There were few people left from the breakfast rush, but the air was still thick with the smell of rich coffee, savory bacon, and warm bread. Rosie opened early to give the outgoing fishermen a hot breakfast, and she’d close just after lunch. At 0900, it was too late for fishermen and too early for anybody else, except the few people who were off work, or who had enough flexibility in their schedules to be eating breakfast at the odd time. Like Alan Thomas.
Rosie looked up when the little bell over the door rang, signaling his entry, and she smiled and waved him over to the counter where she was just wiping it down with a clean cloth. “Hello, Otto,” she greeted him warmly. “You’re just in time to try some of this pastry.”
He crossed to the counter but looked over to where his father was sitting.
Rosie caught his glance. “Why don’t you sit here until they’re done, hon? I’ll give you a nice cuppa hot chocolate and you can tell me about your fishing yesterday.”
“How’d you know about that?” he asked.
She laughed and wiped her hands on her apron. “Hon, nothin’ happens around the village that Rosie don’t hear! You should know that.”
He nodded. “Well, mother said I need a good breakfast, so if I could have some bacon and eggs?” He took a seat where he could keep an inconspicuous eye on his father. Something didn’t look right there, but he couldn’t say what.
Rosie nodded and asked, “How’d you like them cooked?”
“Scrambled, please.” He sipped the hot chocolate she’d already put in front of him.
She stuck her head into the kitchen. “Three on a rack, pig on the side, Fred.”
“You got it, Rosie.”
In a few moments, Rosie slid a warm plate piled with eggs, bacon, potatoes, and toast in front of him, and he gave it his full attention. When he looked up again, Alan was sliding out of the booth and Otto heard him say, “Just think about it, Richard. It would be a big help to all of us, and it’s only temporary.”
His father gave a noncommittal nod and murmured something that Otto couldn’t hear.
Alan smiled at Rosie, waved at Otto, and headed out of the diner, the door-bell tinkling brightly as he left.
Otto watched him leave then turned to see his father sitting in the booth, his hands cupped around the heavy china coffee mug. He had an expression that Otto couldn’t quite place. It looked like either amusement or amazement. Otto scraped the last of his breakfast off the plate, drained the last of the sweet chocolate from the mug, and reached his thumb toward the tab to pay for it.
Rosie stopped him with a look and a short shake of her head. “Lemme give ya a warm up on that cocoa, Otto. On the house.”
With a glance at his father, who hadn’t stirred or changed his expression, he settled back on the stool and pushed his cup over for Rosie to fill. “Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Rosie.”
She winked at him and poured some cocoa out of the warming pot in her hand. “You betcha, sweetie. You just hang in there for a few ticks, hon. Give ’im a chance to come back.” She winked again and bustled off to rattle glassware.
Chapter Eight
Pumpkin Grounds
October 8, 2304
Jimmy marveled at the image on the bottom finder. When he was a boy, he would always try to be in the wheelhouse when the boat made the transition onto the fishing grounds. Watching the sonar, he could see the bottom coming up as they steamed up onto the bank. After they’d cleared the coast, the bottom was between four hundred and eight hundred meters down. As they came up on the bank, the water shallowed to a scant eighty meters. It was almost magical.
The sun broke over the horizon as they pulled up on the waypoint marker. Jimmy yanked the throttles back to idle, disengaged the autopilot, and nodded to Casey. “Let’s get it over the side here and see how it works.”
“There’s not much down there in the way of fish. A few small schools.”
Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, it’s okay. I just wanna see how she drags. Get you some time to work Tony through the rigging before we deal with a full bag of fish sloshing on the deck.”
Casey grinned. “He’s that green?”
“This, as far as I know, is his first trip,” Jimmy grinned back.
“You kiddin’?”
He shook his head. “He’s an accountant.”
“What’d he do to you?” she asked with an evil chuckle.
“Told me we had to do something about the quotas. Wouldn’t lemme rest until I came up with something.”
“And you came up with this?” Casey waved her arm at the boat.
“Yeah. Brilliant, huh?”
Casey threw back her head and laughed out loud as she stepped out of the wheelhouse into the chill dawn. “Hey, Tony! All hands on deck! Getcher butt up here!”
Jimmy thought Tony looked a little green as he clambered up through the forecastle hatch and out onto the deck. He wore a brand new pair of hip boots and had put on a windbreaker. Other than the tag hanging off the back of one boot heel, he looked like any other new hand. Casey walked him through the operation of the winch and cables, showed him how the big doors were clipped to the gantries, and pointed out the key pieces of running gear. Together they got the big net ready to go over the side and Casey gave Jimmy the high sign. He nudged the throttle up a bit and set the boat on a broad curving course while they wrestled the net over the side and into the water. In a few ticks, the cables paid out through the pulleys and guides. The net streamed out in their wake and sank under the combined weight of the doors and rollers.
As it sank, the water pressure created by the forward motion of the boat would pull the doors out in opposite directions. The heavy rollers along the bottom edge of the net would hold the bottom of the net mouth down, while plastic floats along the top edge kept the top of the net up. The long funnel shaped net scooped up the fish and collected them all in a bag at the end. The technology was old, very old. It was relatively low tech, robustly reliably, and needed only locally available replacement parts, which made it perfect for the company operations on St. Cloud. The only modification in three centuries was a reliable mid-water trawl control that let the skipper run the net at any arbitrary depth desired, rather than just bumping along the bottom.
When Casey secured the winches and locked the safeties down, Jimmy straightened out the course and checked the fish finders for a likely school somewhere ahead of him. He steered a smooth lazy course with the engines lugged down, towing the heavy trawl behind. He settled down for the duration. Casey and Tony came back to the wheelhouse, both smiling.
“He catches on fast for a flat lander,” Casey said with a grin.
“It’s not as complicated as net present value forecasting, but a bit harder on my hands,” Tony said.
“I told ya! Those lines will burn the hell out of ya,” Casey said. “Well, how long you wanna drag it, Skip?”
“I’ve got about three small schools right on the bottom out ahead right now. Give it three hours and we’ll haul back and see what they are.”
“White-fish,” Casey predicted, naming a low value, high volume catch.
Jimmy nodded. “Probably. Good enough for a shake down. Would one of you bring me a coffee?” he asked, holding out his empty mug.
“Comin’ up, Boss. I’ll make a fresh pot.” Tony took the cup and headed down to the forecastle, stepping carefully across the moving deck.
“So, how’d he really do?” Jimmy asked when Tony had disappeared through the hatch.
Casey shrugged. “Well enough. He is a fast learner, but getting the gear over the side is the easiest part of the day. We’ll see how he does with the haul back.”
“Yeah, true enough,” Jimmy said. “Be gentle with him,” he added with a grin.
Casey snorted. “He’ll hold up. I’m gonna grab a nap. Give a hoot when you’re ready to start hauling back.” She waved and wandered forward to the forecastle, gracefully swaying across the deck as it rolled under her feet.
Jimmy checked the fish finder and
adjusted his course a point to starboard. He stuck his head out of the wheelhouse and looked back over his wake, just checking. When he turned back, Tony was bringing a couple mugs across the deck, one in each hand, and trying hard to balance without spilling either one. Of course, he failed and Jimmy saw him wince as hot coffee sloshed over the rim and over the back of his left hand. When Tony got to the wheelhouse, Jimmy took one of the cups from him before he even stepped through the door.
“Ya wanna tip?” he asked as Tony stepped into the shelter of the wheelhouse and settled on the stool that Casey had been using on the ride out. “Carry them in one hand so you have a hand free to grab on with.”
“What?” Tony asked, not quite getting it.
“Gimme your cup a sec.”
Tony handed the mug to Jimmy who threaded one pudgy finger thru both handles and lifted both mugs together in demonstration. “Like that. Carry both in one hand so you have a hand free.” He set the cups back down and gave Tony back his coffee.
“Will that help with my balance?”
“No,” Jimmy said, “but you’ll relax and walk normally. Your problem is that your brain says both hands are full and you can’t hold on. You’re walking like you’re afraid you’re gonna fall overboard.”
“I am afraid I’m gonna fall overboard.” Tony laughed.
“Yeah, good, but if you relax a little and just accept that the boat’s gonna move under you, it’ll be a lot easier to walk around. And you won’t waste coffee by spillin’ it on the deck.” Jimmy grinned.
The two old friends rode along not talking together for almost a half a stan before Jimmy asked, “So? What’d she do?”
“Who?”
“Casey. What’d she do?”
Tony stared into his coffee mug as if something might be floating in there. “What makes you think she did anything?”
Jimmy stared at his friend.
“She quit her last berth. Creative differences,” Tony said.
Jimmy just arched an eyebrow and waited.
Tony sighed. “Okay, she was mate on a side-trawler over in Cheapskate. The skipper didn’t know enough to keep his hands to himself.”
“Oh, you gotta be kiddin’ me!” Jimmy said.
“Over estimated his personal charm and under estimated her skill with a fillet knife.”
Jimmy just sighed. “So, she quit? Why didn’t we replace the skipper?”
“We did. He’s cutting chum now while his fingers grow back,” Tony continued. “She got tired of the attention from all the chowder-wits who thought that, since she didn’t like him, she might take to them.”
“Is there stupid in the water down there?”
“I don’t know, Boss,” Tony sighed. “Seems like you get ’em in a pod and they get the collected intelligence of a dead flounder.”
“So, Carruthers brought her up here?” Jimmy filled in.
“Yeah. He’d just signed the transfer when I came down looking for a good mate. She was up for a boat, but Carruthers gave her to us. I think he figgers we’ll stop fishing when winter closes us down and he’ll give the boat to her.”
Jimmy pursed his lips in consideration. “Good plan, ’cept for one thing.”
“You’re not quitting?”
“That would be the one thing.”
“I was afraid of that,” Tony said. “She deserves her own boat.”
“We’ll take care of her. I know the owners.”
They chuckled, and lapsed back into silence.
The sun climbed inexorably up the sky as they rumbled and rolled across the surface of the ocean. Every so often Jimmy adjusted course a point or two one way or the other to get a better angle on the smudges that showed as fish near the bottom. The low rumble and regular movement was relaxing in an odd way. After about a stan, Tony stood up and headed for the little plotting room behind the wheelhouse. “May as well get a little work done.” He jacked into the satellite feed with the portable terminal mounted on the bulkhead.
Jimmy chuckled, and went back to piloting the boat. He didn’t really need to steer, but he felt better having a hand on the wheel with all that gear trailing out behind him. If it should fetch up on a rock or catch in the propellers, they could find themselves in really deep water really fast without a lot of help handy. While his body was busy with the task, his mind was free to wander. He spent a lot of that time thinking about the quotas.
“Tony? Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure, Boss. You need more coffee?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the favor. Would you grab a screen plot of our track, and send it to the Ole Man using the family address?”
“Sure thing.” The curiosity was in his tone, but he didn’t ask. “Any message with it?”
“Yeah. Tell him, ‘Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.’”
A few ticks later, Tony said, “It’s sent.”
“Thanks, Tony,”
At midmorning, Jimmy stirred once more. “Time, Tony. Go stick your head down in the forecastle and wake up, Miss Sleepy Head. Bring me back a coffee, please?”
Tony slapped a couple more keys and stood from where he was working. “You bet.”
In a few ticks, Casey was back with his coffee, looking fresh and relaxed. “We ready to try to bring it up?”
“We may as well see if the winches work. Lemme know when you’re ready to hoist.”
She nodded and went to clear the winch safeties and explain to Tony what he needed to do. After a bit of jawing and some handwavery, she took up her station at the winch control and nodded back to Jimmy. He cut the wheel around a bit to starboard to put a little slack in the line as Casey put tension on the cables. He pulled the throttles back a bit to reduce the pressure on the doors while Casey kept the tension constant with the winches. It took almost a quarter stan, but eventually the doors broke the surface. Jimmy knocked the throttles back to idle and let Casey pull the heavy gear up to the side of the boat. Tony slipped the locks on the doors like he’d been doing it all his life. Together they gathered the loose net at the mouth and lashed a lift line around it, and hooked in to the hoist. Tony stood well back while Casey lifted the heavy bag up out of the water and swung it over the deck.
“Now, Tony,” Casey shouted.
Tony darted in and pulled the release line that opened the end of the net. He got a good grip on the slick line and put his weight behind a sharp tug. The knot released and a mound of silver fish splashed knee deep across the deck as Casey lifted the net to empty it. Tony gaped, but Casey organized the net, retied the release line, and got Tony moving to get the gear re-deployed. It took about half a stan, working around the flippery mound of fish, but they got the net back over the side and the cables paid out.
With the furious flurry of activity over, Tony just stood there looking back and forth from the fish to Jimmy to the fish to Casey and back again. Casey grinned and tossed him a pair of work gloves. “Don’t just stand there, man. Start sorting!”
Tony blinked and Casey laughed out loud. She reached down and pulled open one of the small hatches that opened on to the fish bunkers amidships. She bent down and started sliding the slivery fish through the hatch in demonstration. The mixed species–the odd ling, bellfish, and mouta–she slid across the deck to form piles of their own. The occasional rock, stick, or bit of weed went back over the side. Tony stuck his hands firmly into the gloves and waded in. He followed Casey’s example and asked the occasional question about whatever it was he found on the deck. Jimmy went back into his trance-like state, watching the fish finder, feeling the water under the hull, and occasionally adjusting course, while the crew worked to sort the first catch for the new boat.
Chapter Nine
Callum’s Cove
October 8, 2304
Otto missed the moment when his father stood up from the booth. He was too busy with his hot chocolate until movement caught the corner of his eye and he saw is father walking toward him.
“Hello, Otto. Good breakfast?�
� Whatever had been on his mind was gone from his face.
“Yeah, very good. Thanks, Rosie.”
“You’re welcome, Otto.”
He slipped from the tall stool and followed his father out on to the cobbled street. The elder Krugg seemed a bit uncertain as to which way to turn, a most uncharacteristic behavior. “You all right, Dad?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, Otto. Just a bit dazed.”
“What happened?”
“We have to go talk to your mother.” His father strode off toward the cottage.
Otto worked hard to keep up with his father and there wasn’t a lot of breath left over for conversation, even if he’d been so inclined. The walk back was brief and energetic.
Richard burst through the kitchen door and Rachel looked up at the sudden arrival. “What’s wrong?”
Richard continued on into the kitchen and sat at his customary spot at the table.
Rachel looked to Otto who trailed behind, but all he could do was shrug and shake his head. “Richard? Are you alright?”
Richard blinked at her a couple of times before saying, “Yes, I just had the most astonishing conversation with Alan. He said he wanted to talk with me about the new crews.”
Rachel nodded. “And...?”
“Well, I thought he wanted to know who I thought was ready to go.”
The statement startled Otto. He had no idea his father was involved even that much in the fishing.
“Oh? And you weren’t expecting that he’d ask you to go out?”
Both Otto and Richard snapped instant attention to Rachel’s offhand question.
“How’d you know?” Richard asked.
“Do the math, Richard.” She settled back down to her terminal. “We have three new boats, over and above the replacement for Sandra Jamison’s Esmerelda. That’s three skippers and six crewmen. How many people do you think we have just laying around the village to take those berths?”
South Coast (Shaman's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) Page 5
