by Jay Allan
Apparently, Lois McKendrick died shortly before the ship was completed, but her great-granddaughter christened the vessel when it launched. The article featured a blurry digital of a young woman swinging a bottle of champagne against the airlock. I didn’t recognize her until I read the caption, “Cargo Second Alys McKendrick Giggone christens Federated Freight’s newest solar clipper, the forty-three thousand ton Lois McKendrick.” Under that was another digital of a group of people standing in front of a familiar blue banner with silver letters that read McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative. Front and center, was a straight-backed woman with a warm smile holding the shoulders of a young girl standing just in front of her. On either side of her were a half dozen folks of various ages and the caption read: “Lois McKendrick (center) stands with the members of the McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative outside the courthouse at New Edinburgh.” Judging from the looks, I guessed this was when the Galactic Circuit Court ruled in their favor. I also couldn’t be sure, but I was willing to bet that I recognized that little girl.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Margary Station: 2352-January-12
Next morning in the galley, Pip stopped by for breakfast before heading out to do his stint at the flea market and I shared the information I found about Lois McKendrick.
Pip nodded slowly. “Okay, that explains where the name and banner came from. But why did the captain give it to us to use?”
“I understand that part,” I said. “It’s probably been sitting around in storage for the last, I don’t know how long, and when we started renting the booth, she broke it out.”
Cookie tossed a tidbit of his own onto the table as he walked by. “The captain was in cargo before she went to the Academy to get her officer stripes. As I understand it, her whole family is involved with trading in one way or another.”
I nodded. “See, that’s all part and parcel. Very consistent. I mean this ship is named for her great-grandmother and if that’s really her in this picture, then they were close.”
Pip nodded with a shrug. “So? What part are you confused by?”
“Who is Lois McKendrick?”
“You just answered that.”
I shook my head. “Not that Lois McKendrick. The one who has that banner registered on her mass allotment.”
Cookie overheard and chuckled. “Oh, that’s tradition, young Ishmael. Lois is the ship’s pooka—a kind of spirit. There’s always an honorary berth for the person that the ship is named for. It’s an unpaid position, of course, and they don’t appear on any duty roster, but that berth shares all the other benefits of being a crew member. By tradition, a vessel’s captain can use that berth as a kind of alter ego to do things for the benefit of the ship. Usually they are a kind of conduit for random acts of kindness.”
“So over on the Duchamp there’s actually a berth for Marcel Duchamp?” Pip asked.
Cookie nodded. “Exactly so. It gets peculiar on some vessels, especially those named for cities or animals, but the tradition is almost universal.”
Pip just shook his head. “Live and learn.” He rose to take his dishes to the galley and while he was gone, Cookie pulled out a package and placed it at the table where Pip had been sitting. He winked, held a finger to his lips, and then followed Pip into the galley.
When Pip got back and saw it, he turned to me. “What’s this?”
I just shrugged.
Looking inside, Pip pulled out some drapery clips and a dark blue tablecloth. “Oh, perfect. Where’d this come from?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. Must be from Lois.” I could see Cookie peeking out from the galley.
Pip chuckled and called out as he left, “Thanks, Lois.”
Some of the watch standers came in for breakfast, and I told Cookie to finish his coffee. Omelets, I could manage. It felt good, but before long, he was helping and eventually elbowed me off to make coffee and set bread. That man wasn’t happy unless he was feeding somebody, so I left him to it and just filled in where I could. Beverly came in and I told her about the meeting with the captain and showed her the entry about Lois McKendrick with the picture of the banner.
“That’s interesting. What do you suppose it all means?”
“Which part? The fact that she rented the space in the name of the cooperative, or that she gave Pip and me a short but blistering lecture on letting the rest of the crew take advantage of our booth? Or the strong sense I have that she’s expecting Pip and me to do something, and that she’ll support us if we do, but she wants us to figure it out on our own.”
Bev shrugged. “I dunno. All of the above, I guess.”
I sighed. “I have a lot to figure out.”
“Well, I shouldn’t take up any more of your time then. I need to get back to my duty station anyway.” She left me and I went back to the galley to let the daily routine distract me from thinking any more about it. The routine felt good and I sank into it like a hot bath letting it carry me through the morning. I decided after lunch, I would go down to environmental.
* * *
When I stepped through the hatch, Diane and Brill were there examining one of the oxygen scrubbers. I overheard them talking. “It looks like we’re going to have to change out the matrix, I guess.”
Diane nodded with a grimace. When she saw me, she grinned. “Just in time. You here to work or flirt?”
I chuckled. “Both if I can get away with it.”
Brill smiled as well. “Well, you’ll have to flirt with her. I’ve got quarterlies to finish.”
“What’s up?” I nodded toward the oxygen scrubber.
“This matrix is starting to die out and it needs to be replaced.”
Brill sighed. “It really is a two person job, but I have got to finish this paperwork today or I won’t be able to get off the ship tomorrow. Unfortunately, Diane is alone this watch.”
“How long will it take?”
Diane shook her head. “Not long. Two stans if we work hard.”
“I got two stans before I need to get back in the galley. Let’s get cracking.”
“Thanks, Ish.” Brill chucked me on the arm. “You’re a peach.”
“Yeah, soft, fuzzy, with a hard wooden core, I know.” I grinned at her then turned to Diane. “Okay, I’m at your disposal. Where do we start?”
The time whooshed past. Diane was as good with the scrubber as she had been in the booth the day before. The work consisted of stripping out the old algae matrix from the frames, washing them down, stringing up new material, and re-inoculating it. It would take about half a day before the algae settled in and started producing oxygen so it was important to do it as soon as one started to die off. Diane told me it was one of the least favored jobs in environmental, made worse by the fact that every scrubber had to be reworked about once a month.
The process wasn’t difficult. A metal frame sandwiched the matrix foundation and held it taut. This film gave the algae something to adhere to. We pulled each one out of the scrubber, released the clips that held the front and back together, separated the halves, and rolled the old material out like a kind of slimy, brown jelly roll that was a meter long and half a meter thick. We had to wash the frame down and roll in fresh matrix material, then stretch and smooth it down before locking the halves together again. Diane used a sprayer to coat it with new algae. The completed assembly went back into the scrubber. While the process wasn’t difficult, it was time-consuming with forty-eight units that needed to be replaced. We had to prevent cross-contamination, so we stripped and washed everything down before we started re-assembling and hanging the fresh frames. It was tedious, wet, and slimy work for the entire duration. When we were done, I was soaked, filthy, and exhausted. What’s more, I needed to get back to the galley to help Cookie.
Diane and Brill both thanked me repeatedly for helping out, but I had to admit it was really kinda fun. Diane is what my mom would have called good people and had a wicked sense of humor that made even a boring exercise like changing out algae matrices enjoy
able. Besides, she looked good in a mucky, wet shipsuit. Who could argue with that?
I was a little late but Cookie waved it off. “Brill called to explain you might be delayed, young Ishmael.” He smiled in his understanding way. “If you can spend your free time helping out in another department, then I can forgive your being four ticks late to fix dinner. One thing, though—”
I finished for him, “Let me guess…we’re out of coffee?”
He smiled beatifically. “Just so, young Ishmael, just so.”
* * *
Dinner consisted of a mushroom, ham, and spinach quiche with fresh crusty rolls and green beans. Cookie made one of his amazing granapple pies for dessert, which made a nice treat for the watch standers. About half past dinner, Pip came in, still in his civvies, looking tired but happy. He grabbed a wedge of quiche and some green beans and sat with us at a mess table to compare notes.
“Good?” I slid a cup of fresh coffee onto the table beside his tray.
He nodded. “But you were right about a long day standing there.”
“How much did you sell?”
He strung me along a tick, pretending to be too hungry to answer but finally did, “Everything.”
I looked at Cookie and back at Pip. “When you say everything, you mean what exactly?”
“Everything that we planned to sell and then some more. I left ten belts for St. Cloud here in my locker, but I probably could have sold those, too. The prices started going up as the pile dwindled. I don’t even know what the final total is. I haven’t had a chance to look.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “The banner looked really good hanging up and the tablecloth was exactly the right size and shape. The color showed off the belts perfectly. That Lois is really clever.” He pulled out his tablet and opened the accounting function. “Okay, we took in three thousand five hundred and forty creds, less the three fifty it cost for the seventy belts. We made about three thousand one hundred and ninety creds today.”
There was silence for at least a full tick before Cookie spoke, “Young Ishmael, you might want to close your mouth now.”
I did so but immediately opened to ask the next question. “How did the others do?”
“Well, Rhon and Biddy did very well. Rhon had some very nice fabrics and a huge collection of entertainment cubes. Biddy had small wooden and stone carvings, mostly animals, that were very popular and expensive. They both sold out. I don’t know how much they made. It seemed rude to ask, but they were both giggling like schoolgirls afterward. Sean Grishan had lace doilies and they evaporated off the table. He sold out by noon.”
“Lace doilies? You mean like the little round things?”
Pip nodded. “He makes them, and by the looks, he’s darn good at it, too.”
“He makes them? Here? On the ship?”
Pip nodded. “Yeah. He knits, too. Claims sailors on the clipper ships used to do it to pass the time and he’s been teaching himself for the last couple of stanyers. They sold well, so, to each his own, I guess.”
“Excellent. What’d the belt buckle guy say?”
“He’ll give us a good price, probably between ten and fifteen creds, depending on quantity, but of course we have to take them off-station. I explained we’re leaving for St. Cloud in a couple days so that wasn’t an issue. That was his biggest concern.”
“What’s the mass look like?” I pulled up my quota on my tablet. “I have about eight kilos.”
Pip nodded. “I’ve got a little more, but about the same. The question is how many buckles do we buy?”
“We can’t afford too many—” I started to say but then I noticed Pip’s grin.
“Three thousand creds will buy a lot of buckles. How many do you think you can put in eight kilos of mass?”
Cookie interrupted us. “You gentlemen should think about this carefully, I think. Pip, you must either get off the ship, or change your clothing. Young Ishmael needs to clean up the galley and mess deck. Then you’ll both be free for the entire evening to discuss this all you like.”
He was right so we split up. I floated through the next stan or so of work.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Margary Station: 2352-January-12
We picked up the conversation later in the sauna. “We’re missing something.”
“What’s that?” Pip basked sleepily on one of the benches.
“The Mercantile Cooperative.”
“Miss it? I was staring at it all day.”
“I know, but I think I’m starting to see what the captain was talking about. What’s going to happen to the booth for the next couple of days?”
“Nothing as far as I know. We don’t have anything left to sell.”
“Yeah, so we’re out twenty creds rent for the time we paid for but won’t use. It’s a shame. There could be others on the ship who could benefit, but because they don’t know about it, they’re out of luck.”
“With the margins we got today, that twenty creds is a rounding error. But I take your meaning about the rest of the crew. There’s another thing too.”
“What’s that?”
“Time in port is limited and if you and I have to spend all day selling, we won’t be able to buy anything.”
That thought had been banging up against the inside of my skull already as well.
He sat up and looked at me. “Okay, some lessons learned. First, this was a last tick idea. Whatever we did here was really just testing the water.”
I nodded in agreement. “Who’d have thought, huh?”
Pip grinned. “Obviously, the captain, because if I remember correctly, she warned us of most of this.”
“True.”
“So, how does a mercantile cooperative work, anyway? We’re thinking like traders but we need to act like businessmen. So what do we do?”
“I don’t know, but there is someone who does.”
Pip looked at me and we both said, “The captain.”
“Okay, before we bother her…” I held up my hand and counted off with my fingers, “…we need to figure out what it’s supposed to be, how it might work in our situation, and who we can get to help us.”
Pip bobbed his head once. “The first should be easy. The second would be better discussed after we have an answer to the third.”
“Makes sense, and I’m ready to get out of here.”
We showered up and went out to find who else might be aboard.
Turns out there weren’t many.
“Hey, how’s it going? Do you have a few minutes to talk?” I asked Francis when we found him in environmental.
“Sure, I just need to keep an eye on the gauges and fill out my logs. What’s on your mind?”
Pip and I looked at each other and he nodded at me to start. “Well, we did pretty well in the flea market yesterday, don’t ya think?”
“Oh yeah, that was not only fun, but profitable as well. I’m going back tomorrow afternoon and see what I can pick up to take to St. Cloud.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what we wanted to talk about.”
“You’ll have another booth there, won’t you?”
Pip chimed in, “That’s what we’re trying to determine. Margary was a spur of the moment thing and we weren’t very organized.”
Francis chuckled. “Yeah, that’s true.”
“We have five weeks to figure out how to do better on St. Cloud and we’re trying to make this work for everybody without having Pip and me spend all our time at it.” I summed the situation up for him.
“And we’d like to organize it so that the expenses are covered,” Pip added. “Ish and I paid for the booth out of our own pocket, and it wasn’t that much, but if we’re going to do this all the time then we should share the expense. Plus, there are other things that we should get to make it easier.”
“Like chairs?” Francis asked.
I nodded and grinned. “Yeah, chairs, food, signs, whatever we need to do a professional job out the
re.”
Pip added, “I’d like to have a grav pallet set up like the regulars do so all we have to do is slide it out of the cargo lock and drag it up to the flea market.”
“Whose mass would that come out of?” Francis asked.
“We don’t know. That’s just the point. Maybe we can get it assigned to Lois, but what we need now are people who are willing to form a co-op to do this on an ongoing basis. If we can get a core group who’ll be responsible for organizing this between ports, then we should be able to make out better from here on out.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Makes sense to me. When are we doing this?”
Pip shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re just testing the waters to see who is interested at this point.”
Francis didn’t even pause. “I’m in. I had a ball out there and I’d love to do it again. Hell, just watching Diane and Beverly play the crowd was worth the price of admission. If you want me to contribute to the rental fund, just let me know.”
I shook my head. “We're good for now. The captain actually paid the rental from ship’s funds and we'll pay the ship back. We just need to think this through more.”
“Okay. Look it’s time for my rounds,” Francis said, “but count me in. I made more creds yesterday than I did all of last stanyer. If we can do that all the time, that would be great.”
Pip and I both nodded. “Thanks, Francis. Spread the word if you can. Let us know about anybody else who is interested. We’ll try to set up a meeting for just after pull out.”
We headed back to the berthing area and I turned to Pip. “Do you have a handle on stores trades for St. Cloud?”
He shrugged. “Between the Sarabanda and the mushrooms, we’re in good shape. We’re bound for Dunsany Roads after that and there’s a lot of similarities between the two. To get a good margin, it’s better if there is more of a difference.”
“How about the empty container?”
He shrugged again. “I met with Mr. Maxwell while you were in the booth. The beefalo robes were popular but the rugs didn’t sell. We’re taking them to St. Cloud. Having a planet under you and room to spread out might make them more viable. I should have considered that.”