Stars & Empire 2: 10 More Galactic Tales (Stars & Empire Box Set Collection)

by Jay Allan

  The captain ignored the comment and continued, “And what have you learned about running the booth?”

  Pip answered her with a rueful grin, “That it’s not as easy as it looks, Captain, and if we’re going to do this regularly, then we need to get better organized.”

  The captain nodded with a small smile. “I see, and I concur. You’ve formed a steering committee to start this process rolling. Is that right?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Captain. I can give you the names…”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not necessary. I’m more interested in what you’ve decided so far.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out before continuing, “We realize that to be successful we need to be professional and systematic. Part of that is maintaining economic viability. We need to pay our own freight, as it were.”

  Mr. Cotton spoke for the first time, “How do you propose to accomplish that, eh?”

  Pip answered him, “By taking a commission, one percent of sales, capped at ten creds. You can sell as much as you like, but you owe the co-op one percent of what you get up to ten creds then after that you keep it all.”

  “I’m familiar with the concept, Mr. Carstairs, ya.” A small smile played around Mr. Cotton’s mouth.

  Pip blushed. “Of course, sar. Sorry, sar.”

  The captain looked like she was suppressing a grin and addressed the next question to me. “And what have you decided about booth coverage and consignment sales?”

  “Well, Captain, we know we need to split the days up. Our normal port stay is about four days. If we have four people as designated booth managers, we could either assign one of them each day or split the duty so no one gets too tired. We have four people but we need to check watch schedules against the volunteers to make sure we’re distributed properly among the watches.”

  She nodded. “And consignments?”

  Pip stepped in on that one. “We’re deadlocked on that one just now, Captain. We’re thinking an increase in commission, but the notion of we-work-and-they-profit is getting in the way. The problem is that the commission goes to the co-op but the people doing the work aren’t getting anything from it.”

  She nodded. “So you’re not paying the booth managers?”

  Pip and I both shrugged but Pip answered her, “That came up at the last meeting, Captain, but we didn’t come to any definitive answer.”

  “How would your great-grandmother have done it, Captain?” The question just popped out of my mouth before I really considered what I was saying.

  The captain smiled though and answered in a gentle voice, “She would have split the commission between the booth and the managers.”

  It was so obvious. As soon as the words left her mouth I knew it was the right answer, and I suspect Pip was kicking himself as hard as I was.

  Mr. Maxwell broke in at that point, “What will you spend the money on?”

  Pip handled that while I untied my tongue. “We need to cover booth rental. They won’t always be as straight forward as Margary, I suspect. We also need some booth fixtures to keep from looking like complete rubes.”

  The captain appeared to sneeze quietly at that point and covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

  Mr. Maxwell arched an eyebrow. “Rubes, Mr. Carstairs?”

  “Yes, sar. Most booth vendors have display racks, signage, chairs, and such. The pros have them all set up on a grav pallet and all they have to do is float it in, lock it down, and begin selling. That first day we wouldn’t have even had a tablecloth if not for the banner—”

  The captain interrupted, “So you’re planning on purchasing all this with the proceeds from the booth?”

  I sighed. “That’s our problem, captain. The creds we can cover. We probably can’t afford a grav pallet right away but the other stuff is relatively easy to come by except for the mass.”

  “The mass?”

  Pip nodded. “Yes, Captain. All that stuff has mass and somebody needs to book it onto the ship. None of us have a mass allotment high enough to cover it all.”

  Mr. Maxwell swiveled his gaze back and forth between us. “How are you going to deal with that?”

  I shrugged. “Well, sar, short term, we’ll make signs on station and leave them there. Boards and markers are cheap and disposable. Chairs we’ll rent as well as the tables. It’ll add to the overhead, but it’ll be worth it. We have a tablecloth now in addition to the banner and clips, so we’re good there.”

  Pip added, “We’re planning on buying a couple of extra duffel bags for transportation when we get to St. Cloud. But we don’t have spare mass for even a couple of cargo totes, let alone a grav pallet.”

  The captain nodded and pursed her lips. “What about renting a grav pallet as well?”

  Pip nodded. “We looked at that, Captain. They’re expensive compared to the booth rental, but if this works out perhaps we can do that later.”

  “Mr. Cotton,” the captain said, “does the ship have a grav pallet they might rent?”

  “I’m sorry, Captain, no, in port we need every pallet we can find, ya.” He pulled up his tablet and consulted his inventory. “But…we do, have one that is scheduled for scrap, ya. Ach, it was supposed to have remained on Margary, in fact.”

  She nodded slowly, and I had the odd feeling that she had known all along. “What’s the mass on a grav pallet, Mr. Cotton?”

  “Ya, fifty kilos, Captain.”

  She turned to the first mate. “Mr. Maxwell, does Lois have sufficient mass in her allotment to cover fifty kilos?”

  “Yes, Captain, she does.”

  “Well, then I think we have the grav pallet problem solved.” She gave us all a little self-satisfied shrug. “I’m very pleased with the progress you gentlemen and your group have made. A captain likes to keep the crew happy—busy, but happy.” She looked around, first at Mr. Maxwell and then Mr. Cotton. “Is there any other business for these two spacers, gentlemen?”

  “No, Captain,” they answered in near unison.

  “Very well.” She turned to us. “Thank you for coming, gentlemen. I appreciate your diligence.”

  We stood and started out but at the door the captain stopped us with a final question. “Oh, what are you calling this enterprise of yours?”

  Pip and I glanced at each other, and I told her. “The McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative, of course. I understand it has a proud tradition, Captain.”

  The captain grinned. “Yes, Mr. Wang, it does indeed. Thank you, again, gentlemen.”

  We beat a hasty retreat from officer country and the whole way back Pip kept shaking his head and making little tsk’ing sounds.

  When we entered the galley, I finally broke down and asked, “What’s the matter?”

  “Split the commission. How stupid can we be?”

  I chuckled. “I don’t know about you, but I have a proud history of being pretty stupid.”

  “Hmm. Maybe it’s contagious and I’m catching it from you, then.”

  Cookie was icing a cake for dinner and looked up at Pip. “No, Mr. Carstairs, you’ve always had a very healthy amount of your own,” he said with a wicked grin. He turned back to his icing. “And if you’re finished lazing about, number one coffee urn is out again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Margary System: 2352-January-15

  After evening cleanup, I settled on the mess deck with my handbook and a cup of coffee. The quarterly exams were only a few days away and, while I was pretty confident about the food handler test, I had barely looked at ordinary spacer.

  It was huge.

  Everything that didn’t appear on one of the other exams was on the Deck Division test—ship configurations, basic communications, and standing orders for: watches, helm, and gangway duty. My brain froze and shut down. Sandy found me half a stan later just sitting there staring into my tablet.

  She waved a hand in front of my face. “Ish? Ish? You okay?”

  “Oh yeah, thanks, Sandy. I just realized how much is on
this deck exam. It flipped me out for a bit. The test is in ten days and I’m planning on taking this one and the food handler exam.”

  She chuckled. “You are a glutton for punishment, aren’t ya? Didn’t you take cargo and engineering last cycle?”

  I nodded.

  She looked over my shoulder at the tablet. “This isn’t so bad. I’m finally taking my Astrogation II exam this round. Once you start specializing it gets a lot harder. Look.” She pointed at the port starboard diagram. “If you don’t know that by now, you’re just so much congealed saltwater.”

  I chuckled. “True.”

  “And tell me you haven’t absorbed the watch stander schedule. What watch are we on now?”

  “Evening, but…”

  “See, this isn’t hard. You still have plenty of time. What haven’t you gotten to?”

  “Standing orders. Look at how many there are. How am I supposed to memorize all that?”

  She punched the button and brought up the first set. There were ten of them, but each was just common sense. She’d brought up the gangway watch orders and it started with, “Watch standers will report to duty stations fifteen ticks before the change of watch to assure a smooth transition of duty.”

  “Hmm. This doesn’t look all that hard.”

  “You’ve been hanging around with Pip too much. Maybe you should spend more time with Beverly.”

  I’m pretty sure I blushed.

  She patted me on the shoulder. “Look, you know how to eat an elephant?”

  I nodded. “One bite at a time.”

  “Yup. Dig in. I bet you can finish this one in a couple of days.”

  I flipped back and forth a couple of times and began to realize she was right. The list was long, but the individual items were small. A lot of it I knew already having lived aboard for—gods could it really have been almost five months? “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t know what happened there. My brain just kinda seized up.”

  She looked at me with a frown. “Hmm, you’ve been up since 0500 and worked all day?”

  I nodded.

  “You’ve got a lot on your plate. I heard you had a meeting with the captain this afternoon. It seems like the co-op is shaping up.”

  I nodded again.

  “Well, let me ask you this. Don’t you think you should get some sleep? It’s almost time for the midwatch.”

  I chuckled. “Which would make it nearly midnight and I’ve got to get up at oh-dark-thirty.”

  She laughed then. “It’s all dark out here, but yeah. I’m off watch myself in a few minutes and I better not find you on the track.”

  “Okay, okay, sheesh.” I laughed and stood. “Thanks, Sandy.”

  “No problem, Ish.” She waved and headed out of the mess. “Sleep well.”

  When I got to the berthing area, Pip and Bev were both already asleep. As I settled into my own bunk, I heard the little snorty-snores through the partition and thought, One bite at a time.

  * * *

  For the next couple of days I focused on my exams and let Pip worry about the steering committee. He kept me filled in while we worked the serving line or during cleanups. The group liked the idea of splitting the commissions but were hung up on whether to split all of them or only consignment sales. Eventually they agreed to split them all and to put a ten percent no-cap commission on consignments. That seemed about right to me. Beverly and Rhon wanted more, but Diane and Francis wanted less so it was a good compromise. Personally, I liked the idea of splitting them all. Of course, we’d already decided that booth manager wasn’t subject to the one percent sales commission. It was a way to get more people to volunteer to be booth managers. Adding the commission split between manager and co-op, we developed a nice economic model that gave a little extra to anybody who worked for the common good.

  I got through all the ordinary spacer material in just a couple of days and took a practice test with a seventy-five score. Good, but not enough to pass. I took a break and ran quickly through the food handler again, just to refresh myself and tested at ninety-four. By the end of the second day after transition, I was passing both tests consistently and I messaged Mr. von Ickles to let him know I’d be taking both deck and steward tests.

  Sandy caught me after cleanup a couple of nights after that. “How’re you doing? You still have a few days to study. You need help on the deck exam?”

  “I think I’m good. Of course, I won’t know until I take the test next week.”

  “Too true.” She gave me a sympathetic chuckle.

  “How are you doing?” I asked. “You’ve been studying astrogation stuff ever since I came aboard.”

  She smiled at me. “That’s normal. I had just made third before we got to Neris. After you make full share, you have to pick a specialty and work up through that ranking system.”

  I grimaced but nodded my agreement. “Yeah, I saw that in The Handbook, but there’s nothing that says I have to go beyond full share.”

  “Well, the extra mass is nice, and I suspect you’ll be full share before you know it. Look what happened with Pip.”

  “Very true. Well, if you have a couple minutes, would you drill me on the deck stuff and see if I’m ready?”

  “Sure, I’d be happy to.” She reached over and took my tablet.

  For the next twenty ticks, she asked me questions and I gave her answers. It was fun. She had that same dry wit that Diane had and a take-no-prisoners attitude that reminded me of Beverly. When we were done, she handed the tablet back. “Okay, you just qualified for able spacer. I think you can pass the ordinary test.”

  We laughed and I thought she was joking until I got my tablet back from her and looked to see the testing pool she’d been drilling me from. That made me feel a lot better.

  * * *

  On test day, I reported to Mr. von Ickles at the appointed time. He grinned when he saw me. “Do you have your frequent testing card? I can give you a discount.”

  I chuckled. “Sorry, I musta left it in my other shipsuit.”

  “You sure you want to do this?”

  “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “You might not pass.”

  “And…?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “I know, but I have to ask. If you’re ready…”

  Some indeterminate time later, from my perspective, I heard him say, “Time.” I put my stylus down and looked up at him.

  He stared at me intently. “Are you some kind of machine? I’ve never seen anybody disappear into a test like you do. Let me ask what test did you just take?”

  I hadn’t quite re-surfaced into reality. “Um, ordinary spacer?”

  He laughed. “You don’t sound too sure for somebody who’s been answering questions for almost a full stan.”

  “Wasn’t it?” His comment made me nervous.

  He nodded. “Yeah, it was and that’s probably the hardest test. How’d you do?”

  “You tell me. I’m not even sure what test I took.” We both laughed at that.

  He pulled up his display and showed me, ninety-six.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Wang. You are now rated ordinary spacer and I will add a note in your jacket this afternoon,” he rattled off the formula.

  I grinned. “Thanks. Steward tomorrow.”

  “You’ll have collected the full set. Do you have the commemorative binder?”

  “Wha—?”

  “Sorry.” He grinned sheepishly. “Joke.”

  I laughed. “I get it. It just took me a tick to process what you said. I’m still a little groggy from the test, I think.”

  Mr. von Ickles smiled. “Well, I mean it. I’ve seen many people take these tests and you slide into some kind of zone, a world unto yourself. You didn’t even see Mr. Maxwell come in, did you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Or the captain?”

  I looked up in alarm.

  “Just kidding. The captain didn’t come in.”

  I laughed. �
�Thank you, sar. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The rest of the day went by in one of those strange fogs where you get to the end and you know you did something but can’t remember what it was. I knew about the test, but nothing else seemed to stick. I had a vague memory about helping Pip and Cookie with lunch and cleanup. I’d used the afternoon break for a run and sauna instead of studying. After dinner I made one last pass through the food handler test and hit the rack early.

  * * *

  Breakfast was pancakes and waffles. Cookie went overboard and made hot fruit compotes in several flavors along with the usual selection of pork products. Myself, I would have preferred a nice cheese omelet with some mushrooms, but I enjoyed the waffles with granapple topping. Cleanup went smoothly and Pip and I were trading off on coffee duty. We had it down to a science. After finding the proper grind and proportion—we had standardized that early on—the rest was just keeping the urns clean and the brew water cold. We had to make some adjustments when we switched from the Arabasti but less than I would have thought. When it came right down to it, the two weren’t that different except for the expense.

  At the appointed time I presented myself to Mr. von Ickles, “Ah, the machine. Are you ready?”

  I surfaced about a stan later.

  Mr. von Ickles offered me his hand and I shook it. “You now have the full set of half share ratings, congratulations.”

  I thanked him, and went back to the galley.

  Cookie and Pip both congratulated me but I really didn’t feel like it was much of an accomplishment. My duties remained the same as they were before taking all the tests. Sure, I could move up, if something became available, but one of the reasons for doing all this was to determine what I liked best, and in the end I still didn’t know. All I really had was a collection of entries in my personnel jacket.

  After lunch and cleanup, Pip convened a meeting of the steering committee on the mess deck so we could map out our strategy for St. Cloud. In my absence, they started a list of crew who wanted to be booth managers: Rhon, Biddy, Diane, and Francis. I felt a little miffed that I wasn’t listed, but that would let me come and go as I pleased. I’d owe the ten creds, which they had decided should be per-person for the entire port stay instead of a per-day fee. That made sense for somebody selling a little something each day who might not sell a thousand creds in one session.