheart relieved Ms. Thomas of the watch. The ratings followed my lead and we left the three of them with their heads together. I smiled inwardly and did what any good captain should do.

  I went to the cabin and wrote up the report while my command staff solved the problem of making it all work.

  I managed to get the report done and review the overnight logs before lunch mess. There was still an issue with the delivery dates on the cans, but we’d learned a lesson and picked dates that were well out. The key would be the jump. We could make up the time if we got a good jump. I wasn’t willing to shave the safety margins, but luck did fall in our favor occasionally. It behooved us to be ready to take advantage of it when it did.

  Mr. Ricks joined us at lunch mess, but it was a reduced company as both Schubert and Hill had gone up to the flea market. With the extra days of trading, they made arrangements to keep their booth, and took advantage of the time to both sell and buy. Conversation was desultory but in spite of that, I had a feeling that my senior officers were hatching something. It was nothing I could put my finger on. Just the way they kept shooting little knowing glances at each other.

  I didn’t know if I should be concerned or relieved.

  After we secured the galley, I went up to medical to check on Mr. Pall. The medics nodded me through and I found him conscious if not exactly lucid.

  “Hello, Mr. Pall. You seem a bit under the weather.”

  “Pirates, Skipper. They’re everywhere.”

  “So it would seem, Mr. Pall.” I refrained from asking how he felt. I had a pretty good idea. “Is there anything you need from the ship?”

  “Pants, Skipper. They took my pants.”

  “Yes, Mr. Pall. They’ll give them back when you’re able to wear them again.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “You rest, Mr. Pall. Get well. We’re holding the ship for you so you need to heal quickly.”

  That seemed to get through to a part of him that might have been tracking better. “I wondered if you’d replace me, Captain.”

  “Who would handle pirate watch, Mr. Pall?”

  “I’ve been training Mr. Ricks, Skipper. He could do it in a pinch.”

  I grinned at him. “I fear he lacks your insight and experience, Mr. Pall.”

  He smiled back but fell asleep again before replying.

  The medico on duty smiled and nodded as I left. There wasn’t anything we could do but wait. Given that I’d be up all night on the midwatch, I thought I’d just as soon wait in my bunk.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Dree Orbital:

  2372-July-26

  Mr. Pall rejoined the ship just before dinner mess but when they brought him aboard, I realized we had some significant challenges yet. Three days in the auto-doc hadn’t done much for him. He looked weak and pale. He had never been overly robust, but he looked downright frail in the chair they wheeled him aboard in.

  The corpsman who brought him aboard also brought a portfolio of information, a bag of drugs, and some modules for our own autodoc. We could put him in there, if things took a turn for the worse. That was a sobering thought, but I wasn’t too worried. The autodoc would keep him going for a long time if push came to shove, but that was a very remote possibility. Assuming we kept him from falling down the ladders.

  He managed to sit up through the dinner mess, but there was never any question that he’d be taking a watch any time soon. By the time we’d finished eating, he looked pinched around the eyes and drawn about the mouth. The food probably helped but he was already at the end of his strength. I started to suggest that he go to his stateroom and sleep, but stopped.

  “Well, we have a bit of an engineering challenge ahead of us, people.” They looked at me and I nodded at Mr. Pall in his chair. “Any ideas how we get him up the ladder to his stateroom before he keels over?”

  Mr. Pall rallied a bit. “I’m not quite ready to keel over yet, Skipper.”

  “I’m thinking we have a short window of opportunity, Mr. Pall, and that you need to be sleeping in your own bunk before you do.”

  I could see both Ms. Thomas and Chief Gerheart frowning in concentration but Mr. Wyatt was looking at the chair contemplating the wheels.

  “Suggestions, anybody?”

  Ms. Thomas shrugged. “He’s not that heavy. I could probably carry him up.”

  Mr. Wyatt nodded in agreement. “You probably could, especially if a couple of us helped, but that seems a trifle...” He paused looking for the right word. “Awkward.”

  The Chief suggested, “Grav pallet?”

  Mr. Wyatt shook his head. “Certainly has lift capacity, but a standard grav pallet wouldn’t go up the ladder either. It won’t tilt and it doesn’t have enough deck clearance to lift up. They work well on flat decks but they’re impossible on any incline over five percent.”

  “Grav trunk will.” We looked at Mr. Pall.

  “Are you suggesting you get in it, Mr. Pall?”

  He laughed. “No, Captain, but I can stand up well enough to sit on it if it was beside the chair.”

  “Mr. Wyatt, do you know what a grav trunk is rated to lift?”

  “Something on the order of two hundred kilos, Captain. That’s more than enough for Mr. Pall here.”

  I looked around the mess deck. “Mine’s full of kit. Anybody have an empty one handy?”

  They all shook heads. “Mr. Wyatt? Would you nip down to the chandlery and buy one for the ship please. Charge the pooka’s account and we’ll let the co-op use it when we’re done with Mr. Pall, here.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” He darted off on his errand.

  “In the meantime, Mr. Pall. How can we make you more comfortable?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If I could just sit here for a bit, Captain?” He looked around. “It’s been a rough couple of days and I’m really glad to be back aboard.”

  “Of course, Mr. Pall. Relax.”

  Chief Gerheart took a seat on the bench near to where he’d been rolled up to the table. “Do you remember who did it? How it happened?”

  He shook his head. “It was all so fast. I was coming back from the bar. I’d had a few but I was still tracking. I walked out of the bar, made the turn into the passageway to head for the lift, and woke up in the autodoc.” He looked a bit shaken. “It’s the darnedest thing I’ve ever experienced.” He raised a hand to his still bruised face. “I think I’m glad I don’t remember this happening, but I feel so helpless. They could have done anything. I h
ave no idea what. That whole time is just…gone.”

  She reached over and patted his shoulder. “The medical people looked you over pretty closely. The physical parts will heal up right enough.” She smiled gently. “The rest, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  We made small talk for another quarter stan before Mr. Wyatt came back with a grav trunk in tow and we all trooped out to the foot of the ladder, wheeling Mr. Pall ahead of us with Mr. Wyatt bringing the trunk up behind. It took a couple of false starts and some finagling to get Mr. Pall onto the front of the grav trunk’s lid. Mr. Wyatt lifted the trunk off the deck and started up the ladder with it. It tilted alarmingly, but Mr. Pall just leaned forward to keep his balance on the front edge. Ms. Thomas followed them up to push but it wasn’t necessary. Whatever small field generators they’d built into the trunk did most of the work of lifting and all Mr. Wyatt had to do was slide him along.

  “It’s a little worse than on a level deck, but certainly no strain, Skipper.”

  I grinned. “Well just don’t let him slide off or let go of the handle, Mr. Wyatt. One injured crew is enough and I’d just as soon not drop that on Ms. Thomas or have Mr. Pall crash into the deck.”

  They chuckled but in less than a tick it was over. I shouldered the empty chair–it was a lightweight affair of tubes and wheels and fabric without a lot of mass to it–and ran it up the ladder while they towed Mr. Pall to his stateroom.

  Chief Gerheart followed us up and supervised with a warm smile. “Makes you wonder why they don’t make these chairs with grav plates in them or something.”

  Mr. Wyatt had an answer. “I suspect it has to do with mobility, Chief. You can’t push yourself on the grav trunk. Somebody has to drag you. The chair’s been around for hundreds of stanyers and the design’s good for what it is. There’s never been enough incentive to change it.”

  In a matter of a tick or two, Mr. Pall was dosed up and tucked in. We left him with one of the ship-issue tablets in case he needed to call for help, then shut off the lights and closed the door. I suspected he might have been asleep before we left.

  The three senior officers followed me to the cabin. When I stopped at the door to look at them, Ms. Thomas had a very satisfied grin on her face while the chief and Mr. Wyatt looked like they might burst from holding in whatever secret it was they wanted to spring on me.

  I eyed them dubiously and then swung the door open. “You may as well come in and make yourselves comfortable while you tell me.” I led them in and we settled on the couches–Ms. Thomas and Mr. Wyatt sitting cozily together on one while the chief took the far corner on mine.

  I looked from one to the other. Nobody wanted to speak first. I turned to Ms. Thomas. “So, should I assume that you’ve had a busy day, Ms. Thomas?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, just a routine day on watch, Skipper. You know how they can get.” She pointed at Mr. Wyatt and then the chief. “These two, though, had a very interesting day.”

  I looked back and forth between the chief and Mr. Wyatt. “Well? One of you? Both of you? Somebody want to tell me what this is in service of?”

  They nodded at each other and pulled out their tablets, flicked up a screen, and simultaneously turned them so I could see.

  It took me a moment to figure out what I was looking at. They both showed personnel records. I frowned trying to compare the two. They were both so different until I got to the bottom of the screen. They both had identical notations. “Third mate?”

  The Chief laughed delightedly and Mr. Wyatt chuckled.

  “What’s this all about?”

  The Chief tucked her tablet back in the holster and grinned. “It was something you said the other day about any boot third was qualified to stand a bridge watch.”

  Mr. Wyatt chimed in. “So, we got our heads together and looked over the study guide for the third mate’s license and decided to get one.”

  “But why?”

  Mr. Wyatt shrugged. “I know it’s your prerogative to assign duties as you see fit, Captain, but if you’re serious about assigning us to bridge watch while underway, we thought we should have at least a fig leaf to cover us if something should go wrong.”

  “But you’re both chief officers in your own divisions! Why would anybody complain?”

  Ms. Thomas answered that question. “Nobody in the fleet would think twice, Skipper, but what about insurance? We’ve got a clearly incapacitated second mate. You’re certainly qualified to do the comms and systems work, and we can split astrogation without anybody complaining, but the bridge watch should be an officer certified in Deck Division–if for no other reason than to make sure the insurers have no wiggle room to deny a claim. We’re getting underway short-handed, and I certainly don’t want to go watch-and-watch for the next two weeks while Mr. Pall gets his feet under him, do you?”

  I thought about that and grimaced at the idea. “Not really, no.”

  They all nodded. They had me and I knew it. I just needed to let them tell me how badly and in which direction. “So, what’s the plan?”

  They nodded for Ms. Thomas to continue. “Mr. Ricks will swap with Mr. Schubert. These two boot thirds will take turns as OD on second section. Mr. Schubert is the best ship handler we have, and they’ll be able to depend on him to keep things flying without much supervision. Mr. Ricks and I get along just fine and you and Mr. Hill can keep third section. They split the load and get some experience in the bargain. It certainly couldn’t hurt to get cross trained.”

  I looked at my new third mates. “You two are okay with this?”

  They shrugged and Mr. Wyatt grinned. “We thought of it, Skipper. Not like we’re going to back out now.”

  The chief nodded her agreement. “It’ll be fun for a bit. Break up the routine, see how the other half lives.” Her light and playful tone turned a bit more serious. “Realistically, how long do you think Mr. Pall will need to recoup?”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly while I considered. “He’s pretty beaten up but the only thing they found really damaged was his leg. It’s a clean break and the quick-knit was already stabilizing it when I visited him yesterday.” I shook my head. “I’d say a couple of weeks at least. I’m hoping we have him on the bridge by the time we jump. That gives him a little more than three weeks to recover. That’s on the outside. I suspect he’ll be trying to crawl up to the bridge within a week.”

  We all shared a laugh at the thought.

  I looked around at them. “Thanks. That was good thinking. I appreciate your initiative here, and I believe it’s a much better solution than I would have come up with.”

  They beamed. Ms. Thomas rose and pulled Mr. Wyatt up from the sofa. “Come on, good lookin’. This is our last night in port and I wanna go dancin’.”

  He groaned in mock dismay but grinned as she pulled him to his feet.

  The chief rose, too. “I better go see if anything’s broken. See you in the morning, Skipper.”

  They paraded out and closed the door gently behind them. The glare from the orbital’s skin was a bit bright and I pondered my decision not to get some kind of curtain for when we were in port. It was only a few days at a time, and I kept thinking it wasn’t that bad.

  I also pondered how I’d managed to get such a strange and wonderful crew.

  They were correct, of course. I’d completely overlooked the insurance aspect. I shouldn’t have. That was a mistake on my part. I didn’t think that it would matter, but when there’s insurance money at stake, the careful customer dots all the i’s and crosses every t. They were also correct about it being little more than a fig leaf if something desperate actually happened while one of them was on watch.

  I sighed, mostly in satisfaction. It was a nice cabin, and the couch was comfy. I got up and went to bed before I started thinking about how much I now wanted somebody to share that couch with. I had day watch in the morning and I could use a little extra sleep.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Diurnia System: />
  2372-September-09

  The tug caught us for our final approach to Diurnia just after lunch mess. The forty-three day run set no records but was free of incident. With Mr. Wyatt and the chief trading off on OD watch, Mr. Pall was able to rest and heal. For the first week, we only took him up and down the ladder for dinner mess so he could get out of his stateroom for a bit each day and the small movements seemed to help. By the end of that first week, he was able to move around in his cast relatively well and we only had to make sure he didn’t try to go up or down the ladder without a spotter to make sure he didn’t trip and fall. Within ten days he was standing watches again and the merry-go-round began to go around more naturally.

  It felt odd going into Diurnia knowing that nobody really waited there for me. As I sat in the chair and watched the tug maneuver us into position, I felt none of the anticipation I normally felt as the ship got close to what had felt like home to me for so long. The sense that Diurnia was just another port was stronger than it had been on the way out. I hadn’t realized just how much that compass of home had drawn me until it was gone.

  With each passing moment, I couldn’t help but think of Jen. This time it wasn’t in anticipation of homecoming, but rather with sadness for having been so misguided in the first place. There was a reason that spacer didn’t marry station. I knew it going in, but believed myself to be exempt. She probably knew it, too. The stanyers when I’d dread getting underway because of the inevitable fight pained me the most. That was a clue, a symptom of a problem that I should have recognized and dealt with. Instead I just chalked it up to her being unreasonable and continued down my own selfish path. With the wisdom of hindsight, I had to give her credit for fighting so long.

  As we nudged in for final docking, I wondered if anybody would understand that I didn’t ask for a divorce because of who she might be sleeping with, but rather that having my face rubbed in it like that just crystallized the reality that neither of us was getting what we needed from the relationship. It was a seven stanyer habit that needed to be broken. She’d just started ahead of me. I probed that wound several times but found it was already healing over. It was still tender, but it wasn’t bleeding any more.