South Coast (Shaman's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1)

by Nathan Lowell

  “He’d almost have to be.”

  “How could you not know?”

  “Why would I? He doesn’t answer to me. I got a message from home office, routed through Dunsany. It arrived this morning.”

  “What did he say?”

  “‘Beware the Ides of March.’”

  Tony stopped and stared.

  Jimmy laughed, sliding into a booth. “Siddown. I’ll buy ya coffee.”

  The Beanery was quiet in mid afternoon. Too late for the lunch rush and too early for the after work crowd. Not that evenings were terribly busy. Coffee shops being what they are, Barney’s tended to an earlier crowd. Barney, himself, drew the steaming mugs and put them on the table before disappearing back to where he was doing something behind the counter.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Tony finally asked. “‘Beware the Ides of March?’”

  “It’s Shakespeare. The Ole Man loves that stuff. It’s the fifteenth of the month. That’s when he’s due.”

  “But how do you know he’s coming? That could be just anything, couldn’t it?”

  Jimmy smiled and shook his head. “Nope. Family code.”

  “Yanno, I thought you were kiddin’ me about the family encryption thing.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “We’re scattered across three sectors. We have to be careful.”

  Tony marveled at the paranoia that caused these people to set up a family code. “You’re something, Jimmy.”

  “It’s the Ole Man. He takes his Shakespeare seriously.”

  Tony raised an eyebrow in response, but Jimmy waved it off.

  “So, he’ll be here in about three weeks. What do we have?”

  “Not a lot. We think we know what they’re doing. We don’t have a clue how they think they’re gonna get away with it. Not once the Ole Man sees the quotas.”

  “You think that’s gonna matter?” Jimmy asked.

  Tony froze in his seat. “But the quotas are impossible. Nobody can make them.”

  Jimmy nodded in agreement. “But it’s not the Ole Man’s call.”

  The reality smacked into Tony. “The board of directors of the Combine?”

  “Yup. He’s on the board, but he’s not the chairman of it.”

  “Surely he can tell them what’s going on?”

  “Sure he can. He probably will. But the next meeting is in November.”

  “But that’s too late.”

  “Unless he can convince a quorum of the board to meet under special circumstances, there’s nothing that he can do to change the landings quota.”

  “Then why is he coming?”

  “I don’t really know.” Jimmy sipped the strong coffee for a few ticks. “Maybe he wants to go fishing.”

  Tony slumped in his seat, clearly not happy.

  “Cheer up. We still got jobs til October anyway. A lot can happen between now and then.”

  “Well, let’s hope the Ole Man can pull a rabbit out of his hat here because I haven’t a clue.”

  “How’s the boat coming? Jake say anything?”

  “Yeah, He gave you top priority on refit.”

  “It’s good to be the king.”

  “Actually, what he said was, ‘That was a brand new boat and that bastard better not have messed it up too badly.’”

  Jimmy chuckled. “Well, that works. So long as we can get out there as soon as the weather breaks. Meteorology says we should be clear for the season by the first of March, barring some late storms.”

  “It’s gonna be cold out there.”

  “Yeah, it is, but the sooner we start, the less behind we’ll be, and the more time we get before they pull the trigger on whatever deal they got cooking.”

  “You think they’re waiting for a price point on the stock?”

  “I dunno. Could be. Could be a date. Could be something we don’t know about. Something in their business.” He sipped his coffee. “It has to be before the end of the season, though.”

  Tony grimaced. “True. Once we’re all fired, there’s no production. They won’t want that to happen.”

  “I’m guessing it’ll come, whatever it is, midsummer. Far enough into the season that the markets will be turning themselves inside out. Not so late that too many people bail out.”

  “What’ll happen to you if the Combine gets bought up?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it. I suppose Angela has room for another skipper over on Umber. Maybe I’ll move up to Home Office.”

  Tony snorted. “In a pig’s eye. You love it out here, too much.”

  “I dunno, Tony. That’s what they used to say about the Ole Man, too.”

  “That’ll be the day when Jimmy Pirano moves off the ocean.”

  “Maybe I’ll just move the office. Angela says Umber is nice.”

  Tony almost took it at face value, but spotted the glint in Jimmy’s eye. He snorted. “How far down do you think the Combine’s shares will go?”

  “Dunno. Depends on how it’s played in the media. Once the markets get the downward spiral going, it’s going to be hard to reverse.”

  Tony nodded before draining his mug. “How many shares you got?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “They’re in a blind trust to avoid conflict of interest. It wasn’t much. A few thousand.”

  “Who’s managing the trust?”

  “Not them. The Ole Man has a separate set of lawyers that handle that for the company officers, like me.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “Only as long as I pay them. They make a good living from keeping us out of court. I can’t see them messing that up.”

  “That’s what we thought about Shyster, Shyster, and Sue Me, too.”

  Jimmy sighed and drained his mug. “True. I just can’t help thinkin’ we’re on the wrong track here. This makes no sense. Whatever else may be true, the money-grubbing bastards are rational to the eye-teeth. There’s something we’re missing. When we find it, I’m afraid we’re gonna get hammered by it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Callum’s Cove

  February 24, 2305

  The village seemed like it had awakened all at once. One day, the place was boarded up, locked down, apparently abandoned, unless you knew where to look. The next day was a squall of activity as people began preparations for the long fishing season.

  When the word had come from the Inlet that the season would be getting underway as soon as the Met Office gave its blessing, the village erupted. The fishermen checked hulls, and looked for winter damage. The resilient ferro-ceramic hulls didn’t damage easily, but it paid to examine them while they were out of the water. Marine growth tended not to latch onto the smooth material, so there was little to look at or repair. Some of the older vessels needed some fittings replaced and several needed the shaft housings re-packed so that water wouldn’t leak in around the heavy drive shafts that turned the propellers.

  Both his father and mother had been working for two weeks on their respective boats in preparation for the launch today, and Otto had wandered into the village to watch as, one by one, the boats shed their winter cocoons and the grav cradles were towed to the crane. Gently, Sally Wilson lifted each one from the cradle, and lowered it alongside the pier. Waiting crews walked the boats down the quay, drawing them along by their mooring lines and tied them off along the piers and jetties. Most of the twenty odd vessels were moored side-by-side, two and three deep, alongside the piers. It wasn’t clear to him who got to be near the outer edge and who was close in.

  “In the long run, it doesn’t matter, I suppose,” he said to himself.

  The watery sun was still low in the sky, even at noon, and a shallow cloud layer made the light even weaker, but the back of winter was broken. According to the company forecasters, the last of the big winter storms were largely gone. While the temperatures were still relatively cold, it was warm enough that boatmen could get their boats over the side and start the process of setting them up for another season of fishing.

  “Ott
o!” his mother called, as he stood looking over the fleet assembling by bits and pieces before him. He turned to see her stepping off one of the boats and onto the pier. “Your father should be about ready for lunch, too. Shall we treat ourselves to one of Rosie’s chowders?” she asked with a windblown smile.

  “Are you okay, hon?” his mother asked as she walked up almost to him. Otto knew she looked at him differently now. He thought it had to do with his deepening voice. It only cracked occasionally now.

  “Oh, yeah. Just a little dazed by all this. Every year it seems more frantic.”

  She chuckled. “Actually, every year it’s about the same. You’re just more aware of it this year because of your father and me.”

  “Probably so. Actually, would it be okay if I went back to the cottage and had lunch?” he asked.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, Mother. It’s just all this hustle and bustle. Everybody’s going to want to eat and get back to work and none of you needs a kid underfoot.”

  Rachel looked at her son. He’d always seemed a bit strange, but she wasn’t sure how a shaman’s son was supposed to behave. The shark he’d carved was frightening in spite of its crudeness in execution, or perhaps because of it. She knew he’d carved several more figures, each in the same style, and kept them in a drawer in the shop. The walking stick he always had with him was like something out of a tale. He took it everywhere, and it rattled and clinked with every step. She wondered how he could stand it sometimes, but he never gave any indication that he heard it. Every day he grew a little stranger, a little more different.

  He’d been correct, of course, the day he’d mentioned Eloise. She’d gone shopping for something nice to wear for her husband. She was a little embarrassed that the whole town was looking for her when she returned with new lingerie. The note she’d left on the kitchen table had blown onto the floor where it was overlooked by all the people who were trying to find her and assuming the worst.

  Still. How had he known?

  “Of course, hon. You won’t be underfoot, but if you want to go home, that’s fine.”

  He nodded several times and turned to look out over the assembled boats. “Yes. Thank you. You be careful and I’ll see you at supper. Would you like some mouta?”

  “Oh, that would be lovely.” She still wasn’t sure who this stranger was living in her son’s body, but she tried not to scare him—or herself—too badly.“Good.” He said it in a tone that meant agreement, and not a judgment. Without speaking again, he turned and, with his rattling staff in hand, walked sedately down the lane and out toward their cottage.

  Rachel watched him go and was so absorbed she didn’t even notice when Richard came up behind her until he spoke. “Where’s Otto going?”

  “Home. He seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the activity.”

  “I can’t say as I blame him. After a whole winter of being quiet, this is a lot to take in.”

  Rachel took his arm. “Okay, big fella. Buy a lady some lunch?”

  Richard smiled at her “I’d be delighted.” They both chuckled a little, but neither said much. They trailed in Otto’s wake by a few meters. While they waited for seats at the diner, they watching Otto make his deliberate way along the cobbles toward home.

  For his part, Otto was aware of his parents trailing him and felt the pressure of their gaze on his back. He was growing used to the odd looks as he moved about the village. On the one hand, he felt normal. He felt like he’d always felt, except when he thought back to the time when–for example–he took the flat of bellfish from Red Green and walked them home along this very track the previous fall. When he thought of that day, memory showed him a different Otto–one he could scarcely believe was himself, but yet, inevitably, was. Back then, he’d thought being a shaman was optional. Back then, the bits of stick and shell were just things lying on the beach. Back then, he didn’t carve things that made his own hair stand on end, or hear voices tantalizingly out of reach in the wind.

  He sighed and listened to the wind and movement jingle the shells on his walking stick as he continued on the path to the cottage.

  Once home, he fixed himself a sandwich and cup of tea, which he took out to the shop. These days, he felt most at home in the shop. What had once been his father’s exclusive lair was now a place where he was expected to be. He sighed again, and looked at the work that his father had him doing.

  “Otto,” his father had said. “You need to control your knife better if you’re going to carve whelkies. It’s just a matter of practice, time, and a few simple techniques.” With that, his father had proceeded to instruct him in the proper way to carve.

  Otto had been delighted at first. His father, the master carver, was going to show him how to find the animals in the blocks of wood. The reality soon set in as he was set to carving linked chains, balls in cages, and other kinds of exercises. They took a lot of time and produced nothing with the sense of power or majesty or awe or reality or unreality or–whatever that quality was–of even his crudely carved shark.

  He had learned to control his blade over the long weeks of winter. He could shave, slice, and notch. His inlay work was improving as his father had him practice by setting dark woods into light, and vice versa. The result of these long hours of practice lay strewn across the top of the bench. Each showed progress in the techniques that his father taught him. Each was smoothly formed, cleanly executed, and dead as the wood from which it was carved. He sighed again and opened the drawer where he kept the work he cared about.

  In it were a half dozen pieces, each as darkly primitive as the shark he’d done for his mother. Each carried that ineffable something that gave it its life. None of them had his father’s smooth lines, clean carving, or likely approval. Otto was confused by this disconnect. He could carve like his father, and had a bench full of dead things to prove it. But something else happened when he carved these, when he freed the animals from the wood and gave them their bits of shell as heart.

  He sighed once more and, taking a large bite from his sandwich, laid it on the bench and turned to light the stove. He’d built the fire so many times the process had become automatic. A few shavings and some small sticks. A flick of the electronic match, and the shavings almost always caught. He gave them a few moments to breathe and catch well, before adding a few more sticks. His father kept a small log-end and a sharp hatchet for slivering off some lighter bits of kindling for this delicate part of task, so there was never any lack of fuel. He smelled the smoke and smiled in satisfaction as the small flames grew into a real fire. He added some of the light sticks and put a larger one on the top of the pile to catch.

  He stood up from his crouch and closed the fire door carefully. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the carving that his father had started the night before. Otto didn’t really pay that much attention to what his father was carving. He was too intent on seeing what he was carving to pay attention to somebody else’s work. In the cold light of the chilly afternoon, though, Otto saw that his father had a smoothly shaped dolphin emerging from a nicely knotted bit of wood. He also saw that his father was carving the dolphin across the body of some other animal–a bear, or a dog, perhaps–that was caught in the wood, and that in carving the head and front part of the dolphin out, he’d carved the head off the other creature. He felt his gorge rise at the sight, and managed to get outside before throwing up what little lunch he’d had on the ground behind the woodpile.

  Chapter Twenty

  Aram’s Inlet

  February 24, 2305

  Jimmy was calmer than he thought he might be. The winds had died and Jake worked methodically through the long line of boats, lifting each in turn and placing them delicately into the harbor. It seemed like such a slow process, but Jake and his crew made steady progress down the line of craft.

  “You anxious to get out again, Jimmy?” Tony asked.

  Jimmy stuck his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and just grunted.


  From his other side, Casey laughed. “Well, I am. It’s been a long winter slinging drinks and I’m ready to get out of the smell of stale beer.”

  Jimmy looked sideways at her. “I thought you liked workin’ at the bar.”

  “Oh, yeah. Great fun. Long hours, low pay, drunks who paw you, forget to tip you, and all seem to think I look like their sadistic ex.”

  “Then why do it?” Tony asked.

  “You got salary to cover your rent, Tony?”

  Tony mumbled an affirmative.

  “Besides, it’s something to do.”

  They all three chuckled.

  “So, where are we on the quota thing?” she asked quietly.

  Tony sighed. “Nowhere. We’re still trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do.”

  Jimmy said, “We’ve sent the word out to the regional reps that we know the landings are unreasonable and that we’re working to make sure people know they won’t lose their boats, but it’s hard when the official line is ‘put up or shut up.’”

  “We lost a lot of people at the bar, anyway,” Casey said.

  Tony said, “Yeah, it’s a steady trickle of people getting out before the collapse. Either being smart or being dumb. At this point, it’s hard to tell.”

  Jimmy snorted. “I know how they feel. What would this sector be like with that many unemployed people descending on Dunsany?”

  “That’s not even possible,” Tony said.

  “How many people can even leave in a month?” Casey asked.

  “Just under two thousand,” Jimmy said.

  Casey’s eyes got wide. “That was a rhetorical question, Jimmy,” Casey said. “I didn’t really expect you’d know the answer.”

  Jimmy rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah. Well, I thought I should know.”

  “In that light, maybe we should book passage now for a November seat,” Tony said.

  Jake settled another boat into the water as if it were no more than a child’s model in a wading pool.

  “Sea Horse is next,” Casey said. The three of them ambled over to where the yard gang handed them the lines..