Captain's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper)

by Nathan Lowell

  “I do.”

  “Do you grant permission for the Confederated Planets Joint Committee on Trade, represented by the designated Examination staff on Breakall Orbital, to release your confidential records to the Board of Captains for the purposes of determining your suitability to achieve the rank of Captain in Good Standing?”

  “I do.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Wang, and good luck.”

  The testing screen in front of me lit up. I never heard the door close behind me when the clerk left the room.

  A little more than two and half stans later, the screen went dark. I smiled to myself remembering other tests and the feeling of surfacing from a deep pool. I sat back in the chair and scrubbed my eyes with my fingers. It felt good.

  The door opened behind me and the same clerk ushered me out. “There are a couple of nice restaurants just below us on the oh-two deck, Mr. Wang. If you’d like to go stretch your legs, grab a bite.”

  I thanked him and headed off for a light meal. I happened to have been on Breakall once or twice in the last few stanyers and I knew where I could find a plate of bacon and eggs with my name on it. Cholesterol and fat have a place in one’s diet. My body let me know that I could no longer ignore the amount of said dietary delights I could consume, but after the previous few weeks, I felt I’d earned a bit of leeway.

  Lunch didn’t take long, and at the appointed time, I dived deep into the exam pool once more. Second half, same as the first. I have no idea what was in either of them–only that the questions spooled out in front of me and my answers disappeared into the machine. When it went dark again, I knew it was over and I felt done in.

  The friendly clerk fetched me from the cubical and showed me to the door. “That concludes the written exam, Mr. Wang. The results and your records will be transmitted to the designated Board of Captains and they may, at their discretion, summon you to an Examination. They are bound to make that summons and convene the Examination within the next twenty-four standard hours. Do you understand, Mr. Wang?”

  “I do.”

  “Then good luck, Mr. Wang.”

  I headed back to the ship. I didn’t know if I had passed or not. The written exam was a fig-leaf offered to potential captains. They wouldn’t tell me if I passed or not in order to save face should the Board of Captains determine that my record wasn’t sufficient to warrant promotion. I could at least tell myself that I flunked the written portion.

  The captain’s traditional summons was waiting for me when I got back to the ship. As tired as I was, it felt good to spend a quiet evening aboard in the company of my friends.

  Chapter Eight

  Breakall Orbital:

  2371-November-09

  The Summons to Examination came just after 0800. The Tinker was still trying to settle into a watch rotation that had been all but destroyed by the disruptions of the previous weeks. Watch standers are resilient but, in the face of too much change, the watch standing merry-go-round has a tendency to wobble. I was due for the overnight OD watch starting at 1800. I was pretty sure I’d be back in time. I only hoped I’d be able to stay awake for the whole thing. In the meantime, there was this small matter of the Summons.

  “Dress for this one,” Fredi had advised. “Wear the full kit.”

  “You think it’ll impress ’em?”

  “Not as much as not dressing up would.” She grinned. “That kind of impression you don’t want to make.”

  “Good point. Have you been tapped to sit on any Boards, Captain?”

  She just smiled. “I’m sworn to secrecy. Part of the deal.”

  “What do you think my chances are?”

  She looked me up and down. “I’m biased, but I think you’d make a fine captain.” She looked me in the eye with a wicked grin and twinkle combination before adding. “Someday.”

  “Someday?” I almost choked. She could still surprise me.

  “Keeping you humble, Mr. Wang.” She turned serious. “It’s yours to lose, I think. Be yourself. Don’t let them lead you down any roads you don’t want to go.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “If I didn’t think you could do it, I wouldn’t have put you up.”

  “Wow, they acted fast.”

  “Not really.” She made an apologetic face. “I put you up in the Spring. They’re just getting around to it now.”

  For some reason, that made me feel better. I was still tense. Making captain was one of the Big Deals in a spacer’s life. Not everyone wanted it. Not everyone who wanted it, got it. At thirty-eight, I wasn’t the youngest candidate, but I was still on the low edge of the curve. If this board passed me over, I could be renominated in a few months.

  “Scoot. They’ll expect you to be early.”

  I scooted.

  The Summons was to the same office that I’d taken the test in the day before. The same clerk welcomed me with a smile and ushered me down the passage to a small waiting room in the back. The space was done up nicely–formal without feeling stuffy, comfortable without looking lived in.

  He showed me to a chair just outside the conference room door. “The Board will convene shortly, Mr. Wang. Please wait here until they call you in.”

  Over the stanyers in the Deep Dark waiting was one thing I’d gotten much better at. I’d learned how to drop into a kind of trance while waiting. It wasn’t like I could check out completely, but waiting became a kind of Zen. I’d learned to be in the moment so that the moment could move me along. Anticipating when the waiting might end made me more aware of the slow and awful passage of time.

  The door to the conference room opened and Field Agent Waters stepped out. I almost didn’t recognize him without the black TIC jump suit. He wore dress khakis with gold captain’s stars. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Wang.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Captain Waters.”

  “Please come in and meet the board.” He held the door open for me and closed it after us.

  The man and woman inside wore dress khakis as well and were refilling coffee mugs from a carafe on the side board. They looked up as the door closed, and both of them gave me a frankly appraising look. It wasn’t hostile or even confrontational. More like a “so, this is the man behind the file” look.

  “Captain Susan Zee of the Astrolabe, First Mate Ishmael Wang from the William Tinker.” Waters did the honors and Captain Zee extended her hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Wang.” Her voice was a rich alto and her hand was smooth and strong.

  “I hope my file wasn’t too boring, Captain.”

  “Boring. No. Not the word I’d have used.” Her face had a friendly smile but I felt that she kept a bit in reserve.

  “Long is the word I’d have used,” the man standing beside her said and held out his hand.

  “Captain Brandon Gamblin of the clipper Chthulu, may I present First Mate Ishmael Wang.”

  “Captain Gamblin.”

  “Your jacket is rather extensive, Ishmael. You’ve done a lot.” His collar showed the silver star of senior captain and he had the steady look of a man who’d been around. I’d seen the look before.

  I grabbed a mug of coffee so I’d have something to do with my hands, and we settled around the conference table. Nobody sat at the head of the table, but they sat on one side and I sat on the other.

  Captain Zee started with, “So, tell us, Ishmael, why did you decide to sign onto the Lois McKendrick?”

  We started precisely at 0900 and I don’t remember much about the next six stans. I do remember that at 1200 an orderly opened the door, wheeled in a cart-based buffet and we continued to talk over lunch. The conversation never felt forced or hostile. At times it was jocular and others serious. It was always focused on me. What did I do? Why did I do it? What was I thinking? Do I think I was right? What might I have done differently?

  Walking out of the office at 1500, my dress uniform felt damp across the small of my back, and I was exhausted, but also jubilant. They’d gotten me to remember things I’d f
orgotten–some good, some not–but really all things that were part of me, things that contributed to making me whatever I was.

  Pass or fail, it had been a great conversation. I only wish I’d learned more about them.

  Chapter Nine

  Diurnia Orbital:

  2372-January-08

  The return to Diurnia was uneventful and the return to normal operations a relief. The watch stander merry-go-round lost its wobble and regained its smooth, machine-like precision as we followed the long trail back from Breakall and the old grooves re-asserted themselves. As we secured the ship in its dock, I could almost feel it shifting gears to the more relaxed cycle of port duty.

  Being in port was no less a merry-go-round, but the off-duty portions provided opportunities to get off the horse and stretch one’s metaphorical legs in ways the being underway couldn’t. This change could be both good and bad. I found myself contemplating my delayed return to what my wife would deem “real life.” If I was going to be honest with myself, I had to admit she had a point about my being a spacer. Not for the first time, I wondered just how fair this situation was to either of us.

  “Secure from navigation detail, Ms. D’Heng.” Fredi’s voice cut across my reverie and returned me to the immediate needs of the ship. She waited for Charlotte to finish making the announcement before she turned to me. “You may declare liberty at your discretion, Mr. Wang. I believe first section has the watch.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. Please make the announcement, Ms. D’Heng.”

  Charlotte finished the announcements and the bridge crew began turning their terminals to standby , standing up, stretching and flexing after sitting in the same place for the better part of four stans.

  “Excellent work, everybody. Enjoy your liberty.” Fredi’s voice was clear above the rising murmur of the bridge crew preparing to leave. She turned to me with her bright smile. “If you’d join me in the cabin when you’re free here, Ishmael?”

  “Of course, Captain.”

  With a final nod she headed down the ladder, uncorking the bottle and letting the rest of the crew exit the bridge in good–if rapid–order.

  I took a moment to drop a note to Jen before heading down. My traditional message on return was a brief “Honey? I’m home.” It was a kind of joke between us. I added, “Sorry, I’m late. The rush hour traffic was murder.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d used that phrase, although I had to explain it to her the first time I did. Apparently “rush hour” was an unknown concept on Diurnia. Population densities and worker distributions did not contribute to a mass daily migration of labor during relatively short periods of the work day. It was equally foreign on the Orbitals and out in the Deep Dark. We’d had rush hours on Neris and Port Newmar. My traditional spousal greeting upon return was actually something my mother used to say when she’d come back from teaching and announce to our small apartment at large, “Honey? I’m home.”

  I hadn’t thought of her for months. Twenty stanyers later, thinking of her and her death could still catch me like a punch in the gut sometimes. I stood there on the darkened bridge and looked through the armor glass to port and starboard–admiring the bright livery of the ships nuzzled up to the locks. I wondered what she’d have thought of it all.

  I wasn’t in any hurry to leave the bridge. I had the first watch and wouldn’t be able to get off the ship before 1800. We docked just before 1000 so I had plenty of time to get stuff picked up. I’d also have all evening and the next day to make it up to Jen. It was good to be back on the Tinker, and good to be docked. It was an odd feeling. Twenty stanyers since I’d first signed on and I still looked forward to each trip. I remembered wondering if I’d like it well enough to do it as a career when I first started out. It was a legitimate concern, but from the bridge of the Tinker looking aft down the spine and back across two decades, it felt like the right decision.

  With a sudden pang, I wondered if marrying Jen had been.

  I gave myself a shake and headed down the ladder for the cabin. Fredi looked up as I stood in the threshold. “Thank you for coming, Ishmael.”

  “My pleasure, Captain.”

  It was true. We’d grown close over the stanyers since she’d taken on the mantle of captain. I’d worked my way up through the officer ranks right here on this ship under her amazingly insightful mentorship. She had the greatest of skill in knowing when to kick my butt and when to pat my back. I remembered a few times when she had done both. The thought made me grin.

  She sat at her desk, lounging comfortably in the chair. Many of her mannerisms were birdlike and quick–the way she cocked her head to look at something, or to think about what she saw. She had a kind of "look with the left eye, look with the right" motion. When she sat, though, she didn’t perch. In that she was more catlike. Occupying a chair like it was built for her and her alone and she would make herself comfortable in it, thank you very much.

  I wasn’t the only one feeling thoughtful by the look of it. Fredi had a kind of speculative, far away look in her eye and held the owl whelkie I’d given her so many stanyers before in one hand.

  “Have a seat, Ishmael.” She nodded at the chair.

  I sat but I was beginning to get a little concerned. This was not like her. We often had little chats about all kinds of things, especially after a voyage. I’d never known her to look so wistful.

  “What’s going on, Fredi?”

  She sighed and looked me directly in the eye. “I’m retiring, Ishmael.”

  “Retiring? As in leaving the Tinker?”

  She half closed her eyes and gave a little sideways shrug. “Those two things are more or less related, yes. I suspect the company would object if I stopped working for them and still lived aboard.”

  “But why?”

  She gave a small chuckle. “Because it’s time, my friend. I was ready to retire more than a decade ago. Even before we won the ship back from Burnside. I’ve been putting it off until I thought the time was right.”

  “And the time is right now?”

  She gave a small but emphatic nod. “It is indeed.” She took a medium sized envelop from the top drawer of her desk. The color, shape, and weight screamed ‘official.’ She tossed it onto my side of the desk “Congratulations.”

  The envelope was from the CPJCT, if the printed cover was any indication, and it was addressed to me.

  “An envelope?”

  Fredi grinned. “In some ways they’re old fashioned.” She pointed to a framed certificate above her desk. “They do have the electronic records, of course, but they send a paper one, duly signed and sealed.”

  I opened the envelope and pulled a Master’s License from it. It was heavy. The paper wasn’t really paper but some kind of flexible plastic. It looked like paper and it made me eligible to be captain on any space going vessel up to and including 500 metric kilotons, pursuant to appropriate certifications and endorsements.

  I stared at it for several long heartbeats–reading and re-reading, running my fingers across the surface. The letters felt slightly textured, actually embossed onto the surface.

  Fredi sat there the whole time, watching me and smiling.

  Something in the way she sat there, something in her face, told me that she wasn’t finished. “Thank you. How did you know what it was?”

  “Lucky guess, and they don’t send the rejections in physical envelopes. This was waiting for us when we docked but I had a tweet from a little bird before we left Breakall. You did a great job out there, Ishmael.”

  I warmed at her praise.

  “Change of command will happen at noon. Mr. Maloney will be here to do the honors.”

  My mind raced as I considered the implications of the Master’s License in my hand and the opening in the Diurnia Salvage and Transport’s roster of captains.

  “Ishmael?”

  I looked up.

  “You’re not going to be offered the Tinker.” She said it gently like she was breaking bad news.

&
nbsp; “Of course not, Fredi. This too nice a berth for a junior captain, but Maloney must have offered it to one of the other skippers in the fleet and maybe I’ll get the one they’re leaving.”

  She snorted a short laugh. “I should have known. You were always the practical one.” She paused as something occurred to her. “Mostly.”

  “Do you think he’ll offer me the empty slot?”

  “I recommended that he give you this one, to tell you the truth. Plum job or not, you’ve earned it and having you step up provides some continuity in the command structure.”

  I considered this bit of news and shook my head. “Geoff Maloney is too practical for that. No matter what he thinks of you or me, he’s got twelve other Captains to manage.”

  “Almost his exact words.”

  “Is he going to offer me the open slot?”

  She caught my eyes in hers. “Yes, but you’re not obligated to take it.”

  “Not take it?” That comment surprised me. “Why would I not take it?”

  “Not all promotions are a step up.”

  “What? You think tractor captain isn’t as good a job as first mate on a Barbell?”

  She barked another short laugh. “You always tickle me with your ability to analyze these problems.” She looked down as the whelkie in her fingers. “No, skippering a tractor is a great first berth for a new captain. They get lots of hands-on skippering practice, not a lot of freight at risk at any given time, and a small crew to aggravate–should it come to that.” She looked up at me again. “But you know from hard won personal experience that some berths are more challenging than others.”

  That was the first lesson I learned on the Tinker and Fredi knew it well. I knew what was coming next. “Agamemnon.” It wasn’t a question.

  Her eyebrows gave a little bob in acknowledgment and she confirmed it. “Agamemnon.”

  I took a deep breath and looked down at the fresh Master’s License still cupped in my hands. “Did he say why?” I asked without looking up.

  “No, but I can guess. Delman’s been skipper there for the last six stanyers. He’s been a good corporate soldier and taken what Maloney has thrown his way.”