“Carlton —”
“Best you leave now, Dansby.”
Dansby did what any man might when he’s put out of work and faced with the prospect of poverty and desperation.
He was nearly, though not quite yet, prepared to seek out one of the contacts Malcome Eades, the Foreign Office man who’d set up his new identity, had given him and see if the man might have a job for him. Nearly, though not quite. Working for Eades might be profitable, but he’d prefer to make his own way and avoid such unsavory entanglements.
Instead, he found a pub and downed the first pint before the bartend had turned away.
“Easy, lad,” the barman said as he set a replacement before Dansby. “This is a quiet place, no trouble, eh?”
“Do I look like I’m after trouble?”
“Y’look like a man with troubles an’ wantin’ t’share ‘em.” He took payment for the second round from the coins Dansby’d left on the bar top and pocketed them. “Now, that sharin’ can come to a friendly ear, a willing wench, or bit of a blow — I’ve no time for the first, we’ve no custom of the second sort here, and I’ll tolerate none of the last.”
He pushed the remainder of Dansby’s coin back across the bar — his other hand suddenly held a stunstick.
“Drink yer drink, lad, then be on yer way.”
“Is it … is it true what I’ve heard …” Dansby said, hoping he was being as clear and loud as necessary to be heard by the Navy men at surrounding tables. “About the Fringe Fleet, Sven?”
“What is it you have heard, little friend?” Sven was swaying as he talked, and carefully enunciating each word in what was not his first language.
Dansby’d met the big Swede in his third … no fourth? Well, no matter on specifics, but in some pub he’d visited in his current travels. The difference in numbers between pints and pubs was throwing him off in keeping track.
In any case, the first bartend had been absolutely correct in Dansby’s intent and options. He had a great deal of despair, frustration, and anger to share tonight, and while Kaycie would have offered a willing ear, she’d heard it all before and he had no desire to burden her with his troubles yet again. Neither could he find a proper House to ease himself in, for Kaycie’d sniff that out and he’d pay for it, sure — Kaycie was out for that ease, too, for she’d sense his discomfort and make him tell it first. There were times a man didn’t want to talk, only find some physical release.
Which left an exchange of blows, and he’d thought, for a moment, that he’d found a willing partner in Sven. He’d made a comment or two to the bartend about the accent of the big Swede two stools down from him — the bartender looking between the two of them shaking his head — and Sven had stood up to send his stool sliding across the floor with a mighty screech.
Then Dansby stood up.
Then Sven laughed.
Then Sven patted him on the head, not needing to raise his hand even to his shoulder, and said, “Funny little man. Sven does not want to kill anyone tonight.”
Dansby’d stared at the broad … well, he couldn’t quite say he was looking at the other man’s chest unless he looked up — and felt a wave of relief wash over him. He’d wanted a fight, not suicide.
Sven wrapped a big arm around Dansby’s shoulders, the weight of which turned him and pressed him to the bar.
“You wish a good fight, yes?” Sven asked.
“One I’ll … survive …” Dansby gasped, finding it a bit hard to breathe as he was crushed between arm and bar.
“Good!” Sven said, picking up his beer and pushing Dansby’s close. “We will fight together! You will keep little men off Sven’s ankles!” Another laugh that vibrated Dansby between arm and bar.
They finished their drinks and left for greener pastures. Sometimes Sven would size up a pub from the doorway and move on, finding nothing worthy of his time, while others they’d have a drink or two in before moving on.
Finally, Sven sighed. “It must be the Navy if we wish to fight tonight,” the big man said in a sad tone as they staggered past a pair of Station Patrol guards set to keep the naval spacers in the section Dansby and Sven were just entering. “This is sad.”
Dansby scanned the signs sticking out into the station corridor ahead of them. There seemed to be a great many more pubs per hundred meters of corridor than even in the merchant sections he frequented.
“You don’t like to fight the Navy?” Dansby asked.
“Sven loves to fight the Navy men!” the big man said, earning them a narrow look from another pair of Station Patrol guards.
Sven smiled and waved at them. Dansby thought it was a wave — but then the man was grinning in a way that made Dansby think it might be some sort of insult on his homeworld. Nevertheless, the Station Patrol passed on and Sven hurried toward a pub deeper in the section, away from where the guards were concentrated to ensure no Navy spacers would run for a berth on a merchant ship.
“Yes, they fight good,” Sven said as they moved on, “but they do important work and Sven feels bad if too many cannot move to do their work in the morning.” He shrugged. “It must be.”
Which left them to only find a few Naval fellows of like mind and engage in the necessary pre-sharing of troubles ritual known to drunken spacers everywhere.
“Why,” Dansby said, “I’ve heard that there are … is … are not a single woman allowed aboard ship in the Fringe Fleet!”
“Can this be true?” Sven asked. “Not a one?”
“Not a one,” Dansby said, noting that they were being stared at by two tables of spacers, a goodly number even with Sven’s bulk beside him.
“Why is this?” Sven asked. “Are women of the New London Fringe worlds so weak?”
“No,” Dansby said. “No, it is not that.”
“Well, then, what?” Sven asked. “Is this Fringe Fleet made up of bög and wish only —?” He grabbed Dansby’s buttocks somewhat harder than Dansby thought strictly necessary to get the point across.
“No,” Dansby said. “No, it is not that.”
“Then what?” Sven asked. “Tell me, friend, for I do not understand this thing. The women of Lónsfjörður fire guns and work the sails. Why do not those of New London?”
Dansby gave his new friend a worried look, wondering if he’d had a bit of a seizure there, then assumed it was whatever Sven’s homeworld was.
“It is because,” Dansby said, turning to put his back to the bar and face the room full of Naval spacers — beside him, Sven did the same. Dansby thought Sven’s bulk made up the sides in sheer mass, but they were far outnumbered in fists and heavy boots. He almost had the thought that they might be in over their heads — but that thought itself had mostly drowned three pints back, so it was a dim figure beneath the surface.
He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger stretched wide.
“It’s because,” he repeated, “the Fringe Fleet is small —” He drew thumb and forefinger together until they were only a couple centimeters apart. “— minded. Small-minded, tiny … minds. Intimidated by the lasses, since they have such small … minds.”
The pub was silent, save for the clicks of glasses and mugs being carefully set on tabletops in order to free up hands.
An older man with the hashmarks of a bosun’s mate on the sleeves of his jumpsuit stood up.
“Lads,” he said. “Y’ve had a few, it seems, an’ t’were best y’were movin’ on a’fore there’s troubles. I —”
Sven looked around the pub, frowning, then cut the bosun’s mate off.
“Sven’s friend means,” he said, grasping his crotch, “that you fear the women because the Navy men have the tiny snopp.”
Four
All in all, Dansby thought, it was as fine an exercise in the sharing of troubles as he could remember or any man could ask for.
While he couldn’t speak for Sven, nor for the Navy men, he felt much clearer of mind and less aggrieved, as though the weight and worry of the ship’s expenses and the ince
ssant demands for more and more coin from his agents had lifted from his shoulders. He had no solution, but he thought he’d be able to find one — in the morning, when the beer was out of him. Or possibly in the afternoon, when the aftereffects of the beer were done. Or in a day or two when the cuts and bruises were healed.
He looked up at Sven from where he sat on the pub’s floor. The big man had not been joking about the need to defend his ankles — as, after being tossed about a time or two, the attacking spacers were more or less reduced to crawling back.
One of them, clearly with a great deal of troubles to share, for it was his fourth run at them, crawled toward those ankles now, the leg off a broken chair clutched in one hand and his eyes fixed on Sven’s shins.
He got within striking distance, raised the chair leg, and Dansby lashed out to put the sole of his boot in the man’s face. The spacer grunted, then collapsed to the floor.
“Tack, thank you,” Sven said.
“You’re welcome,” Dansby assured him.
They were, neither one of them, unscathed, but with Sven standing and ready they were the clear winners of the evening’s sharing of troubles. The pub was littered with broken chairs and tables, as well as unconscious, or nearly so, Navy men. Those who were not so troubled as to require sharing to unconsciousness nursed a bruise or two along with a fresh beer along the edges, watching and cheering on their fellows.
With Dansby’s kick to the last spacer’s face, the cheers died off and the pub grew quiet, save for the tink of glasses and the clink of coin exchanging hands from those still capable of settling their bets.
Sven stretched his neck and shoulders, looked around to ensure there were no more fellows game enough to give him a go, then raised his arms as though to embrace the room.
“Sven loves Royal Navy!” he bellowed, then turned to the bartend who was dragging away a spacer Sven had thrown over the bar. “Pints for Sven’s new friends …” He looked around. “… when they wake up.”
Dansby struggled to his feet, spat a bit of blood and probed with his tongue at a tooth he’d have to have reset when he returned to Elizabeth.
“You have coin for that?” the bartender asked.
Dansby noted he didn’t ask for damages, this being a Naval pub the cost of tables and chairs was likely worked into the pints.
“Sven is paid off ship,” Sven said. He reached into a pocket and brought out several coins. “Sven can pay.”
The bartend shrugged and began setting up glasses. “All right, lads!” he called. “Belly up for a pint on Mister Sven!”
If there was any call that would wake an unconscious spacer faster than the bosun’s “Shake a leg, lads!” it was that for a pint on someone else’s purse. Any still able to crawl made their way to the bar, pulled themselves up, and waited for their beer, those closest giving Sven and Dansby a great clap on the back, as though they’d not just been bent on pounding each other into the decking.
Yes, all in all, Dansby felt it had been a good night and a fortuitous meeting with his new friend Sven.
It was then that the Station Patrol burst through the pub’s door.
“You! What ship?”
Dansby slumped against the bars of the cell, waiting his turn while the Station Patrol officer made his way from cell to cell, identifying the spacers in each so that he could contact their ships and arrange for an angry bosun’s mate to pick the men up. The guards had made their way to the cell next to his and Sven’s, thankfully keeping them separate from their brawl opponents.
“Tyche,” the battered spacer said, then pointed at three men face down on cell’s rather damp decking, including the bosun’s mate who’d tried to head off the fight. “An’ ‘im, an’ ‘im, an’ ‘im.”
“Right,” the officer said, making notes on his tablet. He moved on to face Dansby. “What ship?”
“Elizabeth,” Dansby said.
The officer scanned his tablet, tapped it a few times, then frowned. “HMS Elizabeth is Core Fleet, nowhere near Penduli. No games, now, what ship?”
“Elizabeth,” Dansby repeated. “She’s on the merchant quay, not Royal Navy.”
“Oh,” the officer said, eyes going narrow and calculating, “bloody merchantmen coming in and stirring up trouble with our good Navy men, eh?”
Dansby gave a look around at the six other cells similar to the one he was in, all full to bursting with spacers — battered, bruised, or simply lying in pools of whatever happened to be leaking from them at the moment. There were far more than even he and Sven accounted for.
“I’d not say ‘stirring,’ so much as … adding a bit of spice to the pot. In any case, I’m not Royal Navy at all, I’m master of Elizabeth.”
“Oh, it’s master now, is it?” the officer said, looking him over. “An’ you bein’ such a wee babe an’ all?”
Dansby bristled. He wasn’t that young. Just twenty-two, and while it was unusual for someone to command a ship so young, it wasn’t unheard of — at least in merchant family circles.
“Look, I’ve got my certificates right —” Dansby’s hand withdrew his tablet from his pocket, but he could tell even before looking that it would do no good. The case and screen were cracked through and he seemed to remember a spacer swinging a chair at his leg while he was otherwise occupied. “Well, if you’d only call up the Elizabeth, my first officer will —”
“Oh, aye, we’ve time to be callin’ mommy for every spacer-man who’d like to avoid his duty.” The guard shook his head. “There’s ships need men —” He paused. “Suppose you’ll have to do. Desperate times, as they say.”
Dansby bristled at that — he’d held his own quite well in the fight that landed him here, after all, and hadn’t he just blown up a planet? The guard paid no more attention to him, though, turning to Sven.
“What ship?”
“He’s off Elizabeth, too,” Dansby said quickly before the big Swede could answer. Sven had already told him he had no berth, and if he admitted that here he’d be put aboard some Royal Navy ship to slave away with his wages six-months in arrears until the ship paid off. If Dansby could get out of this mess, he wanted to bring his new friend along with him. “And we’ve an exemption from the Press, man, so I’d urge you to make that call.”
“Oh, it’s an exemption, is it?” the guard sneered and gave Dansby a nasty look.
The foreign office man, Malcome Eades, had included the exemption among Elizabeth’s forged records and Dansby was desperate enough to make use of it. In theory it would allow him to have any of his crew taken up by the Navy’s Impressment Service released — in fact, it seemed to have merely irritated the man.
“Well, now, that makes all the difference, don’t it?” the guard said, jabbing his stunstick through the bars and striking Dansby between the eyes.
Five
“… a leg!”
Aye, it was — and a fine leg at that.
Dansby had his arms wrapped around the leg, his face and lips tightly pressed to its soft, smooth skin. He gave it another bit of a peck and began working his way higher. It wasn’t Kaycie’s leg, which should worry him, but he had that sort of background knowledge one gets that this was a dream, so he was safe there — so long as he didn’t wake her with murmurs of some other name, at least.
“… a leg!”
Yes, yes, he knew that and why there was shouting like that in his naked-leg dream confused him. Was this one of those dreams where two things were conflated? Perhaps naked legs with one of his old school’s anatomy lessons? Shall we name some parts?
A leg, he thought, working his way up with a series of kisses, a knee, a thigh, a —
“Shake a leg!”
Now, why would one want to —
Dansby was falling — bloody hell, he hated those sorts of dreams. He’d read once where it meant some sort of anxiety or feeling out of control in one’s daily —
“Oof!”
“No need for you to, lad, I know you’ve no company!”
Dansby’s first realization was that there was no leg, only a rather small, rather smelly, rather soiled pillow grasped to his chest and face. His next was a bit of thankfulness for the pillow, whatever had soiled it, for it was all that was between his face and the hard surface of a ship’s deck.
He opened his eyes, rolled over, and grunted as the front of his jumpsuit was grasped and he was dragged off the deck to stand. The ship’s berthing deck, for it could be nothing else, was crowded, with crewmen wandering about, crawling from their thin, narrow bunks attached to the bulkheads — the very sort which Dansby had just been dumped out of — and those nearest him forming a half circle to watch him with not-at-all repressed glee on their faces, many of which bore fresh bruises and more than one newly set nose.
Dansby blinked and looked at the fist still bunched in his jumpsuit — the same one he’d worn off Elizabeth so as to be nondescript in his visit to Carlton’s lair — then followed that to a sleeve which bore the hashmarks of a master’s mate, then up to a face that itself bore a blackened eye, a metal brace across the nose, and grin which would have been heart-felling even with all of the teeth intact.
“Welcome aboard Tyche, lad,” he said. “You shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke.”
Tyche was a happy ship … at least once Dansby arrived.
The spacers, other than Tart, appeared to bear him no real ill-will for the damage done in the brawl. He wasn’t beaten, much to his surprise, merely tossed a vacsuit — his own being back aboard Elizabeth — and set to work.
Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy Box Set Page 16