by Allen Steele
She raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know? You’re sleeping on deck, beneath one of the boats.” When I gaped at her, her mouth spread into a broad grin. “Gotcha. No, you’ve got a cabin, same as everyone else…although you may not be crazy about whom you’re sharing it with.”
“Who’s that?”
“C’mon. I’ll introduce you. It’s on my way.” Without another word, she started toward the gangway. I slung my knapsack across my shoulder and followed her up the ramp. And that was how I came aboard the LeMare.
The crew cabins were located belowdecks in the bow, but when Susan and I approached the companionway behind the wheelhouse, we found our way blocked by several dockworkers who’d formed a brigade line to carry crates down to the forward storeroom. It didn’t look like they were going anywhere soon, so Susan changed her mind and instead led me back the way we’d come, along the portside deck past the greenhouse, until we reached the poop. I was glad that she’d been kidding about having me sleep there—the two sixteen-foot skiffs were adequate as ship-to-shore transport, but not as quarters—but I didn’t have a chance to inspect them before she went down one of two companionways on either side of the aft centerboard trunk. I’d later learn that the LeMare had two retractable centerboards, located beneath both bow and stern, that could be lowered to help stabilize the vessel when it was in deep water, then raised to allow the ship to enter shallow coastal areas.
Despite its size, the LeMare was no luxury yacht. Every inch of available space had been carefully apportioned to make room for crew accommodations and laboratories. I caught only a glimpse of the galley and lounge before Susan escorted me to a narrow passage leading amidships.
She was about to open a hatch, when she paused to look back at me. “We’re going to take a shortcut through the greenhouse, but you need to know that this isn’t something you can do all the time. Once we’re under way, we’ll keep this place closed off as much as possible in order to preserve ambient temperature and humidity. So when you’re going from one end of the ship to the other…”
“Use the topside walkways. Got it.”
Satisfied that I understood, she opened the hatch…and I stopped, my mouth falling open in awe. Until then, I’d seen the greenhouse only from the outside. I knew that it took up nearly half of the ship’s interior space, but even so, I wasn’t prepared for the cavernous room before us. Beneath a vaulted ceiling of louvered glass panels were two long rows of hydroponics bays, arranged along aisles, one on each side of the greenhouse, with feed tubes dangling from nutrient sacks above them. Beneath the bays were metal racks containing empty trays; above those were slender pipes leading to small showerheads. Potting tables and lab benches were positioned here and there, with pegboards above them holding gardening tools.
Dominating the center of the greenhouse was an enormous fiberglass tank—or rather, upon closer inspection, four different tanks in tandem, with removable partitions separating one from another. One was filled with water, while the others were still empty. As Susan led me down the starboard aisle, she noticed that they had caught my attention.
“Live holds,” she said, tapping one of the tanks with her fingertip. “For collecting aquatic specimens. We can open them from hatches along the bottom of the hull, or simply put fish in from the top, then fill the tanks with either salt water or freshwater as need be.” I paused to look at one of the partitions, and she nodded. “And, yes, they’re expandable, too. Just in case we capture something that’s…well, a little bigger than usual.”
“What? A catwhale?”
She smiled. “Maybe not that big, but who knows?” Susan pointed to the bays and racks. “Same thing for our gardens. We can transplant plants here and keep them alive in either water or native soil, and study them along the way. Nothing here now, but I expect this place will be filled up by the time we get home.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Our route was to take us all the way around Coyote, following the Great Equatorial River eastward until we returned to New Florida from the west. Once we passed the Meridian Archipelago, we’d be exploring parts of the world where no one had ever gone. “Hope we find something edible.”
Her smile faded. “If we do, you’ll be the last to know. Another reason why we’d prefer not to have visitors…no filching allowed.”
By then we’d reached the forward hatch. Susan closed it behind us, then took me around the forward companionway, where the men were still bringing down cargo, to a central passage leading toward the bow. After the spaciousness of the greenhouse, the crew quarters felt cramped; the passageway was divided in half by the forward centerboard trunk, with a ceiling low enough that I automatically ducked my head. On both sides of the centerboard were the wood-paneled pocket doors of individual cabins. I thought she’d stop at one near the companionway. Instead she led me all the way down to the far end of the portside corridor, passing one of the heads, until we halted outside a door just aft of the bow.
“Here we are.” Susan stopped to look me straight in the eye. “All right, one more time,” she murmured, her voice nearly a whisper. “Swear to me that you’ll keep that gun of yours unloaded and put the shells where they can’t be found.”
I was tempted to say something sarcastic, but her face told me that she was dead serious. “Word of honor,” I responded, holding up my right hand. “I promise.”
She still seemed dubious, but nodded in acknowledgment. “Very well, then. I’ll hold you to that. Now let me introduce you to your roommate.”
She slid back the door, revealing a cabin not much larger than a walk-in closet. Two bunks, one above the other, with a round porthole above the top bunk and a couple of lockers recessed into the bulkheads on either side of the room. And sitting cross-legged on the top bunk, a picture book spread open in his lap, was a small boy.
“Jorge?” Susan said, and the boy looked up from his reading. “Here’s your new roommate. His name’s Mr. Lee…Sawyer Lee.” Then she turned to me. “Mr. Lee, allow me to introduce you to Jorge Montero…my son.”
Jorge and I stared at each other for a moment. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell which one of us was more surprised. Neither of us seemed to know what to say. The boy was the first to break the silence.
“I get the top bunk!” he chirped.
I glanced at his mother. The smile on her face was fatuous, and I knew at once that any argument would be futile. Either I’d share a cabin with a two-year-old—six by the Gregorian calendar—or I’d be sleeping in one of the boats.
“All yours,” I replied.
I remained in my cabin for only a few minutes after Susan left, just long enough to unpack my knapsack. While I put away my belongings, I did my best to strike up a conversation with Jorge. The boy remained as laconic as only a child could be, with mumbled replies—yes, no, or the occasional I dunno—to most of my questions, but after a while I managed to get a few things out of him. As I’d guessed, he was two years old, with his birthday only a week earlier. He was going with us because his folks didn’t want to leave him behind for so long; because he’d be out of school for the rest of summer, his mother would be his tutor, with classes in the mornings and afternoons when nothing else was going on. And he had a job aboard the LeMare as well: cabin boy, running errands for his parents and any other adult who might need an extra set of hands at any particular time.
Other than that, Jorge didn’t have much to say. He’d won the argument about who would get the precious top bunk and the porthole view, but it was obvious that he didn’t like having to share quarters with someone who didn’t belong to his family. I wondered why he hadn’t been assigned to his grandfather’s cabin. Perhaps I’d ask Jon or Susan about that later. Besides, I figured that, if things didn’t work out between us, I could always talk another crew member into swapping berths with me.
The kid was a mixture of shyness and curiosity. Whenever I looked at Jorge, he was staring fixedly at the pages of his book, a children’s version of The Chronicles of
Prince Rupurt. But as soon as I’d turn away, I could feel his eyes on my back, carefully observing everything that I did…and when I placed my rifle in my locker, I heard a sharp intake of breath, as if he’d seen something that fascinated him. Just as I hadn’t let him see the liquor flask I’d brought with me, I took a moment to make sure that the gun was unloaded; as an added precaution, I also removed the ammo magazines from my knapsack and put them in my trouser pockets. Unfortunately, there was no way to lock my cabinet. When he wasn’t around, I’d have to find a place to hide my bullets; if I couldn’t, then I’d need to get someone else aboard to keep them for me. No sense in tempting small hands.
Once I was done, I told him that I was heading topside to see what was going on. A muttered “g’bye” was his only response; that would have to do. So I exited the cabin and went back down the corridor to the forward companionway. The last few crates were being carried aboard when I returned to the top deck; there didn’t seem to be anything for me to do, though, so I leaned against the port rail and watched crew members say farewell to family and friends they were leaving behind. Most were younger than I: university students, mainly, recruited to the ExEx in exchange for academic credit, along with a handful of seasoned sailors who’d been hired by Goldstein. I didn’t know any of them, nor did they know me, although I caught the occasional wary glance in my direction. I was the mercenary big-game hunter who’d been brought along as their unwanted protector. I could only hope that they’d warm up to me as time went on.
The sails were still furled, and when I turned to gaze up at the wheelhouse, I could see Jon conferring with an older gentleman who I took to be our pilot. It didn’t look as if the LeMare was quite ready to depart, and I was getting hungry. Time to visit the galley and see what passed for chow aboard this tub. So I went aft again, passing the greenhouse—through the glass frames, I spotted Susan stowing away crates—until I reached the stairs we’d earlier used to go below.
The lounge was larger than I expected. Paneled with stained mountain briar, its walls were lined with caged bookshelves holding what appeared to be mainly scientific references and natural-history texts. Apparently no one was counting on comps having all the information we’d need, although an inlaid wall screen displayed a global map, our present position depicted as a tiny red dot on the East Channel. Faux-birch armchairs and side tables were placed here and there, while a blackwood dining table long enough to seat the entire crew dominated the other side of the room. The adjacent galley was separated from the lounge by a serving counter; through its window I could see pots and pans hanging from hooks above stove tops.
Aside from a half-empty coffee carafe on a counter hot plate, there was no food to be found. The place was vacant except for a young woman sitting at the mess table, datapad open on the table before her. She’d hooked up a flexboard to the pad; her fingers tapped at its keys as I searched for something to eat, but I was just about to open the half door leading to the galley when she glanced up from the screen.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said quietly. “The cook gets mad when someone raids the pantry.”
I looked back at her. “That so?” I asked, and she nodded. “How would you know?”
“Because I’ve tried it already.” She owlishly peered at me from above the pad screen. “‘Breakfast at seven, lunch at noon, dinner at six’…that’s what I’ve been told. And no snacking in between.” A shrug. “Guess they’re concerned about us eating up the rations.”
Until then, I’d assumed that she was another scientist; she was about the right age to be a university postgrad. But the way she spoke led me to believe that she was an outsider like myself. “Umm…so what’s the penalty for mutiny? Do we get keelhauled? Or is it twenty lashes at the mast?”
“No. You’ve got to sit and let Susan Montero lecture you on the social structure of chirreep tribes. After an hour of that, you’ll wish you’d taken twenty lashes.”
She kept a straight face as she said that, but as soon as I broke up, she couldn’t help but do the same. Just as well that I didn’t have a cup of coffee in my hands, or otherwise it would have been all over the floor. For a minute or so we laughed our heads off until I finally managed to catch my breath.
“Sounds”—still snickering, I collapsed on the bench across the table from her—“sounds like you have some experience with this sort of thing.”
“Uh-huh.” She pointed at her pad. “It’s all in here, every last word of it.” She shook her head. “I’ve been trying all morning to get something useful out of the interview I did with her, but the woman doesn’t talk…she pontificates.”
“Interview?” That raised my curiosity. “I take it you’re a journalist?”
“Uh-huh. On long-term assignment for Pan News Service, doing a series about life in the colonies.” She extended a hand across the table. “Lynn Hu. And you are…?”
“Sawyer Lee.” I shook her hand. “Wilderness guide and part-time babysitter.”
Lynn raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like an interesting mix of professions.”
“Believe me, the second isn’t by choice.” Given the unkind joke we’d just shared about Jorge’s mother, I decided to change the subject. “So your series is going to include a story about the Exploratory Expedition.”
“More than one. My editors want me to file every week, no matter what they find out there.” She sighed. “Serves me right for being so specific in my earlier stories. If I hadn’t mentioned the ExEx in an interview I did with President Gunther…well, you don’t want to hear about that.”
“Try me.” I cupped my chin in the palm of my hand. “It’s either this or go back topside and watch everyone else say good-bye.”
“Didn’t know my job was that interesting.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the short version is that my syndicate sent me here to spend a year writing this series. Sort of a first-person view of life on Coyote, for people back home…Earth, I mean…who want to know what it’s like out here. Anyway, one of the first pieces I did was an interview with Wendy Gunther. Didn’t amount to much, really…I don’t think she wanted to talk to me, to tell the truth…but when she told me that her husband, Carlos, was going on the expedition, I made mention of it in my story. And when my editors saw this, they not only insisted that I stay longer so that I could cover the expedition, but also pulled some strings to make sure that I was included.”
“I can guess how. They got in touch with Janus…”
Lynn nodded. “Uh-huh. You figured it out. Since Morgan Goldstein’s bankrolling this whole thing, he gets to decide who comes along for the ride. Guess he saw it as good PR.” A wan smile. “And…well, here I am. Not that I wanted to do this. To tell the truth, I’d just as soon have gone home. I’m beginning to feel sort of like a fifth wheel.” She winced. “Now there’s a lousy metaphor. Ships don’t have wheels.”
“Hey, if you’re a fifth wheel, then I’m a spare oar.” She looked at me askance and I went on. “Goldstein put me on at the last minute, too. Once we get past the meridian, I have no more idea of what’s out there than anyone else on board. But Morgan wants someone to ride shotgun, so…”
“So here you are.” Another smile, less cynical this time. I was beginning to realize that, if there was going to be another reluctant passenger aboard, we could do worse than to have one who was so attractive. Her smile faded as she glanced at her pad again. “Well, I hope your job is more appreciated than mine. The rest of my series will probably get pushed to the back of the blotter…if they’re published at all.”
“You don’t think you’ll find anything worth reporting?”
“Oh, I’m sure I will. It’s just that…well, who’s going to want to read my stuff, what with everything else that’s going on just now?” Seeing the look on my face, she peered at me. “You mean you haven’t heard? The Western Hemisphere Union is about to collapse.”
“What?” I stared at her. “No, I haven’t heard. What do you mean, it’s collapsing?”
; “Just what I said. The whole thing is falling apart.” She nodded at her pad. “News came over the hyperlink early this morning. A mob stormed the Proletariat last night, led by a renegade Union Guard regiment. About sixty people were killed in Havana before they took over the capitol building.”
“Holy…What about the government?”
“What government? The Matriarchs and Patriarchs were forced to evacuate Cuba. No one seems to know where they’ve gone, but quite a few were killed before they managed to escape. Now there are reports of riots in major cities throughout the Union, with other Guard units either under siege or joining the uprising.” Lynn shook her head. “A lot of chickens coming home to roost.”
I tried to absorb the news and found that I couldn’t. Like everyone else on Coyote, I’d heard rumors that things were getting bad back on Earth. But even though the Western Hemisphere Union hadn’t been immune to the long-term effects of global climate change, I’d assumed—like everyone else, really—that the WHU would ride out the storm, if only because the Union Guard had clamped down on previous insurrections. But if the Guard itself had turned on the Proletariat and its leaders were on the lam, then…
The sharp clang of a ship’s bell interrupted my thoughts. Lynn looked up. “Sounds like we’re ready to leave,” she said as she folded up her flexboard and closed her pad. “Want to go topside, wave good-bye?”
I stood up from the bench. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I hesitated, then gallantly offered my arm. “Care for an escort?”
She hesitated, then grinned at me. “Sure. So long as it’s not a date or anything.”
“No. For that, I’ll bring you roses.”
She laughed as she stepped around the end of the table. “Skip the flowers,” she said, taking my arm. “I’ll settle for a jug of bearshine.”
Remembering what else I had stashed in my locker, I led her toward the companionway. “Perhaps that can be arranged.”