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

by Nathan Lowell

  I pointed to the chairs. “Sit, gentlemen. You’ve had a busy morning.”

  They sat.

  I nodded to Mr. Schubert first. “This doesn’t look good, spacer. What’s the status?”

  He held up his wrapped hands and twisted them with a bemused expression on his face. “I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks, Skipper. They got a little carried away with the dressing.”

  “I was counting on you for helm this afternoon, Mr. Schubert.”

  He shrugged and rested his wrists on the edge of the table. “Shouldn’t be a problem, sar. I only need my fingers really so I can feel the helm. I think, with a little help, I can probably free enough of them to do what I need.”

  “What did the medico say, Mr. Schubert?”

  “Light duty, three days.”

  “You get us out, we’ll keep you covered, Mr. Schubert.”

  “Can do, Skipper.” He was way too chipper for a man with burns on his hands.

  “Mr. Schubert please pardon my talking around you, but Mr. Wyatt, did they drug him?”

  “No, Captain. Not that I am aware of and they briefed me on his condition. Three days, light duty. He’s got a tube of goop in his pocket and they gave us some spare dressings.” Wyatt held up a bag.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wyatt.” I looked back at Mr. Schubert. “You seem pretty chipper for a man with burned palms, Mr. Schubert.”

  “It’s really not that bad, Skipper. I tried to tell them at the aid station. It was red but not deep. I’ve been burned before and this didn’t even blister. They were acting like I had smoked hams on my wrists.”

  Mr. Wyatt nodded in confirmation. “It’s true, Captain. I saw his hands before they started working on him. I think they had a training day down there today or something, because the candy striper working on him seemed to think he was all but dead.”

  “How’d you get away with just a little salve, Mr. Wyatt?”

  Mr. Wyatt shrugged. “The corpsman working on me didn’t think I was cute enough for him, perhaps, Captain.”

  Enlightenment comes slowly sometimes, but is usually worth the effort. “I begin to see, Mr. Wyatt. Thank you for that extra bit of information.”

  He grinned. “You’re welcome, Captain.”

  “Mr. Schubert? They should have some scrambled eggs and toast ready in a moment or two. You ready for breakfast?”

  “Yes, Captain, I am.”

  “Okay. Hang in there. Should be but a couple of shakes.”

  “Chief Gerheart? Mr. Pall? Can I count on you to take care of Mr. Schubert here. Feed him up and send him to bed?”

  Mr. Pall looked up from the pan of eggs. “Of course, Captain.”

  Chief Gerheart nodded her silent confirmation.

  “Mr. Wyatt? If you’re up to it, could you join me in the cabin?”

  “Of course, Captain.”

  We climbed the ladder to officer country and I pointed to the conference table. “Have a seat, Mr. Wyatt. I’m ready for your report.”

  I sat at the head and he took what I assumed must be his normal seat at the port side foot.

  “We were running a bit late on breakfast but I wanted to make sure the bacon was cooked thoroughly, Captain.” He stopped and looked at me for reassurance. “I looked up how to cook it and I was pretty sure that I had it right. I put it on a raised rack in the oven with a pan under it to catch the drippings. The smell was amazing and everybody but Mr. Hill and Mr. Ricks was in the galley waiting for breakfast. I don’t know what went wrong because all of a sudden things started smelling burnt. I opened the door, pulled out the pan and poof! The flame just came right up in my face.”

  I nodded encouragingly.

  “Well, sar, Mr. Schubert was there almost before I got straighted up and he’d grabbed another roaster from the rack and dropped it upside down on the flames. It snuffed the fire but it was still smoldering pretty good. He went to grab it and, of course, the pan was blazing hot, and he got it just far enough for it to clear the range before he dropped it. By then, all we really had was a lot of smoke and Chief Gerheart went down to crank up the scrubbers a couple of notches while the rest of us watched Ms. Thomas.” His report petered out a bit at that point.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wyatt.”

  “I’m so sorry, Captain. This was all my fault.” He looked positively miserable.

  “Mr. Wyatt? If this is the worst thing that happens on this ship, we’re going to be in very good shape, indeed. Take the lesson, and be thankful the cost wasn’t higher. If that burning fat had spilled onto your clothes, we’d have been canceling this trip while we waited for a replacement cargo officer.”

  He blanched.

  “I’ve learned a lesson or two myself this morning, Mr. Wyatt, so don’t beat yourself up over it. When the captain changes, especially on a crew this size, the whole ship changes. And I’m not slipping in quietly. There’s a lesson in there for me, but it’ll probably be awhile before I figure out what it is.”

  He seemed a bit mollified. “If you say so, Captain.”

  “I do, Mr. Wyatt. What I need you to do now is go get something to eat. We’ve got a date in Welliver.”

  He smiled at that and nodded his thanks.

  “Dismissed, Mr. Wyatt. Save me some toast.”

  He left and I crossed to my desk. The console there was the same as any on the bridge. At least I didn’t have to remove the block that prevented me from looking at any of the ship’s status displays that I wanted. There was one more display here that I’d never seen on any console, and a little digging showed it to be local to the device in the cabin. It was the captain’s log. I thumbed through the last few entries and saw nothing that caught my eye. Delman’s log style was sparse to the point of terse, with bare minimum notations on ship’s status, crew, ports, and so on.

  Record keeping. I’d forgotten about that part of being the captain. I checked the captain’s inbox and found all the reports and documents that would need my review and approval before they could be put away. I groaned and closed my eyes against the tide of unread reports. Well, we’d be underway in a few stans. There’d be plenty of time to deal with the backlog once we got underway.

  The little voice in the back of my head told me there’d be a whole new batch to deal with by then. I told it to pipe down and checked to make sure the flight plan had been approved and that the tug was on schedule for a 1500 pull out. It all looked good, and I went in search of a piece of toast and a cup of coffee.

  What I found at the bottom of the ladder was a rather worse for wear looking Mr. Hill being held up by a pair of Orbital Security guards. Mr. Pall was with them and he nodded apologetically. “These nice officers brought us a present, Captain.”

  “Mr. Hill? I thought I wasn’t going to have any problems with you.”

  “Not my fault, Captain.” I believed him. I don’t for the life of me know why.

  I looked to the Security men. “Gentlemen?”

  “We found him in an alcove down on oh-five, Skipper. He’d been pretty well rolled. We got the images on the security cams but...” he gave a one shouldered shrug. “Hoods and masks. Not random and, as much fun as we’ve had with this rascal in the past, I’d have to agree. Not his fault.”

  “Medical?”

  “Been. He’s got a few bruises. Nothing seriously broken. There’s a bandage under his arm there where one of ’em kicked him, but it’s a scrape.”

  “Can you walk, Brandon?”

  “Yes, Captain. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “I’m getting kind of tired of hearing that this morning, Mr. Hill. Go lay down. We’ll call you for nav detail.”

  He turned and shambled into crew quarters.

  I looked up at the two guards. “Your opinion, gentlemen?”

  They looked at each other and shrugged. “Nothing official, Skipper.”

  “Of course not. What’s your guess?”

  The taller one shrugged and looked down at his feet. “Karma, Skipper.”

  �
��Past sins coming home to roost?”

  They both nodded. The short one tugged an earlobe. “You can’t play games on the dock for as long as these boys have and not pick up a few scores that aren’t quite final, if you know what I mean, Captain.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen. I do, indeed.”

  Mr. Pall showed them off the ship and I turned to go into the galley. It was small consolation, but I now had plenty to write about in the captain’s log. In a way I envied Delman’s lack of narrative, but had to wonder if it were the case that he found nothing to write about.

  Or if he had just not bothered.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Diurnia Orbital:

  2372-January-11

  I found Wyatt, Pall, and Gerheart on the mess deck. Wyatt was happily scrubbing pots in the deep sink, Pall and Gerheart were finishing what looked like a nice mess of scrambled egg and toast. My stomach rumbled a bit to remind me that I hadn’t stopped at Over Easy in my haste to get aboard.

  “Any of those eggs left, Mr. Pall?”

  “We left a plate on the sideboard for you, Captain.” He nodded in the general direction.

  “Bless you, Mr. Pall.”

  “You’re welcome, Skipper.”

  I swung by the toaster and dropped two before checking in with Wyatt at the sink. “You doing okay, Avery?”

  “Yes, sar. Feeling a little stupid and helpless. That really got out of hand there and I really should have done something.” The soapy water did little to hide his frustration.

  I patted him on the back of one shoulder. “Hang in. We’re all getting used the new way of things. I’m afraid you’ll get a chance to try to do better.” I chuckled a little. It wasn’t really funny but more like one of those laugh-or-you’ll-cry things.

  He bit back a laugh of his own and I collected my eggs. By the time I’d drawn a fresh cup of coffee, the toast had popped and I joined Mr. Pall and the chief at the table.

  “Think we’ll have any trouble with pirates this trip, Mr. Pall?”

  “No, Captain. They’re not operating in this sector just now. Mostly over on the border lands between Halpern and Ciroda.”

  “Didn’t stop them from mucking up breakfast, Mr. Pall.”

  Chief Gerhart giggled.

  Mr. Pall wasn’t fazed. “Well, there’s the odd pirate here and there, Skipper, as you well know.”

  “Of course, Mr. Pall.”

  “Any reservations about getting underway, Chief?”

  Gerheart glanced up from her plate to make sure I was talking to her before answering. “The ship is ready to go, Captain. I’m betting my life on it and I expect to win.” She never lost the sing-songy, little girl voice but I knew she had to be nearly my age, even if she looked ten stanyers younger.

  “That’s an interesting way to put it, Chief.”

  She smiled a real smile and, until she did, I hadn’t realized that it might have been the first one I’d seen on her face. “My father used to say that. Probably still does. A man of certain habit is me dah.”

  “Your father’s an engineer, then, Chief?”

  “Yes, Captain. Chief Engineering Officer on the Halldor Laxness, operates out of New Mannheim in Venitz.”

  “You’re a long way from home, Chief.”

  She smiled again, another real one. “Home is where your tool chest is, Captain. I’m less than twenty meters.”

  Mr. Pall looked surprised at that. “Don’t you mean your heart, Chief?”

  She giggled. I confess, having an engineering chief who giggled was a little unnerving. Still, it was a delightful giggle. “I think I said that, William.”

  “You said ‘tool chest.’”

  She looked at him with a silly grin pasted on her face. “Yes!”

  Mr. Pall looked like he was going to speak again, so I forestalled him. “Course laid in, Mr. Pall?”

  He gave up on the elusive Chief Gerheart and focused on me. “Not yet, Skipper.” He shrugged apologetically. “I was going to go do that right after breakfast.”

  I looked at his empty plate.

  He looked at his empty plate.

  “That would be about now, I think. If you’ll excuse me, Skipper?”

  I nodded and raised a cup in salute. “Thread me a needle, Mr. Pall. Carry on.”

  He looked a little startled but gathered his dirties and racked them for the washer before heading up to the bridge and his astrogation station.

  I pushed my own empty plate away and leaned forward over the last of my coffee. At the small tables it brought my head close to Chief Gerheart’s. She was aware of it, but didn’t withdraw. I didn’t turn toward her and I spoke softly. “I asked if you had any reservations about getting underway, Chief. You said the ship was ready. Do you have any reservations about the crew?”

  She raised her face and looked at me. Firm muscle and rigid bone subsumed the soft little girl face. The pale, watery blue eyes turned to piercing, hard sapphire. For the first time since coming aboard, she looked me square in the face. “Not any more, Captain.” The voice was as clear and strong as a mountain river, and as quiet as wind over grass.

  And like the shadow of a wind-driven cloud, gone.

  The little girl came back and the chief giggled.

  I smiled into my mug and tried to breathe. “Thank you, Chief.”

  “Sure thing, Captain. I better get on with my prep.” She gathered my plate up with hers and took the whole lot to the washer.

  A sip of coffee helped me focus again and I started with basics. “First, feed the crew.”

  “Excuse me, Captain?” Wyatt was just finishing up in the deep sink.

  “Basics, Mr. Wyatt. Our mess schedule is a wreck. Here it is almost 1000, we’re supposed to serve lunch at 1200 but most people have just finished breakfast or will be sleeping. We’re going to go to nav detail at 1400 for a 1500 pull out. We’ll be at stations until–what? 1800?”

  He shook his head. “More like 1900. The tug has to give us a good push to get us started since we don’t have the kickers. Takes us a little longer to get going.”

  The morning was full of surprises. “Good to know, Mr. Wyatt. Thank you.”

  “Were you planning to have a pre-flight, Skipper?”

  Pre-flight was a meeting of all the command staff to review ship’s status prior to going to navigation stations. “I should, but we’re scrimping on time. Ms. Thomas needs the rest and so do Hill and Schubert. We’ll go with the seat of the pants this time and see how it goes.”

  He dried his hands on a side towel and grinned, leaning back against the sink. “You like playing close to the edge, Skipper?”

  “No, Mr. Wyatt. I surely do not. But sometimes close to the edge is all you got and it’s better than over it.”

  “Good point. What do we do about meals?’

  “Mind playing messmate for this evolution, Avery?’

  “Not in the least, Captain. What would you like me to do?”

  “Do we have any boxes aboard?”

  “Boxes, Captain?”

  I pulled up my tablet and accessed the chandlery’s catalog. “Bento boxes, like these.” I showed him the screen.

  I saw him study the picture but I had the uncanny feeling that he was actually reviewing the ship’s inventory in his head as he looked at it.

  “No, Captain, we don’t.”

  I looked at the unit codes, ordered a case, charged the ship, routed the bill to Mr. Wyatt’s inbox, and marked the order for pickup. “Okay, Avery. I know it’s your job to order stuff, but I had it up and we need ’em fast.”

  He laughed. “You’re the captain, Captain. Last time I checked I stand on ceremony for you, not the other way ’round.”

  “Yeah, well, true to a point, but you’re the guy who has to keep this pile all sorted out and having unfamiliar fingers in the files doesn’t help you.”

  “I appreciate the concern but aren’t we in a hurry, Skipper?”

  “Yes, we are. Here’s what I want.”

  It
was a simple logistical problem that Mr. Wyatt grasped immediately. Truth be told, I think he knew the solution as soon as he saw the boxes. Lunch mess would be a “one-can classic” since not many people would be partaking. It was mostly pro forma for the watch section and easy to clear away. Dinner would be the boxed lunches served on station. We’d done it a lot back on the Lois. Being driven by a larger schedule, she got underway when the company said move. DST worked on a different clock and ships had a little more flexibility in their movement.

  I left Mr. Wyatt laying out the assembly line while I made the run to the chandlery.

  “Shouldn’t we send somebody else, Captain? Have them delivered?”

  I paused halfway out of the mess deck. “I’m in a hurry, Mr. Wyatt, and who would we send?”

  He thought about it for about three heartbeats and shrugged. “Good point, Captain.”

  It really was only a matter of a few ticks to make it down to the chandlery and back. By going myself I had the chance to rummage in the produce section a bit. I snagged a few nice looking pieces of fruit, a box of candy bars, and a bag of hard candies, before I picked up the heavy flat of boxes. I garnered a few odd looks riding the lift back up to the dock, but if the stars on my collar provoked the looks to begin with, they also prevented comment. It’s not every day you see a clipper captain acting as delivery boy, but it’s not something anybody in their right mind would question.

  Mr. Ricks was expeditious in booking the mass to stores as I came through the lock and, if he was curious, he didn’t ask any questions. I reached into the bag of hard candies and flipped him one as I went by. He caught it neatly on the fly with a “Thanks, Skipper,” and I hurried back to the mess deck.

  Mr. Pall had returned from the bridge by then, and helped Mr. Wyatt assemble sandwiches. I unloaded my bundle on the other work counter and broke open the pack of flattened boxes. I held one in my hands and the smell of the pasteboard, even the texture of it against my fingertips, took me back twenty stanyers. I could almost hear Cookie’s voice in my head. My hands flexed in an old but unforgotten pattern and the completed box stood in my palms.