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

by Nathan Lowell

  The first one nodded back. “Oh, yeah, but he’s about dead on his feet, aren’t ya, lovey?”

  Mr. Herring nodded unevenly. “Yeah. Ready to bunk it I think.” He turned blurry eyes to his buxom companions and managed a credible leer even in his condition. “You ladies wanna come tuck me in?”

  They giggled a bit, and looked at me a trifle guiltily. The one on the left patted his arm and said, “Not tonight, lovey. Maybe another time, huh? Next time you come back to Ten Volt, huh?”

  The two of them released his arms, and held him up for a moment. When they let him go, he swayed but seemed to hold his ground.

  The spokesman for the group nodded to me. “Thanks, Captain. He’s a good guy, but he needs to go home before he keels over.”

  “Thank you, miss.” I said with a nod and a smile.

  They each gave a little wave, and headed back down the docks toward the lift.

  “Come on, Mr. Herring. Let’s get back to the ship, shall we?”

  In a few ticks we had him safely aboard, and deposited in his bunk, clothes and all. I hoped he wouldn’t make a mess before he sobered up. He didn’t seem that far gone, having walked up the ramp, and climbed the ladder under his own power, mostly. I clicked off the light and closed the door.

  When I got back to the cabin, I brought up my console, and sealed the lock. It wouldn’t open until I released the seal. It would not stop anybody from sending messages—or embarrassing photos if they had any—but it would serve to keep the more peripatetic members in the crew from wandering off again. We needed to get underway, and I could neither wait nor waste time searching the orbital seeking lost sheep when it came time to pull out.

  I pushed it all out of my mind, and buried myself in the neglected astrogation updates. I would need those before I could lay in the course for Diurnia. Around 2330, I wrapped it up and felt better about the course plot. As first mate, and then captain, somebody else worried about the minutiae of astrogation for me. I had forgotten how much work it was—and how much fun.

  As I stripped down to ship-tee and boxers, I wished I felt as good about the course Ms. Maloney and I should take with the crew. The idea that we would set them up didn’t seem exactly fair, but somebody was compromising Ms. Maloney’s security—and probably mine as well—by letting the newsies know where she was, and what she was doing. On the one hand I couldn’t really think of what harm that might be doing. On the other, it seemed like a pretty clear violation of our trust. The two notions chased themselves around the inside of my head until I fell asleep.

  Unfortunately when I woke the next morning, not only had I not resolved them, but I felt like I had been in there physically running around with them. When I peeled my eyes open for what felt like the twentieth time and saw the chrono read 0512, my brain declared it morning and I crawled out of the bunk.

  A stinging shower woke me up a bit, and moving around got the blood flowing. I dug in my grav trunk for a fresh shipsuit, and clipped on an old, slightly tarnished pair of stars, the first pair I ever owned. I needed inspiration, and hoped that Grandfather deGrut had some for me. Either way, we would be underway by day’s end. Sailing for what I still considered home port.

  Crossing the passage to the galley, I saw Ms. Maloney already at work, and smelled the aromas of bacon, coffee, and frying onions. She had the big griddle out, and worked on a pile of potatoes and onions that looked big enough to feed three crews.

  “Good morning, Ms. Maloney. Sleep well?” I crossed to the urn and drew off a fresh mug. Closing my eyes, I sipped appreciatively.

  “Not particularly, Captain. How about you?” She glanced at me before running the heavy steel spatula through the potatoes and onions on the griddle again.

  “About the same. But I got a course laid in. Soon as the cargo gets here, we’re ready to sail.”

  “Any ideas on what we talked about last night, sar?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what’s most likely to attract the attention. I’d hate to go through that and not have the story picked up.”

  She straightened up for a moment, and looked at me, the spatula held loosely in her hand. “Sex, money, and violence. Any combination of those would work.” Her mouth curled into a wry grin.

  I grimaced. “Ok, so we need to convince one of them that I’m sleeping with you, another that you’re—what? Buying the ship?”

  She nodded, weighing them in her mind. “Those might work.”

  “What about a third?”

  She scraped the potatoes and onions around thoughtfully for a moment. “How about we’re conspiring to take over DST?”

  “Well, you are, aren’t you?” I asked. “I mean that’s kinda the point of this exercise, isn’t it?” I flourished my cup around a bit. “To get you in control of the company?”

  She shrugged and nodded. “Yes, but what if we’re conspiring to do an end-around, and do a pre-emptive take down of Jarvis?”

  “Can we do that?”

  She looked at me with a grin. “I don’t know. Can we have a torrid affair? You planning on selling the ship?”

  “Oh.” I felt a bit of a fool and sipped my coffee. “Yeah.”

  “Ok, who do we tell what?” She asked.

  “Ms. Arellone will find our affair most shocking.”

  “Chief Bailey would feel the same way about Jarvis.”

  I shrugged. “Ok, then we only have to convince Mr. Herring that you’re about to buy my ship out from under me.”

  “Agreed,” she said, tossing a pinch of salt over the mixture on the griddle.

  I stood there sipping coffee and admiring her technique on the griddle for a while, enjoying the silence, and thinking about the voyage ahead.

  “I’ll be back, Ms. Maloney. Make mine over easy, if you please.”

  “Aye, aye, sar.” She shot me a smile, and saluted with the edge of the spatula. I headed for the cabin.

  I needed to unseal the locks and get ready for the cargo delivery. It was also a good time to catch up on the logs, and the smell of that pile of potatoes and onions was making me drool down the front of my shipsuit.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Ten Volt Orbital:

  2373-February-2

  The cargo crew showed up right at 0800. At 0930 I buttoned up the lock for departure. I had planned to get underway at 1500, but securing the cargo early meant we could move that up a bit.

  I found the chief in the galley, having a cup of coffee, and I had the odd feeling that I had interrupted a conversation between him and Ms. Maloney, although they both greeted me easily enough.

  “Chief? Are we ready for space? Tanks topped off and engines warm?”

  “Oh, no, Cap. Tanks are good, sure, but the kickers are still cold. You want me to warm ’em up? I can do that, of course I can.”

  “If you’d be so kind, Chief? I’d like to shake the dust off and head for Diurnia as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, aye, Cap. I’ll do that right now, see if I don’t.” With that he stood, topped off his coffee cup, and ambled aft toward engineering.

  “Moving up the departure, Captain?” Ms. Maloney asked.

  “I think so. I need to see how fast he can warm up the engines, and I’ll have to refile my departure request, but I’d like to get out of here as soon as we can.”

  “Any particular reason, Captain?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing to stay for. We’ve got the cargo, and it’s too late to take on passengers now even if the endorsement shows up.” I followed the chief’s example and filled my coffee cup. “Will that hurt your mess plans, Ms. Maloney?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve got a pot of minestrone soup today, sar. That restaurant last night was wonderful, and I thought it would make a nice reminder. We can eat when we want.”

  “You’re making more of your bread?”

  She jerked a thumb at a large cloth-covered bowl in a corner of her work counter. “Should be ready in time.”

  “Excellent.” I smiled at her. Looki
ng at her puttering about in the galley, I had a hard time thinking of her as the new CEO of DST. “You think you can stick this out for a whole stanyer, Ms. Maloney?”

  She picked up a side towel, and wiped her hands on it while she considered the question, looking around the galley before looking back at me. “Yes, sar. I think so.”

  “Good,” I said with a grin, “because this is some of the best food I’ve had anywhere—underway or ashore.”

  She smiled her thanks with a nod of her head.

  Another thought crossed my mind, and I tossed my head in the direction the chief has just gone. “Did the chief offer any explanation about leaving you stranded for the day?”

  She shook her head. “He asked for the time to stretch his legs. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t planning on going ashore. I told him to go, take all the time he needed.”

  I snorted.

  “Yes, well. He took me at my word, apparently. I think I need to be a little more specific from now on.”

  “Is he competent?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve always thought so. I’ve never been troubled when he’s with me.”

  “What about when he’s not with you?”

  She gave me a baleful stare. “And when would that be, Captain?”

  “What about the night out you had with Ms. Arellone?”

  She thought for a moment. “You know, that was fun.” She smiled at the memory. “And I made her stop all the cloak and dagger stuff.”

  “And...?” I asked. “Were you bothered?”

  She frowned. “No.” She shook her head and added, “but that’s the nature of it. Just because we weren’t bothered that night, doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have been the next.”

  “Doesn’t mean you would, either,” I pointed out. “What’s happened to cause all this fear?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just the way we do business, Captain.”

  “I still say it’s elephant repellent,” I told her with a sigh.

  “Elephant repellant, Captain? There are no elephants out here.”

  I arched an eyebrow.

  “Oh,” she said, but I could see she was thinking about it.

  I considered Mr. Pall and his insistence on pirates, staring dumbly into my mug before I remembered I needed to adjust my course plots, and file for a new departure time. “If we go to navigation stations at 1100, will that get in the way of lunch, Ms. Maloney.”

  “Yes, although I can shift it.”

  I shook my head. “Never mind. I’ll ask for a 1300 slot. That’ll give the chief time to heat up the auxiliaries, and we can eat before we pull out.”

  “That sounds good, Captain.”

  I toasted her with my mug in farewell, and headed up to the bridge to make sure everything would be in order for the departure.

  The rest of the morning ticked down without incident, and I even managed to catch up on my paperwork. I think part of it was avoidance. I just didn’t want to think about the levels of intrigue. Dealing with paperwork, writing up the log entries—that was all much easier.

  At noon, Ms. Maloney opened the lunch mess, and our long absent Mr. Herring dragged himself to the galley for some sustenance. He moved slowly and carefully, but I had to admit he didn’t look as bad as I thought he should have. I admired his youthful vigor.

  “You look like you had fun at Ten Volt, Perc,” Ms. Arellone teased. “Do you remember any of it?”

  He grinned tentatively and glanced around the table as if not too sure how much he should say in mixed company, officers being present and all. “I think I remember most of it. It kinda blended together after a while, and I didn’t sleep much.”

  “Do you remember the pair we found you with?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Oh, yes. Bets and Anna. Nice women. We—um...” He looked around and I could see him editing his planned remarks, slowly but at least he made the effort. “We danced a lot. They introduced me to a few of the regulars in port, some of the locals. There’s a lot of people on the local run between Foxclaw, Kazyanenko, and here. We saw you all one night, coming out of a restaurant.”

  “Danced a lot?” Ms. Arellone looked skeptical.

  He might have blushed a bit. As hung over as he was, it was a bit difficult to tell. He didn’t say anything, just offered a small shrug.

  “Horizontal mambo, probably,” Ms. Arellone muttered into her soup, and Ms. Maloney laughed once before regaining her composure.

  Something Mr. Herring said set me off. “‘We’, Mr. Herring?”

  “Sar?”

  “You said, ‘We saw you all one night.’ We who?”

  “Oh, I don’t know who all, sar. Bets and Anna for sure, but there was a pack of us most of the time.”

  “Where did you see us, Mr. Herring?”

  “Oh, up on deck seven or eight maybe? I’m not sure. We were sitting at one of the cafes having a few ... that is.” He looked around. “Trying to decide where to go for dinner.”

  Ms. Maloney hid a small smile, but her eyes never left Herring.

  “And you saw whom, Mr. Herring?” I asked again.

  “Oh.” He frowned. “Well, it was you, Captain, and Ms. Maloney.” He nodded at her. He looked at the chief but then at Ms. Arellone. “And Ms. Arellone.”

  “That’s pretty good remembering for something that happened so long ago, Mr. Herring.”

  “Well, they were all excited to see you, sar.”

  “The party you were with, Mr. Herring?”

  “Yes, sar. When they saw you come out one of the locals—a guy, Sammy? Sandy?” He shrugged. “I’m not sure which. He pointed you out and everybody was calling you ‘Flyboy.’” He grinned. “You earned me a few drinks that night.”

  “I did?”

  “You did, sar. I told ’em right out that you were Captain Ishmael Wang, sar. They seemed to know already, and were impressed that I knew you, and the names of the rest of the crew.”

  “Really,” I said, beginning to get a very bad feeling where this conversation was going. “And you pointed out, Ms. Arellone?”

  “Oh, yes, sar.” He turned to her and winked. “Couple of the guys thought you looked pretty nice, too.”

  “And who did you say she was?” I asked with a nod to Ms. Maloney.

  “Oh, well, I told them that was our cook, Ms. Maitland.”

  “And did they believe you?”

  “Well, sure, Captain. They even took some pictures of you through the window.”

  Ms. Maloney and I shared a look and I sighed.

  “Where’d you meet them—Bets and Anna?” I asked.

  “Oh, they were walking just ahead of me on the dock when I left the ship, sar. We all wound up in the lift heading down to the oh-two.” He grinned shyly. “Anna said I was cute.”

  Ms. Maloney just shook her head and sighed. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

  “Oh, they were fun enough, Ms. Maloney, but I wouldn’t call them babes,” Mr. Herring said with a grin.

  It was so unexpected I laughed, and so did Ms. Maloney. I don’t know if I laughed because of his comment or from the relief. Ms. Arellone looked at us like we were crazy.

  I turned to the chief and asked my traditional questions. “Are we ready for space, Chief?”

  “Oh, aye, Cap, we’re ready to fly.”

  “Tanks topped and spares loaded?”

  “Aye, Cap. Tanks are topped, see if they’re not, and spares are full. The kickers are hot, and the generators are on safety standby, sar, aren’t they? Sure they are.”

  “Well, then Ms. Maloney, do we have stores and supplies sufficient to our voyage?”

  “We do, Captain. Stores and supplies are full and ready for space.”

  I looked around the table. “Anybody know any reason why we shouldn’t go?”

  They all grinned back at me.

  “Well, then? What are we waiting for?”

  By 1250, we’d cleared the table, and stowed the leftovers. I called the crew to navigation stations, and put Ms. Arellone on t
he helm. Ms. Maloney took her customary seat in front of the consoles, and I took the engineering chair while the chief worked in engineering.

  At 1300 traffic control sent us the go, and I released the docking clamps. Ms. Arellone pushed us back on maneuvering jets, and we skated smoothly back, made our orientation turn, and grabbed the beam. By 1330 we cleared local traffic, and I secured the navigation detail, freeing Ms. Maloney to go finish lunch clean up, and Mr. Herring to get a few stans of sleep before taking the watch at 1800. In less than two weeks, we’d be back on Diurnia.

  I sat with Ms. Arellone on the bridge while we cruised out to the safety threshold, and walked her through the process of raising the sails. As we got the fields trimmed, her smile transformed into a grin.

  “So, what do you think, Ms. Arellone? It’s a long way from the brig.”

  She shot me an amused look. “It is that, Captain.” She paused and checked her console again. “And, Captain?” She turned to look at me. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, Ms. Arellone.” We sailed along in companionable silence for a time before I asked, “Why do you think I need a bodyguard, Ms. Arellone?”

  She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “It seemed like you’d need somebody to keep the gold diggers at bay, sar. When we left the Agamemnon, you were heading off to be the orbital’s most eligible bachelor.” She didn’t look at me. “And you looked out for me. I talked to Ms. Thomas and Mr. Wyatt about you, and they seemed to think you’d need some help, too.”

  “Did they put you up to it?” I asked, more curious than anything.

  “Oh, no, sar.” She looked at me. “I went to them about going with you, because I felt bad about leaving them short-handed, and I thought maybe they’d talk me out of it.”

  “They didn’t, though, did they?”

  She shook her head. “No, they seemed to think it was a good idea.”

  We rode for a while then she added shyly. “Ms. Thomas said she thought you’d need somebody to take care of.” She looked at me sideways. “I thought that was funny because I thought you needed somebody to take care of you.”

  “You’ve done a good job, Ms. Arellone.”

  I saw her smile in the dim light of the bridge. “Thank you, sar.” She looked back at her console. “So have you.”