by Ginger Booth
“Uh, captain?” Tovik interrupted him. The hubbub transitioned into a can-can kicking line dance, snaking toward the school moat. “I think we jammed the toilet. Just the upstairs one.”
“Of course you did.” He sighed, and contemplated Joey and other members of the crew making merry. More than one would get lucky tonight. To whatever extent bedding a Poldark constituted luck. But assigning the toilet wasn’t fair to his crew. The house was personal business.
Speaking of family, Cope had yelled his ear off when he called to make excuses for missing sunset drinks with his husband.
“Yeah, let’s fix the toilet,” Ben agreed. The dentist office was only a few doors down.
So his day didn’t work out exactly as planned. And he certainly didn’t expect to cap his efforts with a toilet plunger. But Spaceways’ balance sheets were fifteen million closer to the black. At least on paper. And he had cash on hand to tackle his real plan.
“Tovik, after a year or so here, maybe you should stand for election to mayor. Get this town’s accounts straightened out. They aren’t bad people. Well, Widow Wilson scares me.”
She was three meters tall. She wasn’t so intimidating when Ben was a kid, when she stood nearly bent over double. But now she stood proud and hale. She gave him a piece of her mind during the second round of drinks. Ben stood craning his neck, gazing up the underside of her breasts. Arms longer than he was tall gesticulated above his head.
“They could use educated help. You know, to get organized. Without me and Dad around anymore.” He felt disloyal to his breed saying so, especially since his husband was an ardent settler patriot. But Tovik could read and write and manage the taxes.
“I had that thought,” Tovik agreed sadly.
Zan dropped Ben off on the way to Schuyler spaceport. Literally – Ben hopped out of the ship on his grav generator into the quiet residential street. He slipped into the mansion hoping Cope had long since gone to bed.
No such luck.
10
“Have a seat.” Cope waved his worrisome husband to a chair across the table. Much as Jules Greer would have preferred an elegant wooden dining table, Cope won that round. He preferred a hectare of computer surface, and Abel loved it, too. Jules could drape a tablecloth to hide it for company.
After Ben disappeared, he’d finally declared vacation over today and cracked the books for Thrive Spaceways. And what a stunning story they told.
Ben leaned in to survey the topic, then sighed to his seat. “Found our accounts, did you?”
“You flew off-moon,” Cope accused. “Without nanites. Without telling me.”
“Made fifteen million today. Icebergs.”
Cope dragged the cash ledger front and center. Other displays scurried out of the way to make room. “Income? Where?”
“Schuyler said payment’s in arrears. And the Poldark berg money I floated into my operating account. Otherwise it… I need it.”
Cope blew out and carefully modulated his voice. “I had no idea it was this bad. But you knew.”
Ben met his eyes without apology. “Sure. People were dying. Cope, how could you not know? How do you think I was getting that much fuel?”
He was right. Cope swallowed painfully. “I don’t know. Tenders full of fuel from Loki, donations, something. You’re right. I should have known. I should have looked. But dammit, Ben, you could have told me!”
“Why? These accounts are yours. You’re president of the company, Cope. Not me.”
“Except you’re my partner! You have signature authority for… Billions.”
“It’s not billions,” Ben quibbled.
“One point oh six billion,” Cope read from another window. He flicked the summary report across the tabletop for Ben to see.
“Oh.” Ben shot the document back to him, as though playing air hockey. Then he rose and came around the table. He dragged a chair to sit next to him. He folded Cope into a hug. Which he suddenly realized he needed badly, and returned with interest.
Releasing him, Ben said, “Cope, I refuse to put the company between us. Even to talk about money. Partners. We look at it together. Same side.”
“So this overwhelmed you.” Cope’s voice sounded hoarse to his own ear, on the verge of tears himself. “Sure as hell overwhelms me.”
“Stressed me out, yeah. But what knocked me offline was lightning.” Ben stuck his boots out under the table, torso slipping down his chair back. “I think. Who knows, maybe I was about to crack anyway. I sure as hell wasn’t going to find another round trip worth of fuel.”
Cope snorted with a tinge of hysteria. “No. I can’t believe you managed to borrow this much!”
“I have a plan.”
“Oh, I’m all ears!”
“OK, it’s more of an idea. We do have a paying customer. Loki.”
“No.”
“Yes, because we have no choice.” Ben waved a hand across the redundant accusations of ‘YOU’RE BANKRUPT!’ littering the surface. “I go to Sanctuary –”
“How could you possibly buy the fuel to get there?! Is there any fuel left in the star system?”
Ben tipped his head to consider him from under his eyebrows. He flicked his eyelashes. “I’ve had practice. Look, I have two million in my slush fund. Some crook wants it. Two and change, but I need the change to pay Remi.”
“Remi? Not me?”
Ben draped himself over his arm. “Cope, I love you. I believe in you. You’re the greatest engineer in the Aloha system. But someone, not you, needs to run this company. Figure a way to climb out of this hole. Or find a buyer for the liquidation sale. Something! I need you to stay here and be president. To hire someone else to be president.”
Cope shoved him away. “Give away my company? Just like that?!”
Ben spread a hand to indicate the accounts. “Does this make your heart sing, Cope? Make you say, ‘thank God it’s Monday!’ Or ‘thank God I broke orbit.’”
“Ouch!” Cope complained.
His husband shrugged. “So hire someone! You direct engineering, maintenance and services, and R&D. I run the fleet. Abel’s on trade development. Jules does hospitality. God knows how, but she always turns a profit. And we hire someone else to run the company. To figure out all this crap. Manage the bean counters and the lawyers and make the government pay. Stuff we hate doing. Stuff we suck at. Cope, I nearly destroyed myself. Because I tried to do the wrong stuff for me. And maybe it’s too late to save the company. And no one should let me buy fuel again.”
“No,” Cope agreed.
“But you gotta try, Cope!”
“Or we lose our ships.”
Ben shook his head vehemently. “What does that mean? They’re ships. They exist. I’m a captain, you’re an engineer. We exist. The crews exist. The problems we solve exist. We have the skills. It’s the paperwork that’s out of control. The bookkeeping, the money. Bankrupt or not, I’ll still fly Merchant, and you’ll still fix it. Because who else are they gonna hire? But who else could buy it? The moon? Hell’s Bells?”
Damn. “You’re right. We can’t even sell off assets, can we.”
“Can we? I don’t know. And Cope, I love you, but this isn’t your genius. And it sure ain’t mine.”
“Remi, huh?”
“If I don’t pay him, we lose him.”
“Not Darren Markley?”
Ben shrugged. “Which would you pick? Darren has almost too much experience. Of the rich and righteous kind. Remi’s like us. Cunning. Down and dirty wins the day.”
“Remi,” Cope agreed. “And Hugo Silva for Loki, if you can get him. OK, for the sake of argument. Let’s say you find fuel, go to Sanctuary –”
“With Stalwart and Hopeful. To collect a full tender of fuel and the last of the Sanks. And eight containers.”
“For which you pay…?”
“I promised to ferry Loki to the Aloha system. Set him up here. My mission is to spec out how we accomplish that. We don’t leave him behind in Sanctuary. Not
for an hour if I can help it. But if it requires two trips, then at least Loki agrees to the plan before I take the last of his charges away.”
Cope frowned, thinking this through. He opened a sketch pane on the desk, sending ledgers scampering out of his way. But he got as far as scratching ‘Loki.’ “I don’t even know what this means, to transport Loki. Is that a computer program? Vast storage arrays? Processors? His shipyard and…”
“His fuel factory and shipbuilding capacity.”
“You’re paying the devil to save Denali.”
Ben nodded. “I already sold my soul to Loki for Denali, Cope. One point oh six billion times over. Now I make it work.”
“Or double-cross Loki.” It wasn’t a good idea, but Cope liked to cover all bases.
“No.”
“No,” Cope agreed. “He’d build a fleet and come in blasting. Or worse, build a fleet, go enslave another world, and then come in blasting, with minions. But why you?”
“I’m the one who made the deal with Loki. And out of our captains, I’m the one who’s also an engineer.”
Cope shot him a skeptical look. “A degree doesn’t make you an engineer, buddy. You’re qualified as an apprentice.” He cocked his head in fairness. “But you learned plenty along the way. Even if no one groomed you as a pro.”
“Gee, thanks. I think.”
Cope swiped the table in a wide arc to vanish the damning documents. “This plan has logical merit. But I also love you. Ben, what happened to you was more than an electric shock. I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to leave. Stay here. Help me find this savior for hire. Rest. Get back on your feet before you go.”
Ben shook his head and pointed to the ceiling. “I felt better the second I broke atmo.” He took Cope’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Let me go. Let me fix this.”
Funny, the nanites kept Cope from feeling his age most of the time. But the balance sheets left the engineer feeling old as the hills. To lose Ben was unthinkable.
Ben quirked his dimple. “I’ll take Nico and Floki. They’ll spy on me for you.”
“Promise me you won’t leave this moon again without fresh nanite support. Clean bill of health. Full supplies. You have time. Remi and I need to sign off on the tools you bring.”
“Promise,” Ben agreed. “But I’ve got two point two mil in my slush fund. I need fuel and salaries. So aim low on the equipment load out. Recycle, reuse, wing it. Because we’re broke.”
“I noticed. I don’t want you to go,” Cope whispered.
“Understood. But I need to go. I’ll be back. We can do this. We have to.”
11
Less than six days later, Cope stood awkwardly by the engineering podium on Merchant Thrive, Ben’s flagship. He tried to stay out of the way as purposeful chaos swirled through the ship, readying for takeoff.
Remi Roy returned to his station at the podium, offering a fist-bump. “Ben does engine checkoff. A few minutes.”
“Waiting to say goodbye to my son.” Ben would have preferred to keep their good-byes at home. “Weird staying behind. Interesting challenge.”
“Oh? Why me?” Remi split his attention from his checklist screens.
“Ah, my husband wishes me to do the president thing. Get payroll rolling. Stuff like that. Actually, he suggested I hire a new president. Demote myself to director of engineering.”
Remi nodded judiciously. “More fun for you. Oh! I have a friend, I recommend him. I didn’t think president. Just business. He is import-export, Hell’s Bells to Schuyler. He wants a more reliable schedule.” He flicked Cope the electronic contact info for Carver Cartwright.
“A Mahinan?” The name was English, not French. Sagamore was supposedly half and half, but he’d met few of the anglophone persuasion.
“No, Sag. Ha! ‘Liberated’ with his slaves.”
“He was a slave owner?”
Remi shrugged. “So was I. His slaves, they are free now, but he cares for them still.”
Cope filed the contact, with no intention of referring to it again. “Kinda need a Mahinan.”
“But he is Mahinan. Lives here in Saggytown. His eldest son, he studies at the creche.” Remi searched his face, then returned his attention to the ongoing checklist. “When do you call us Mahinan? We immigrants. We live here. We pay taxes. We fuel the economy.”
Cope allowed as it was a fair question. But. “I’m a settler. My partners too. It’s important to me. Loser Schuyler boy makes good. You know?”
“Yes. ” His eyes raised to the catwalk. “Ah! Floki! Bring Nico to say goodbye to his father.”
“Hey, bring yourself, little bird!” Cope chimed in. “I want a neck-hug!”
He served on Thrive One for a few weeks during the abortive attempt to settle Sylvan. There he worked with his son’s wholly inappropriate love object, the robotic emu with the sentient AI Floki on board. He’d expected the coworker relationship to be excruciating. But the bird kinda grew on him.
Though he still thought his son should outgrow this infatuation and date his own species. Not a lot to ask.
Floki had mastered his grav generator. The robot seized the railing with one bird-foot, hopped over, vestigial wings flapping, and landed lightly in the hold. Cope trusted the cute little wings did nothing whatsoever to brake the fall of a one-ton machine. But he appreciated the way Floki invested in his body language.
In three more steps, the bird wrapped his sinuous neck around Cope’s shoulders, and extruded his hands to grasp his hips for good measure. “Cope! So good to see you!”
“Wow, I forgot you grew up, big bird!” When they came to extract the failed colony, Cope picked up a new robot to replace Floki’s original chassis, corroded beyond repair. But he brought the adult ride-on version, thinking the AI would appreciate added volume for memory and processors. He hadn’t considered that Nico’s choice of the smaller body was intentional.
Floki nodded, pursing his beak solemnly. “Doorways are a tight fit. I believe I have a different psychic impact on people as well. Do you find people fear you because you’re tall?” He’d deepened his voice to a tenor, from its original chirpy soprano.
“Sometimes,” Cope returned compassionately. “Ooh, let me see these hands!” He appreciated a new rubbery five-fingered appendage, attached to a flesh-like arm. Nico must have bought them from a Saggy. Mahina medical approaches regrew the missing parts. A convenient rack between the extrude-an-arm holes supplied alternate ‘hand’ attachments. He was glad to see the bird hadn’t sacrificed utility for social niceties. Floki’s precision waldos and power drill served him well on Sylvan.
They shook hands, Floki’s lidded eyes and quirked beak looking smug. Cope felt the impact of his added height, as though the bird grew up mentally as well as physically. He probably is. Growing up fast.
Nico landed, bashful smile flashing bright white in his chocolate face, darker skinned than his old man. They fell into a hug.
“You take care of Ben, right? I worry.”
Nico rolled his eyes. “Of course, Dad. He seems fine!”
“And uh, Floki’s dad?”
“Bloki is banned from the fleet,” Nico acknowledged, twisting an ear stud. “I wouldn’t break that rule. Dad Ben might strand me on Sanctuary. Hey, did you know Quire is staying behind on MO?” He didn’t meet Cope’s eye while he said it.
“Oh? Who’s housekeeper?”
“Tikki. Dad, don’t get awkward. It’s just Quire has a lady friend on MO. They’re going to make it bloom like Denali.”
Ben had a fling once with the Denali housekeeper Tikki. Who went on to join the saboteurs to ensure the Sylvan colony failed. Acid sarcasm dripped from Cope’s voice. “Who’d be so unreasonable?”
“I mean he wasn’t Dad Ben’s choice. Don’t say goodbye with a fight. Please?”
Cope grimaced. “Right. I should shove off.”
Nico folded his arms and glowered at him. “Kiss him goodbye, Dad.”
“Yes, by all means.” Ben stomped
up the ramp behind him. “Kiss everyone goodbye and shove off, Cope. T minus 12, captain signs off on external inspection.” This last was to Remi, who logged the approval. External inspection was easier here on the moon than going EVA at Mahina Orbital, their first stop.
Cope grabbed his husband, swung him backward over his arm, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. “Love you, bye.”
An irate Ben practically tore his husband’s work shirt hauling himself back to standing. “I meant them, not me. Love you, bye. Get lost. Got places to go, things to do.”
“Not with Tikki,” Cope suggested, as lightly as he could manage. He liked Tikki, too. He just didn’t like Ben on the same ship with the attractive male geisha.
Ben batted his eyes blandly. “Noted.”
“Forgive and forgot, huh? Sabotaging Sylvan?”
Ben shrugged. “He’s busted ass for us ever since, Cope. He’s up at MO deep cleaning our transports. So Jules could take the twins south to visit her parents. Hopes to get them arranged marriages.”
Ben leaned against his husband, casting an appraising look at Nico.
Cope played along, and cocked his head at Nico. “Huh!”
Floki squeaked a chortle.
“Don’t even think it!” Nico growled.
Cope grinned crookedly and flung an arm across his son’s shoulders. But he returned his attention to Ben. “And you’ll be home within the month?”
“I’ll call with an ETA. Care to watch takeoff with Sass? Thrive’s over there.” He pointed down the cargo ramp.
“Fine, I’m going.” He caught Remi, Nico, and Floki by eye. “Take care of him.” They each nodded in mock solemnity. Ben squeezed his hand.
And he split, with a quick wave to the catwalk. He knew everyone aboard, of course. They’d worked together for months on the Denali evacuation. He’d flown with Ben most of the time, for years.
Watching takeoff with Sass for company wasn’t a bad idea. She set her ramp down. They sat chatting companionably as Ben left without him for the stars again. One last bright cyan flare marked his egress through the ozone layer. And he was gone.
