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

by Nathan Lowell

  She chuckled. “Well as long as she has something to fall back on if this whole chef-who-will-take-over-the-biggest-company-in-the-quadrant thing doesn’t work out.”

  “It’s important to have options.” I agreed. I looked at her for a while, savoring the moment. “Can I ask? Why?”

  “Why what?”

  I waved a hand. “All this. I very distinctly remember you putting me right about your feelings about me, and this seems inconsistent.”

  “You complaining?”

  “Curious.”

  “Well, I needed the job, and I thought maybe I could trade my body for a berth.”

  I stiffened, and not in a good way.

  “Gods, you should be named Insufferable, not Ishmael.” She reached up and pulled my head down for a kiss. “Joke, ya twit.” She kissed me again. “I wouldn’t trade my body for anything less than the whole ship.”

  She made my head swim, and I stared at her trying to make enough sense out of the situation to reach understanding.

  She settled herself and looked up at me. After a moment she began speaking. “Ishmael, you were being an ass. Mooning about. Making everybody on the ship crazy. You weren’t getting your job done very well, I wasn’t getting my job done very well, and nobody on the ship could figure out why in the world we didn’t just get it over with.”

  She smiled at me very sadly.

  “You’re such a stiff-necked bastard, you couldn’t let your precious ethics go long enough to figure out whether they meant anything or not. You made your mind up, and by all that was holy and right, you were gonna live by your code. So I put you out of your misery.”

  “You lied?”

  She chuckled, and I was momentarily distracted by the way it made her body shimmer in the light. “Yes, ya putz, I lied. It practically killed me, but I lied.”

  I thought there were tears at the corners of her eyes, but I couldn’t be sure. I felt hurt and a little angry that she hadn’t told me the truth. “But didn’t I have any say in that? You sacrificed yourself for the good of the ship, and I didn’t even know?”

  “Hmm,” she said with a bit of a playful smile on her lips but a look of deadly earnestness in her eyes. “Very good questions, captain-my-captain. Don’t you think maybe you could have thought of them a little earlier?” She paused to add a little emphasis. “Like maybe before you got all high and mighty and decided that you weren’t going to ‘screw with crew’ perhaps?”

  I collapsed on the bunk beside her, staring up at the overhead. “Damn,” I said.

  “You’ll learn to really hate it when I’m right,” she whispered.

  “I already do,” I told her, turning my head to look at her.

  “You only think you do, now. Wait until you’ve had a few decades to really get to deal with it.” She grinned.

  I smiled back, and reached over to stroke her cheekbone with the tip of a finger. “You know what? That’s one threat I really like the sound of.”

  She waggled her eyebrows. “Thought ya might.” She reached for me, pulling me to her for another kiss. She let me go, and pulled back far enough to be able to focus on my eyes. “So? Do I get the job?” She grinned.

  “We’ve got no hot tub on this ship,” I pointed out.

  She snickered. “Somehow, I bet we manage to stay in hot water anyway.”

  “Considering what’s happened in the last three months, I suspect you’re right.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “So? How about it, Captain-my-captain? Or are you gonna put me ashore to slink back to Gwen with my tail between my legs.”

  I sat up a bit to admire the legs in question from a better angle. “Hmm. Could you roll over so I can see the tail?”

  She punched me on the arm, and the ensuing wrestle lasted until our giggling got the best of us.

  “Standard contract? Double share? Base plus ten?” I offered when we finally caught our breath.

  “Cheapskate!” she said. “Base plus twenty?” She took a firm grip on an exposed region of my anatomy and arched an eyebrow. “It’s not a figure of speech in this case, captain-my-captain.”

  “Base plus fifteen,” I countered, daring her.

  She dared, but capitulated after a moment. “Okay, but you have to paint the cabin.”

  “I just painted it!”

  “Paint it again!”

  “What color?”

  She let me go with a grin. “I’ll let ya know.”

  I held out my hand. “Deal.”

  She looked at my hand and shook her head. “I’ve got a much better way to seal this deal, captain-my-captain.” She reached up and pulled me down to her again.

  She was right. It was better but it took longer than a simple handshake.

  Much later, I rolled over and asked her, “When can you start?”

  She smiled lazily back at me. “That depends. Have we put this fraternization issue away?”

  I made a show of considering it, but grinned. “I’m feeling pretty fraternized at the moment.”

  “In that case, I can start right away.”

  “What about the Agamemnon?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “We got them a new engineer at Breakall. I rode back with them to help with his orientation.”

  “Then what? You were just gonna wait for me to show up?”

  “Something like that. I didn’t figure you’d be away very long, and imagine my surprise when you showed up on the scanner while we were on final approach.”

  “And you just packed your kit and came over?”

  “Well, my kit was already packed. We only docked the day before you did. I was getting ready to put it into storage when I got the word from Stacy that you needed an engineer.”

  “Ms. Arellone?” I blinked in surprise.

  “Is there another Stacy aboard?” She shrugged. “And Ms. Maloney seems to be working out nicely judging from the press. Why’s her shipsuit say Maitland?”

  “Cover story for security. She’s supposed to be on a grand tour while in mourning for her late father.”

  “Uh huh.” She looked at me skeptically. “Have you seen the newsies? I’m not sure anybody’s buying it.”

  “I’m not either but we’ll play along until the end of the stanyer. She’s already working without a bodyguard.”

  Greta shook her head. “No, she hired Stacy this morning.”

  I sighed. “Why am I always the last to know?”

  “Honestly, my dear, I think it’s because you’re the slowest one of the lot, barring your charming, if somewhat dim, Mr. Herring.”

  “He’s okay. Reminds me of myself at his age.”

  She gave me a very doubtful look, but didn’t press it. “Anyway, you’ve got us to look out for you now. You can get on with your captaining without undue distraction.”

  It was my turn to cast her a doubtful look. “You think you’re not going to be a distraction?”

  Her cheeky grin twisted her smile to the side of her face. “I said ‘undue,’ didn’t I?”

  I glanced at the chrono as it clicked up to 1540. “We probably should get dressed and let the crew know we have an engineer.”

  “They know.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  She gave me one of those looks again. “Do you think we’d have spent all afternoon locked in your cabin otherwise?”

  “Well,” I shrugged defensively. “Negotiations could have broken down. We might not have come to terms.”

  She snickered.

  “Ok, you win,” I said. “Let’s go find out what’s for dinner.”

  “Marcel’s at 1900,” she said as she rolled out of our bunk, and padded naked into the head.

  “We went there last night!” I said.

  She stopped at the door, and looked back over her shoulder. “You went there last night,” she said. “Tonight, I’m celebrating. Ms. Maloney made the reservations already.” She gave me a crooked grin and tsked before walking into the head and turning on the shower. The open door was all the
invitation I needed.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Diurnia Orbital:

  2373-March-27

  With the chief on board, and assurances from William Simpson, the hard work began. When the chief and I ambled into the galley at 0600 we found Ms. Maloney behind the omelet pan.

  Ms. Arellone greeted us with a smug “Good morning, Captain. Morning, Chief.” She looked inordinately pleased with herself, and gave me a private smirk. I suppose I had earned it.

  Mr. Herring seemed aware that something had happened, but he really hadn’t been privy to the inner workings, particularly the oddly proprietary relationship Ms. Arellone exhibited when dealing with me. He smiled and nodded shyly, mostly at the chief. Even after an evening in the relative informality of dining ashore, Chief Gerheart’s raw presence was enough to stagger lesser mortals like ordinary spacers. The gods knew she staggered me.

  Ms. Maloney alone seemed unchanged by the shift in personnel. I wondered at that. In a certain sense, she was more completely cut off with the departure of the last link to her old life. I supposed the betrayal we had discovered mitigated the effect.

  “The usual, Captain?” she asked with a warm smile and a flourish of the omelet pan.

  “Please, Ms. Maitland, and thank you.” I drew off a mug of coffee, and then got out of the way so Greta could get hers.

  As breakfasts streamed off the range, I wasted no time in getting the day going.

  “Chief? I’d like you to make sure the ship is space-worthy today. I’m particularly concerned about maintenance issues on the main components back in engineering.”

  “What kind of issues, Skipper?”

  “I don’t think any of the major components like the fusactors, sail, or grav generators have had any maintenance done in a long time. I didn’t know enough to do it when I bought the ship, and I don’t know how much your predecessor might have addressed. My fear is that he did nothing.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. Will do.”

  “Ms. Maitland? I would appreciate your insight into the passenger situation.”

  “In what way, Captain?”

  I picked up my tablet and checked my facts. “We’ve now had eighty-seven inquiries for passage.” While I watched the counter ticked up to eighty-eight. “Your thoughts on how we deal with those without alienating them?”

  She cut off a piece of her omelet, and ate it while she pondered. As she did, she looked back and forth between the chief and me. Finally she asked, “How many berths do we have, Captain?”

  She caught me flat-footed with that one. It seemed to come out of left field. “Two double bunks and the single over-and-under,” I told her cautiously. “Why do you ask?”

  Instead of answering me, she turned to the chief. “If it’s not too indelicate to ask, Chief?”

  Greta twigged before I did. “The Engineering Officer’s compartment?” she asked.

  Ms. Maloney gave her a smile, and the tiniest of nods.

  Greta turned to me. “I hate to put you on the spot, but I rather assumed I’d be living with you.”

  I grinned at her, feeling a bit embarrassed. “I assumed that, too.”

  Ms. Maloney smiled and gave a little nod. “That’s one more bunk we can rent. It’s a single, but it’s one more passenger.”

  Ms. Arellone took a deep breath and looked around the table, particularly at Mr. Herring and Ms. Maloney. “Maybe two...” she suggested.

  Ms. Maloney caught the gist of her thinking. “If Perc takes the chief’s quarters? That leaves us with two bunks.”

  Ms. Arellone shook her head. “I’m thinking you take the chief’s quarters, Chris. Perc and I are both watch-standers.” She looked at him. “We’ve both lived in mixed berthing before.”

  Mr. Herring gave a nonchalant shrug. “Sure. Most of the time actually.”

  She turned back to Ms. Maloney. “You need the single because your schedule is different. Two-thirds of the time, only one of us would be in the compartment at all. We would only be there together when the captain has the watch.”

  “Are you sure?” Ms. Maloney seemed a bit taken aback by the idea. She turned to Mr. Herring. “And you?”

  They both shrugged. “It makes sense to me, Ms. Maitland,” Mr. Herring told her. “Mixed berthing is pretty normal. I mean I’ve enjoyed having a private room and all, but she’s right. With just the two of us, and on different watches...? Most of the time nothing will change.”

  Ms. Arellone looked to Ms. Maloney. “I adore having you as a bunkie, but looking at how to get the most out of the ship? Putting you there and splitting the watch-standers gives us two extra bunks to rent, and gives you a chance at a whole night’s sleep.”

  Ms. Maloney nodded slowly. “True and gives us room for two people in each compartment.” She looked at Mr. Herring, who shrugged, and then back to me. “So you have four compartments, and eight bunk spaces, Captain.”

  “How do we charge for them, Ms. Maitland?”

  She thought for a moment before speaking. “By the compartment. When you post your fare availability, you should be able to post them with a description of each room’s amenities.” She grinned at me. “And charge a lot.”

  “Thirty?” I asked.

  “Fifty,” she answered immediately. “Discount the bunk rooms to thirty, maybe, but as long as we have people lining up to take the spaces, we should charge whatever we can get.”

  I pulled out the portable keyboard, and fired up the console on the bulkhead. In a few keystrokes, I’d made a sample listing that included notations for number and size of bunks, and the price of fifty thousand credits per compartment.

  “Yes,” Ms. Maloney said without hesitation. “Now where are we going?”

  “Kazyanenko.” I said.

  Everybody looked at me, some with frowns, others merely confused. “Kazyanenko?” Ms. Maloney asked.

  “The best choice for cargo priorities. I can grab a few in the next couple of days, if my analysis is right.”

  I looked to Greta. “Before I post this, would you do a quick survey of engineering, and see what kind of shape we’re in?”

  “Sure. That was my first priority.”

  “I’d like to get underway in two days, but I’d also like know we’re going to arrive alive on the other end.”

  Ms. Arellone snickered. “I like the way you think, Skipper.”

  “Ok, then.” I shrugged and said, “Let’s get breakfast cleared away, and see how fast we can get things resettled, shall we?”

  After the initial cleanup efforts, Greta went back to engineering. We shooed Ms. Maloney out of the galley to move her stuff across the passage to make room for Mr. Herring. The rest of us did the dishes, and cleaned the mess deck. While we worked, I pulled up a cargo available query on the console, and snagged three dozen high priority cubes going to Kazyanenko before we finished swabbing the deck.

  With the galley secured, I sent the two deck ratings to finish settling the move, and made a quick note on Mr. Herring’s record to make him able spacer. He was doing what I had asked, and showed a lot of promise. I wondered if I could get him to take on astrogation, and relieve me of the update process. I snorted quietly to myself, and picked up another dozen cubes bound for Kazyanenko.

  In the meantime, I got to work on a canned reply to the people who had sent inquiry messages and started setting up a filtering system to route all the messages to a storage area after sending the reply. I didn’t know if it would be useful, but I didn’t think it could hurt.

  By 1030 the crew finished moving, and had all the compartments ready for passengers. The only obstacle was the engineering audit so I headed down to engineering to see where we stood.

  “How we doing, Chief?” I asked as I stepped down off the ladder.

  She pulled her head out of maintenance panel on the sail generator, and gave a kind of non-committal shrug. “It could be a lot worse, Captain.” Her tone twitted me a bit, but I think I liked it “Fusactors are clean, grav generators just needed a
timer reset, and the sail generators are in good shape. There’s no planned maintenance on them for months.” She paused and looked around engineering. “Scrubbers need attention, but they always do.” She looked around considering. “If we’re tanked up and have spares, then we can leave this afternoon if you like.”

  “I started tanking when we docked. Spares should be nearly full. I think we used a couple of scrubber filters, and it’s been about three months since I changed water filters, so they might be due as well.”

  “Did you log it when you changed them?”

  “Yeah, I did. You should find it in the engineering logs.”

  “I would if I had codes.” She grinned at me.

  With a little “oops” sound, I sat at the engineering console and gave her full access with a few keystrokes. “There you go. Sorry about that.”

  She kissed me on the top of my head. “Thank you, dear.” She made little shooing motions with her fingers. “Now, get out of my way. I have work to do, and I can’t be tripping over captains while I’m doin’ it. Scoot. Shoo. Go captain something.”

  I stood, and stepped aside, but she stepped with me and claimed a smooch right there in the middle of engineering. It was a quick peck on the mouth but there was promise in it. She stepped back and shooed me again. “There. Now git!”

  I chuckled all the way back up the ladder. By the time I got back to the galley the rest of the crew was assembled and somebody had made a fresh pot of coffee. Mr. Herring had a small pot of tea on the table in front of him. They all looked up as I entered.

  “Day after tomorrow. March 28th. We’re bound for Kazyanenko,” I said.

  I found my prepared availability posting for passengers, and ran a quick calculation in my head to fill in the estimated arrival for April 11 before posting. “Now we wait.” I announced.

  Another few priority cubes showed up in the cargo list, and I grabbed them while I sat there.

  “What’s for lunch, Ms. Maitland?”

  “Soup and sandwiches, Captain. I trust that’ll suffice?” She smiled over her shoulder.

  “Quite nicely, Ms. Maitland.” I stretched out my legs under the table, and sat back in the chair. “Well, I’ll declare liberty for anybody who wants to go ashore. Return by 1000 on the twenty-eighth, if not before.”