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

by Nathan Lowell

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Diurnia Orbital:

  2372-June-02

  Leaving the lawyer’s office, I felt empty. I had almost a full day before I went back on duty and normally when in home port, I’d spend the time at the apartment. I must have stood there in the passageway for a full tick trying to think of what to do, where to go. My stomach growled to let me know that it had been a long time since lunch, and my feet took their cue without my having to think about it.

  The lift dropped me down one deck and opened up to the familiar smell of Over Easy. I wondered how much business they must get just from that one factor. Spacers coming in from the cold of the Deep Dark, walking out of their ships filled with canned air, crossing the frigidly cold and mechanically freighted dock, getting into the lift and dropping down to the oh-two deck for a little R&R and when the lift opens, they’re hit, quite literally, between the eyes with the warm aromas of coffee, bacon, and toast.

  I followed my nose and found myself sitting at my favorite stool at the long counter. The guy behind the counter was a new one I hadn’t seen before, or maybe having been absent so long, I just didn’t remember. His badge said “Phil” and he waited for my order with that little chin up look they all seemed to have. A posture that said, “What can I get ya?” without actually speaking.

  “Coffee, high test, Frank’s finest, three rashers, three over easy, double toast.”

  He smiled a little smile and nodded once as he reached for the metal clad pot under the counter. “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks.”

  He finished scribbling the order and tore it off the anachronistic pad of paper, slotting it into the wheel at the pass through. “Order up, Sammy.”

  He moved on down the counter–filling cups, clearing dishes, keeping the customers happy and moving. More than a few eyes watched him go, male and female. I took a moment to look around the place. It wasn’t as full as normal. Not too surprisingly, the dinner hour was one hour that Over Easy didn’t really have a lot of draw. A few tables were full and about half the stools at the counter. One other waiter worked the floor and Phil was alone behind the counter. It would fill up later as late night revelers looked for sustenance, or maybe one last chance at a decision on who to take home.

  It wasn’t too long before Phil got back down to my end again and slid a plate of hot food in front of me.

  I dug in with a will and, if the familiar home-spun fare didn’t fill the hole inside me, at least it helped warm the chill a bit. As I worked down to the plate I think my mind started catching up with me. I started thinking again, instead of just reacting.

  I wanted to feel hurt and angry and betrayed, something hot and passionate. What I felt was numb and cold. For seven stanyers I’d asked her to wait for me while I went haring across the quadrant and in return, I paid her rent and visited her a few days every few months. If I were going to be brutally honest with myself–and sitting there in Over Easy with the empty plate staring up at me from the counter, I couldn’t help but rub the salt in my own wounds–aside from the coming home part, it hadn’t really been all that great for me, either, and I really couldn’t find it in me to blame her for finding what she needed somewhere else. It’s cold in the Deep Dark, and if life on the orbital wasn’t exactly Deep Dark, in a certain sense, we all carry a bit of the Deep Dark inside.

  I sighed and ran the last corner of toast around the plate before popping into my mouth and washing it down with coffee.

  Phil brought the tab and I thumbed it, before heading back out into the passage. I wasn’t quite ready to go back to the ship so I took a spin around the oh-two deck, strolling past the shops, restaurants, pubs, and clubs. Down here was the antithesis of the cold of the docks. All the extra bodies gave the air a moist texture that the environmental systems never caught up with. There was a constant hubbub of coming and going, of greetings and farewells. I looked at the faces going by me and noted the various looks–some smiling, some frowning, some thoughtful as if trying to decide something, and others jovially unfocused from having perhaps one or four too many drinks. A cross-section of the universe strolled the deck beside and around me, thickening and becoming more active as the chrono clicked toward the later evening hours in station time.

  I’d forgotten–or perhaps blocked–that The Miller Moth was on the oh-two deck and my circumnavigation of the passageway would take me past the open door. It was coming up on prime time for the pub and a quiet cascade of voices came from inside. I couldn’t help but look in as I walked past and caught sight of Jen behind the bar, smiling and laughing at a customer as she drew him a beer. She didn’t look up and I kept walking steadily.

  Something in that glimpse gave me a certain peace. I couldn’t explain it, but it was as if, peeking into her life from the passage outside underscored what our relationship had been. I really didn’t know what her life was like, day in and day out. Stanyers ago I’d had some romantic notions about how we’d make it work and what life would be like together, but we’d never really been together. We only had these little glimpses into each other’s lives before I left again, leaving her to live her life alone.

  That feeling of being alone crashed over me and made me stumble once as I realized that she wasn’t the only one who’d been lonely. Over the stanyers, my shipmates had become, in a very real sense, my family, but like a family, some part of me was always reserved from them. They were my brothers and sisters, or perhaps cousins, aunts, and uncles, but they were never my wife, never my lover. They offered the companionship against the Dark but never really took away the cold and I realized that I’d been cold for a very, very long time.

  Ahead of me, Over Easy and the lift came into view again around the curve of the passage and I closed the loop on my circuit of the orbital. I felt suddenly very tired. Some part of my brain worked at solving the equation of how much I wanted anything that might be left in the apartment, the function of a desire to just walk away balanced against the salvage rights for an abandoned life. As the lift doors closed behind me, my hand wavered over the button pad.

  I realized that I couldn’t really remember what I might have left in the apartment and I’d be unlikely to miss any of it. Everything that meant anything to me was already aboard ship. The realization saddened me, but also provided a solution to my emotional calculus. I punched the button for the docks and headed for the ship.

  Mr. Schubert logged me back aboard with a sympathetic smile. “Good evening, Skipper.”

  “Hello, Mr. Schubert. How did the co-op do today?”

  “Very well, Captain. We unloaded the last of the leftovers from before and Zack found some really nice tapestries late in the afternoon. We were able to pick up several at a bargain price.”

  I smiled. “There are always better deals in the afternoon, Mr. Schubert.”

  He grinned in return. “So we’re learning, Captain.”

  I headed into the ship and stopped at the door to the mess deck. Ms. Thomas and Mr. Wyatt played chess at the table and Ms. Thomas looked up as I stopped. “Good evening, Skipper. How are you doing this evening?”

  Mr. Wyatt sat in my spot so they could play across the table and be comfortable. When he saw me, he started to get up but I waved him back down. “I’m feeling a little better this evening, thank you, Ms. Thomas, but I think I’m just going to go up to the cabin and get a good night’s sleep.”

  They both smiled sympathetically but offered no words, for which I was grateful.

  I nodded at them and bid them good night before heading up the ladder and stepping into the cabin. The reflection from the side of the orbital just outside the armor glass filled the room with cold, white light and cast the main objects in the room in bold relief. The glare on the pastel yellow walls lent a sickly glow to the room that I’d never really noticed before. I flicked on the overheads, but the added brilliance stabbed my eyes and I shut them off again. My body said it was night-time and I needed less light, not more. I crossed to the sleeping cab
in and pulled the slider shut, throwing the room into near total darkness with only the glow from a bridge repeater on the bulkhead to offer enough light to see by. I stripped out of my uniform and hung it up. I toyed with the idea of putting on a shipsuit, but the weight of fatigue overwhelmed my desire to do anything but wash my face and go to bed.

  As I crossed to my bunk, I did something I couldn’t ever remember doing on board a ship. I stripped out of my ship tee and boxers, tossing them into the cleaner on the way by and slipped my naked body between the cool, crisp sheets. It felt decadent and luxurious, and as the smooth fabric warmed around me, I slid down the soft curve into sleep.

  I woke as gently as I’d gone to sleep, surfacing from dream state to reality in a comfortable warm glow and rolling over to see the chrono on the bulkhead click over from 0522 to 0523. I weighed the hedonistic urge to savor the moment of sleepy comfort against a day’s worth of possibilities, starting with one of Mr. Wyatt’s breakfasts.

  Breakfast won.

  I crawled out of bed and padded naked into the head to do the needful.

  The shower finished waking me and fresh clothing felt good on my skin. As I slipped into my boots, I looked around the sleeping cabin and realized just how sterile the environment was. The sunny yellow color really only made me look jaundiced in the light of the overhead and there was nothing that gave the place any kind of lived-in look. I snorted when I realized that I’d seen hotel rooms with more personality.

  Crossing through the main cabin on my way down to breakfast, I realized that it wasn’t any better. The glare from the orbital’s skin did absolutely nothing for the yellow on the bulkhead, and even the richer color of the bare, accent wall looked muddy and uneven in the light. I eyed the spot above my desk where I still hadn’t framed and mounted my master’s license.

  Mr. Wyatt’s breakfast was as delightful as I’d hoped it might be, a lovely egg-bake with savory sausage and potatoes with a compote of fruit with a yogurty dressing on the the side. Mess was brief and conversations subdued but companionable enough. If they gave me the occasional weighing glance, I didn’t blame them. Ms. Thomas and Mr. Schubert excused themselves after the meal and I helped the chief and Mr. Wyatt clean up, while Mr. Pall got caught up on the OD logs.

  As we finished up, the chief gave me one of her sapphire glances. “Any plans for the day, Skipper?”

  “Yes, actually, I have several errands to run today.” I hadn’t really given it a lot of conscious thought, but my brain had apparently been hard at work while I’d been eating. I smiled at her. “I think it’s time I decorated the cabin.”

  It must have come at her from off the plane of her mental ecliptic because her face went blank for a moment as she processed what I’d said. “Decorate the cabin? You thinking of hanging drapes?” Her tone was light and amused.

  I considered that idea. “Drapes. Hm. I hadn’t actually thought of that, but now that you mention it, I ought to do something there.”

  Her smile became more bemused than amused and she just arched one eyebrow. “I’ll be interested to see what you do with the place, Skipper.” She glanced sideways toward Mr. Wyatt who looked on with a certain amused smile of his own.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I liked the idea. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to see a man about a horse.” I gave them a little smile and headed off to the cabin to retrieve my license before heading down to the chandlery.

  It was only a matter of a couple of ticks and I was checking out at the brow when another thought crossed my mind. “Mr. Ricks? Mr. Schubert said you’d managed to pick up some tapestries yesterday at the flea?”

  “That’s right, Skipper. I think some of them might be rugs actually, but the lady was selling them at a bargain rate at the end of the day so she didn’t have to pack them up and drag them away.” He grinned. “We got a couple of dozen.”

  “May I see them, Mr. Ricks?”

  He shrugged. “Of course, Skipper.” He went to the locker and swung open the doors. He pulled a couple of totes from the shelves and pulled out some heavy hangings. They were in a variety of colors, leaning toward lush earth tones of brown, gold, green, and red. Some were highly textured and others showed bold tribal patterns.

  “Mr. Ricks, these are exquisite.”

  “Thank you, Captain. I thought they’d make us a nice profit at Dree.”

  I grinned at him. “I don’t think you’re going to actually get all of them to Dree before they’re sold, Mr. Ricks.” I pulled four of them from the stack–a large one with a subtle pattern in shades of red, one of the middle sized ones with green and gold, and a pair of small, highly patterned pieces in shades of black and brown. “How much for those, Mr. Ricks?”

  He looked startled. “You’re buying them, Skipper?”

  “Depends on the price, Mr. Ricks.” I grinned at him.

  He shrugged. “You can have them at cost, Skipper. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have any of them.”

  “How much is that, Mr. Ricks?”

  He gave me a price. “That was a good deal, Mr. Ricks. Nicely done.” I pulled out my tablet and credited the co-op’s account with the price he’d given me plus ten percent. “If you’d log these to my mass allotment and set them aside? I’ve some errands to run and I’ll pick them up when I get back.”

  “Of course, Skipper.” He nodded and started re-stowing things while I headed out of the lock and down to the chandlery.

  Arranging for the frame was simple. They stocked several styles of frame and matting and even offered to do the mounting for a modest fee while I waited. I took them up on the offer and went in search of paint. I wasn’t really sure what color I was looking for but with the images of the tapestries fresh in my mind I narrowed the choices down to a few neutral ones before settling on a base color of pale gray with blue overtones and two highly saturated accent colors–a rich, ruby red and midnight blue. I took the paint chips with me and stopped for the license before heading back to the ship. I wasn’t about to buy the paint until I’d checked the colors against the tapestries, but I was pretty sure I had the winning combination in my hand.

  When I got back aboard, Mr. Ricks had my tapestries rolled in a bundle for me. I hefted them under my arm and headed up the ladder. Chief Gerheart saw me from the mess deck and came out to help me wrestle the roll up to the cabin. She chuckled all the way up.

  “What’s so amusing, Chief?”

  “When you said decorate the cabin, you really meant decorate the cabin, Skipper.” She flashed a sapphire-tinged smile in my direction. “I had no idea you were this serious.”

  By then I had the cabin door open and we dropped the tapestries onto the bench under the port. “Just look at this place, Chief.” I waved my arm around at the empty walls, and vacant shelves. “I’ve seen hotels that looked more lived in.”

  She shrugged and nodded her agreement. “Very true, Skipper, but you have had a few things to do since you came aboard.”

  I sighed and nodded, perhaps a bit ruefully. “Very true.” I pulled the framed license out of the box and held it up to the bulkhead. “What do you think, Chief?”

  She nodded. “Looks good.”

  I left the frame on the desk and pulled the bundle of tapestries open, draping the largest one over the table and leaving the smaller ones spread out on the bench. I pulled the paint chips out of my pocket and started holding them up to the tapestries and then the walls.

  The Chief leaned against my desk and observed it all with small smile curving her lips. As she watched me, the amused look shifted to sadly sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Skipper. This has to be hard for you.”

  I didn’t look at her. “Yeah. It’s one of those things. Better late than never, and seriously overdue.” I shrugged. “We try to fix what we can, heal where it’s possible, and keep moving, though, right?” I turned to look at her.

  She nodded shortly and sighed. “Yep. That pretty much sums it up. Sucks to live through, though.”

&n
bsp; I gave my own little shrug of agreement. “Well, yeah.” I held up the dark blue chip to see what the wall with the port on it would look like. “What do you think? Dark blue around the port? The gray-blue on the rest of the walls?”

  She came to look over my shoulder to see what I was seeing. “You’re going to put that big red tapestry on the bulkhead by the door?”

  “Yeah. The other three in the sleeping compartment. Small ones on either side of the rack and the bigger one on the wall beside the door.”

  She looked at the other chips in my hand and pulled the red one out, holding it up beside the blue. “It’s your cabin, but if it were me? I’d put this red around the port. It balances the red you’re gonna have over by the door and that blue gray is neutral enough that the red will stand up and frame the Deep Dark while we’re underway.”

  “What about the blue?”

  “Paint the sleeping room blue. Use the blue-gray as accent color in there on the wall above the head of your bunk. It’ll help keep it from turning into a cave and make a nice foil for those two small tapestries.”

  I spent a half a tick picturing it in my mind’s eye. “Yes. I like that. Thank you, Chief.” I looked at her and she smiled back. “Would you like your stateroom painted?”

  She seemed a bit startled by the idea. “I hadn’t thought of it, Skipper.” I watched her focus shift inward for a heartbeat as she considered it. “Lemme think about it and get back to you.”

  “Sure thing, Chief. Just let me know.”

  She turned and looked around the cabin once more before turning her gaze back on me. “I’ll do that, Skipper.” She smiled then and headed for the door. “Well, I better go check on the tankage. Have fun decorating.”

  The Cabin seemed a lot emptier with her out of it. I sighed before picking up my tablet and placing a call to DST’s office. As luck would have it, Mr. Jameson and his paint crew were available to start work at 1400.