To Fire Called (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 2)

by Nathan Lowell

  Pip sighed. “Frowned on, yes. Usually with a side of interceptor missile and permanent persona non grata status. When you need a station visa to walk around, being declared a major nuisance—and living down to your reputation—has a way of making life a bit challenging. Mostly they stay close to home and get what they need by smuggling stuff in and out of the High Line.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “It didn’t take much for us to get a can of malt out here.”

  “So you see the issue. They’re close enough to Tellicheri that they don’t really need to deal with the locals here. Which leaves them free to be snotty.”

  “Which makes it tough to get a cargo from here to there,” I said.

  “You never were dumb,” Pip said.

  “Can we get a can on spec and fly it out there?” I asked.

  “It’s either that or deadhead a can in there and bring it back out after we’ve kidnapped Patterson.”

  “Wait, what?”

  He frowned at me. “Deadhead a can?”

  “No, kidnap Patterson.”

  He shrugged. “What were you planning? Killing him there? The Empress Nicole would definitely not approve.”

  “Empress?”

  “Well, the original is long dead, but her children still run the place. Whichever one is on the throne takes the name and adds a serial number. I think the current one is three. Might be four but I haven’t heard of any succession lately.”

  “Kidnapping?”

  “He’s not going to come along quietly. What were you planning on doing with him, anyway?”

  “I thought I’d take him back to TIC,” I said.

  “Uh huh. All right then. We’d need to kidnap him, then lock him in a stateroom somewhere until we could get back.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Then you turn him into TIC and we’ll probably be locked up for some kind of vigilantism or something. Certainly kidnapping and false imprisonment as soon as we dock in a Confederation port.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good idea, when you put it that way.”

  He shrugged and kept walking. “It’s not, no matter how you put it.”

  “Why did you suggest it?”

  He stopped in his tracks. “Me? You’re the one who wants to take him back to TIC.”

  “What else would I do?”

  “I don’t know. Drop him out an airlock. Probably better without the suit. It would be over faster that way.”

  “That’s not justice. That’s murder.”

  “Yeah. Probably. But murder is really such an emotionally charged word. Underway you’re the captain. You can pretty much do whatever you want. Capital punishment is actually part of your job description. You might get into some trouble in the High Line but you’re in the Toe-Holds now.” He glanced at me. “He tried to kill you, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t really know. He cut me up pretty good. Killed Greta. Killed Gramps.”

  “Gramps?”

  “Kirsten Kingsley’s grandfather. Was my engineer for a time before I fired him for dereliction.”

  “Who’s Kirsten Kingsley?”

  “One of the vice-presidents of operation for Diurnia Salvage and Transport. I’m surprised you don’t have a file on her.”

  Pip pursed his lips and continued down the long, paved path. “Sounds like I’ve got some work to do.”

  I followed along beside him, my head spinning.

  “You hadn’t really thought about it, had you?” Pip asked.

  “No. Until you suggested I should be looking for him, it never occurred to me to pursue him.”

  “You went along readily enough,” he said.

  “Well, of course. I wanted to see what you were up to. You needed me along for some reason.”

  Pip gave me a sidelong glance. “Really? You’re not looking for revenge?”

  “Revenge is for losers. Justice would be nice, but I have a suspicion that’s not going to happen either.”

  Pip frowned at me. “Why not?”

  I sighed and started ticking off the points. “First, Toe-Holds are spread out all over. Second, they’re decentralized and I doubt that there’s a handy index of residents. Third, just from what I’ve seen, probably every station has more people than the average CPJCT orbital.”

  “Your point?”

  “Ceramic needle in a field of haystacks.”

  “Ceramic needle?” he asked.

  “You couldn’t find it with a four-ton magnet.”

  He nodded. “Fair point. Burning it down and searching the ashes isn’t an option in this case.” He pursed his lips and looked at the deck for a few steps. “Mel’s is a big place. Been here a long time. Some are much smaller. Just a few people. There’s a Jesuit mission studying cosmology that’s only got about two dozen residents.”

  “Jesuits?”

  “Religious group.”

  “I’ve heard of them. Cosmology?”

  “Study of the universe,” he said. “You studied it yourself at the academy. I sat next to you.”

  I chuckled and he grinned at me.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “No place in particular. Just stretching my legs. You want to head back to the ship?”

  “I’d like to find something to hang on the bulkheads. They don’t have a flea market here, do they?”

  He shrugged. “Probably but not like we’re used to. A local would probably know. What did you have in mind?”

  “Something to break up the gray. A splash of color. I don’t know.”

  A pair of women walked toward us, arm-in-arm with their heads together. They wore civvies like they were uniforms and walked like they didn’t have a care in the world.

  Pip lifted a hand. “Excuse me. Are you residents here?”

  They stopped and looked at us. “I am,” the one on the left said. “What of it?”

  “Is there anything like an arts district? Tourist shops? Rug merchants?” he asked.

  They looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  Pip looked at me and I shrugged. “Sorry to bother you,” I said and prodded Pip along the passage.

  We got about three steps beyond when the woman called after us. “Sorry. Really. Didn’t mean to be rude.”

  We looked back at them.

  The same woman said, “It’s just—have you looked where you’re going?” She waved a hand at the line of shops along the walkway.

  The passage was lined with small shops, all dark. Display windows, mostly shuttered.

  I felt myself frowning until I caught the name of the shop right beside us. “Bonaventure Gallery.” I scanned down the line and saw “gallery” and “studio.” Even “ceramics” and—yes—“rugs.”

  I looked at Pip and he laughed.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “No worries,” she said. “They’ll open around 0900 tomorrow if you want to come back.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She lifted a hand and flickered a few fingers in a wave, and the pair resumed their leisurely stroll along the artists’ walk.

  I stood there for several moments, letting my gaze slip from dark window to door to lintel to transom. The street itself felt like a work of art. “What’s wrong with this picture?” I asked.

  Pip glanced up at me. “What do you mean?”

  “How many artists do you suppose this station supports?”

  Pip looked left and scanned right. “All these, at least.”

  “That’s my point. How many artists does Jett support?”

  “At least two galleries’ worth,” Pip said. “No idea how many artists use the space or how many more might have little galleries tucked away on the orbital.”

  I nodded to grant him the point. “How many here?”

  “Can’t tell. I’m not sure how many of these are single-person showrooms or actual galleries of different artists brought together.” He shrugged. “Where are you going with this?”

&nbs
p; “That’s a lot of artists. Even assuming these are single-artist enterprises, which I suspect they’re not? This is a lot of artists.”

  “So?”

  “So how can a Toe-Hold support this many artists?”

  Pip snorted and nodded back toward the ship. “I think the fault isn’t in the number of artists as much as your perception of life in Toe-Hold space.”

  I fell into step, paying more attention to the shops as we passed. “I’m having a bit of a disconnect,” I said. “These stations exist without the benefit of CPJCT rules and regulations, right?”

  “Also without the costs of CPJCT rules and regulations,” Pips said. “Continue.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Granted. I guess I expected people to be living in shipping crates and scratching for their next meals.”

  Pip laughed and looked up at the overhead far above us. “Well, we are in shipping crates,” he said. “Just really, really big ones.”

  I laughed along with him for a bit. “And I can’t fault the quality of the food, if dinner was any indication.”

  “You’re used to a different culture,” Pip said. “Each Toe-Hold is unique. Each has its own flavor and character. Mel’s is a hub.”

  “So you said. I heard the words but I guess I didn’t understand what they meant.”

  “It means this is like a big city planetside. You lived in a city, didn’t you?”

  “Back on Neris? Main company port city.”

  “You lived in Port Newmar.” He elbowed me a little.

  “Well, not in Port Newmar, but I take your meaning.”

  “Port Newmar is a smallish city. The academy and the spaceport make it feel more cosmopolitan, but it’s still a smallish city. You never went planetside at Dunsany Roads, did you?”

  I shook my head.

  “New Dunsany is ten or twenty times bigger than Port Newmar. You understand what that means?”

  “I think so. At least theoretically.”

  “People from all over the planet travel there. It’s the place to be seen. It serves as the Confederation seat and the administration offices have their own blocks.”

  “It’s a hub,” I said.

  “It’s a hub. Like Mel’s Place is a hub. There are others, but you’re right about this place having more people than live on an orbital. Probably five or six times more.”

  “So the question isn’t how it can support that many artists, is it?”

  He shook his head. “More like ‘why does it support so few?’”

  We walked along in silence for a bit.

  “Why aren’t there more artists on the orbitals?” I asked.

  Pip’s eyebrows flicked up and down a couple of times. “That’s a very good question.”

  Chapter 21

  Mel’s Place: 2375, May 10

  We’d established the policy of securing the wardroom while docked to cut down on the amount of work the stewards needed to do. With the attractions portside, few of the crew stayed aboard other than the watchstanders. When I got to the mess deck it wasn’t much of a surprise to find Al and Ms. Fortuner holding down the designated officers’ table.

  “Morning, Skipper,” Al said as I slid a tray onto the table and took a seat.

  “Al, Ms. Fortuner.” I took a sip of coffee to lubricate my vocal cords. “Did either of you get ashore yesterday?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “I had the overnight duty,” Ms. Fortuner said. “Tom’s got it today.”

  “I got out and stretched my legs a bit yesterday, but didn’t stray too far from the ship,” Al said.

  I looked at Al. “Feel like taking an adventure with me?”

  Her fork froze half way to her mouth and she looked at me across the table for a moment before resuming her meal. She swallowed and wiped her lips with a napkin. “What kind of adventure?”

  “I found some shops I want to visit. You’ve been here before, I believe?”

  She nodded. “Not recently, but I’ve been here.”

  “I don’t know the local customs, so I thought having somebody along would be prudent.”

  “And Pip’s too small to be much of a deterrent?” Al asked.

  I laughed. “Honestly, I never thought of it that way. We were out strolling last night, but—like you—didn’t get far from the ship.”

  Ms. Fortuner asked, “What’s it like?”

  I took a bite of omelet and considered my answer. “There’s a plaza just off the docking gallery. We didn’t get any farther than that. It’s ... well ... the best way to describe it is large. It’s very different from an orbital, more open, more spread out.”

  “Grab a nap,” Al said. “Maybe we can take a stroll this afternoon if the Captain doesn’t keep me too long.”

  “We’ll be back by lunch, I think.”

  We finished breakfast and bussed our trays. Ms. Fortuner headed for her bunk.

  “Meet me in the cabin around 0900, Al?”

  “Will do, Skipper.” I refilled a cup to take with me and stuck my head into the galley to check in there. “How’s it going, Ms. Sharps?”

  She looked up from stirring a pot on the back of the stove. “Very well, Captain. Mr. Carstairs has made some interesting suggestions about rotating our stores.”

  “What do you think?”

  “You know what he’s suggesting? Using excess stores capacity to buy and sell?”

  “I do. He knows exactly what he’s doing at this point. We always ate well when we were on the Lois McKendrick together.”

  “I think it’s kinda brilliant, Skipper.” She paused. “Do you have any reservations?”

  I shook my head. “Just make sure you have enough variation on stores that we can all eat well for eight weeks. That leaves a lot of deep storage that you can use.”

  “That’s what he said, too, sar.”

  I started to leave but paused at the door. “If he pushes too far, don’t be afraid to push back. You’re the hand that feeds us. I trust you to make sure you’ve got what you need to keep doing it.”

  Her eyes widened a bit but she nodded. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Sharps.”

  I took my coffee up the ladder to the cabin and stood there for a few moments scanning the bulkheads. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do there but I needed to do something. I took my tablet and snapped images of the various bulkheads and the overhead to make sure I had the colors correct. My mind kept seeing the compartment as gray, but the only gray was the deck. The darker gray-green bulkheads just felt like gray. Looking at the smaller images on my tablet reminded me that they weren’t. I’d held the line on the accent wall, too. It was more navy blue than the lighter teal that Dierdre had wanted. The overhead was barely blue at all—more of a faint powder blue that took the light from the overhead fixture and diffused it across the cabin. With the smoke white shearwater and the charcoal gray deck, the space felt much less like the box I’d grown accustomed to—but I still tended to think of it as a gray box when I wasn’t actually looking at it.

  I sipped the coffee and put the mug on my desk. I needed to find some civvies and I wanted a shower first. Al would be prompt and I didn’t want to keep her waiting—or embarrass us both by being only half dressed when she arrived.

  I stripped out of my shipsuit and grabbed a quick splash, lining up some slacks and the gray pullover I’d worn at Aubergine’s. I pulled it on and nearly jumped out of my skin when Pip said, “Suitably arty.”

  “Gods, don’t you knock?” I asked, steadying myself against my bunk.

  “I did. You were showering.” He lounged against the door jamb.

  “You’ve been there the whole time?” I asked.

  “Pfft. I was out here the whole time. Your coffee’s cold, by the way.”

  I sighed and tossed the wet towel into the laundry fresher. I put my ship suit on a hanger and dropped it onto the rod in my closet. “Where are we on cargo?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a can of frozen
food bound for Dark Knight Station coming this afternoon. We’re good to go after that.”

  “You ready to tell me what’s going on yet?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  I walked toward him, making him move from the door frame so I could get into the main cabin. “You’re going to need to level with me soon.”

  “I will.”

  I picked up my now-empty coffee cup and looked at him. “I mean it. This lying thing is getting old.”

  “When have I lied?”

  “Almost every time you open your mouth.”

  He started to pull up into his “I’m wounded pose” but I held up a hand. “Don’t. You drank my coffee.”

  He shrugged and walked to the visitor’s chair, plunked down in it and crossed one leg over the other knee. “We going shopping this morning?”

  “I am. I asked Al to go along. You wanna come with us?”

  “Sure. We can be the three mouseketeers.”

  “What’s a mouseketeer?” I asked.

  “I thought you were the ancient lit guy.”

  “You mean musketeer?”

  “Is that how you pronounce it? Old guys with swords and all for some and some for me or whatever?”

  “You read it?” I didn’t know whether to be shocked or dismayed. Perhaps both.

  “Don’t judge me. You’re the one always quoting old books.”

  “Where’d you even find it?”

  He shrugged. “I picked up an archive disk at a flea market at Port Newmar a few stanyers ago. Why? You wanna borrow it?”

  “You still have it?”

  “It’s a lot of books. I don’t think I’ve read even half of them.”

  A knock on the door interrupted us.

  “Come in,” I said.

  Al stuck her head through the door. She nodded at Pip. “I’m ready to go, Skipper.”

  Pip jumped up from the chair. “I think we’re about done here.” He looked at me. “Shall we away?”

  I stood and made sure my tablet was in my pocket. “May as well.” We stopped at the mess deck long enough for me to drop the cup into the dirty mug rack before leaving the ship.

  After we’d walked a ways along the dock, Al asked, “So you have someplace in mind?”

  “I want to get some artwork for the cabin,” I said, looking straight ahead.