“I prefer to be mobile.” Dansby nodded toward Alexis’ side of the viewport. “There — trailing the station.”
Alexis turned, knowing she’d been put off again, but the chance to see a new ship, her new ship, overcame any curiosity about Dansby.
The station was easy enough to pick out now, a large light, details still indistinct, but clearly what it was. There were any number of smaller lights visible around it, though — ranging from merchantmen to ore carriers to the miners’ small sleds, barely large enough for a man to live in for weeks at a time.
She kept watching as they drew closer. A topsail schooner, Dansby had said, so she’d have three masts, midway back along the hull instead of radiating around the bow as a ship-rigged vessel would have. She couldn’t make out which ship he meant at this distance, but had no doubt Dansby could — and no doubt she’d be able to after sailing in her for a time. A spacer learned to recognize her ship in ways others simply couldn’t.
“The last of my crew will leave as we approach,” Dansby said. Alexis noted that his jaw was a bit tight. “Your lads will have to take it from there.”
“Why are you doing this?” Alexis asked. There had to be something more to it than had been said, she thought. Dansby would certainly never volunteer to help Eades in one of his schemes, and the turnover of the ship all entire, without even an officer known to Dansby aboard, must irk him.
Dansby gave her the grin she’d become so familiar with while traveling with him. “Money, of course.”
Alexis shook her head. Dansby’s light tone and grin aside, the rest of his body belied a tension he didn’t voice.
“No,” she said, “you’re worried about something and don’t like it. I can’t imagine Eades has such a hold over you that it’s worth an entire ship.”
Dansby sighed. “No. But never underestimate him — his hooks have barbs, and they set themselves deep. Remember that in your dealings with him.”
He was silent for a moment, but Alexis let it build. She had a feeling he was working his way toward saying more.
“I can’t return to the Barbary,” he said at last. “I’ve too much history there and too many old … acquaintances. But neither do I like Eades’ sending you there — you’re too much a babe in the woods for that place.”
Alexis raised an eyebrow at that.
“Oh, don’t get your hackles up, Rikki, you’re, what? Sixteen?”
“Nineteen, thank you. Nearly twenty.”
Dansby nodded. “A babe. Oh, you’ve seen things no babe should, and done things no babe ought, but still a babe.”
Alexis thought it a measure of her own gained maturity that she said nothing to this, merely allowing Dansby to go on. She’d learn more from letting him speak than taking offense at his words.
“But, still, I knew when Eades told me of his plan that you’d jump at it, besotted as you are with your young lieutenant. Love turns one’s brains to mush, you know, and at your age the thing’s not fully baked to begin with.”
Yes, I’ll let him keep talking — there’ll be time to shoot him later.
“I can’t go with you and I can’t stop you, so the most I can offer is a decent ship. The Dark knows what sort of tub Eades would find for you, left to his own devices.”
That left unsaid, of course, the why of Dansby’s wanting to help her at all.
“And if you should manage to make your way out of this mad journey, I imagine there’ll be piles of prize money in it.” Dansby grinned again. “Better it fill my purse than another’s.”
He sobered.
“I’ve left you some notes in the log. Systems and people it’ll be safe for you to talk to …” He frowned. “Not safe, no, most of them, but a few who owe me and will want to clear their ledgers of it. Some few of them will be willing to take a ship or two off your hands, as well — closer to the action than any of the prize courts Eades will allow.” He paused again. “There’ll be less red tape involved selling to those, so I’ll expect you not to cheat me too much on ship’s books.”
Oddly, Alexis found that she took more offense to that than to his calling her a “babe” or suggesting her brain wasn’t fully set.
“I’ve never cheated anyone, Mister Dansby, and would not even you.”
Dansby shrugged, working the boat’s controls and altering their course to pass behind a mining sled which was crossing their path.
“No, you wouldn’t, Rikki — and that’s much of what you have to learn, I think. There’s a universe of people who’ll cheat you as their very nature. One has to think a bit like them to recognize that, and I fear you’re ill-prepared for them.”
Alexis bristled at that. “I’ve found most people will behave honestly, if that’s what they receive in turn.”
“Have you really, Rikki?” For the first time since they’d boarded, Dansby took his eyes from the controls and viewport, and met her gaze.
Alexis was surprised at the look in Dansby’s eyes, for it was far softer and more serious than she’d expect of him. The surprise gave her pause, and she considered his words. What had her real experience been in the wider universe off her farmstead?
Her first thoughts were of the officers and “gentlemen” she’d encountered. They were a mixed lot, no doubt — Hermione’s a seeping pile of rot she never hoped to encounter again in life, while she still had Captain Grantham and the officers of Merlin as a sort of ideal to aspire to.
Dansby seemed to view the world so differently than she did, and the difference made her uncomfortable think on.
Dansby was as good as his word about the ship, at least.
As they approached, another boat undocked and sped toward the station. Dansby brought his into contact and waited at the docking tube while her men went aboard. Alexis waited with him, despite the protocol that officers should be the first off a boat.
“You’re not coming aboard?” she asked.
Dansby shook his head. “She’s yours now, until you return.” With that and a last, “Remember, Rikki, keep an eye to my profits,” he fairly shoved her through the tube to the ship and closed the boat’s hatch. A moment later he was undocked and making his way to the station.
Alexis’ first experience of Elizabeth was one of odd, almost eerie, silence. The area near the docking tube was empty except for Isom and Villar, the rest of the crew having scattered to the far points of the ship. First to the berthing deck so as to lay claim to the prime spots and then to explore. Only an occasional shout or laugh echoing from a companionway showed the ship wasn’t still deserted.
Elizabeth’s deck and bulkheads all showed that she was a Dansby ship, with what Alexis knew to be a carefully applied and maintained layer of grime and wear. The effect, as Dansby’d once explained to her, was that of a hard-working merchantman, more concerned with the next cargo than with the spit and polish of a Naval vessel — all in the hopes that the Revenue man would see only what he was supposed to.
Behind that facade, however, she knew that Elizabeth’s systems would be well-, almost lovingly-, maintained, especially those concerned with Dansby’s primary business.
“Have some of the likelier lads begin a search for hidden compartments, will you?” Alexis asked. “I’d like to know about any illicit cargoes aboard before we’re stopped and searched by our own Revenue people.”
“Aye, sir,” Villar said. “And a steady man with each search party, in case they find something the crew shouldn’t get into.”
“Indeed.”
Elizabeth’s plan placed the quarterdeck and master’s cabin forward, so they made their way there.
The hatch to the master’s cabin slid open at Alexis’ touch. Dansby having keyed it to her before leaving the ship, and he’d simply used her biometric data stored when she was aboard Marylin with him. It bothered her a bit that he’d kept that so handy as to have it available to him now.
The cabin’s deck carried the same worn, patina of artfully applied grime as the rest of the ship, though the furni
shings were neat and reasonably clean.
“Mister Villar?”
“Sir?”
“We’re a bit under-crewed even for an easy sail and with Elizabeth’s sail plan,” Alexis said. “I’ll not want the lads overworked, but I’d admire it did we put a bit of polish on the ship.” She nodded at the deck and the corridor walls. “If you take my meaning?”
“I do, sir.”
“The ‘poor merchant’ ruse is well enough for Dansby’s business, I suppose, but we’ll have no need of it as a private ship. You’ll see she’s squared away?”
“Aye, sir.”
Alexis frowned. Would that do, really? Or would the men balk at Naval standards of cleanliness aboard when they weren’t, strictly speaking, a Naval crew?
Well, Naval or not, they were her crew, and she’d have her ship at her standards.
Her ship.
More than any other, Elizabeth would be hers, with no Admiralty to answer to — no one to answer to, in fact, other than possibly Eades and Dansby, her ostensible “sponsors”.
Oh, Eades’ involvement might make her more “official” than the typical private ship, but there’d be no admirals or senior captains looking over her shoulder.
Nor looking out for me, come to that.
She’d be nearly entirely on her own bottom out there in the Barbary, with little in the way of support, either.
No matter. It won’t be the first time I’ve had no one to depend on but my lads.
The degree of independence and freedom from Naval traditions, though, might have at least one additional benefit.
“One more thing, Mister Villar?”
“Sir?”
“Yes, that.”
Villar frowned, and Alexis grinned at his confusion.
“It’s always struck me as a bit of nonsense, that form of address.” She could see that Villar wasn’t understanding. “That ‘sir’ business. If we’re a private ship, then we’re not bound by Naval conventions. The merchants and other navies don’t adhere to that, do they?”
“No, sir.” Villar paused, then returned her grin. “I suppose not. Ma’am, then?”
Alexis started to nod, then stopped. “Why do I picture the village schoolmarm when you say that?”
“I couldn’t say … ma’am. But it does seem … unsuited to you.”
“Indeed.”
Isom poked his head in from her pantry. “Perhaps ‘miss’?”
Villar nodded. “I did note that was what the folk on your lands called you.”
His calling them her lands reminded her once again that they would, indeed, be hers, and that there was a bit of running from it in her taking on Elizabeth. She’d have to give a great deal of thought to her feelings about the lands and those responsibilities over the next few months.
“That is what they use,” she allowed. “Though it’s not quite right — it’s what one calls a girl, which might be appropriate to my age, and although they say it with respect, I’ve always felt there was a tiny bit of … I don’t know, condescension in the word.”
Villar nodded. “Perhaps. It does have that sort of flavor to it — rather like when the older hands call a snotty ‘sir,’ as well.”
“Yes, exactly like that. As though one has the position of authority without the experience and we’ll just humor him, shall we?”
“I’m not certain what else could be … ‘mistress’, perhaps?”
“I think not. I’ve no intention of marrying anytime soon.”
Villar grinned. “Well, they do say a captain’s married to their ship, so …” He sobered and cleared his throat at her glare. “So that’s right out, then.”
Alexis sighed. Was there really not a term for a woman in authority that carried the same sort of gravity and meaning?
“We’ll give it some thought,” she said finally. “Not too much, mind you, as there’s plenty of real work to do.”
“Aye … sir?”
“It’ll do for now, I suppose.” In truth, she’d been in the Navy so long that anything else seemed unnatural.
They’ve trained me to it, I suppose.
Villar left to see the crew settled and Alexis closed the hatch behind him.
She surveyed the master’s cabin, her cabin now.
Dansby had cleared out his things, as all his crew had, so the space was bare of personal items.
The mode of address still bothered her for some reason. She supposed she should just go with “ma’am,” as the merchants and other navies did — though the exact term used in those navies might carry some other weight, coming from a different language, as it did.
Regardless, there were a hundred other things more pressing in Elizabeth’s fitting out and sailing that were of more import.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, seeming to feel the ship settle about her. She’d give the crew a bell or two to find their places and look about their new home, then take a second tour of the vessel and see them set at their tasks. She could hear Isom rattling about in the pantry, seeing to her supplies and his own items, as that would be his berth and her cabins his domain.
The hatch slid open and she opened her eyes to glance that way, expecting some question or aside from him.
Instead it was the vile creature, darting through into her cabins.
It leapt to her tabletop, rose on its hind legs and chittered at her for a moment, as though laughing at her, then was off in a flash into her sleeping cabin.
She felt her lips twitch, then forced them down into a disapproving frown.
“Isom! The creature’s loose again! If my bedding’s soiled by it, I swear by the Dark I’ll see it spaced before we clear the Lagrangian point!”
Twelve
Alexis chose to bypass Zariah and seek a full crew on Penduli. Elizabeth was an easily handed ship for sailing and those men she had could manage it for the trip — sailing straight for Penduli shaved a fortnight or more off the transit time, and she was in a hurry to seek out word of Delaine.
As well, the Prize Court at Zariah, primarily a Mister Bramley, was sending her regular letters about her prize award from years ago on her first cruise. The Prize Court then had muddled the facts and reports so badly that they’d had Alexis and only a few others taking a pirate ship themselves, thus awarding the capture’s full value. No one, not even her captain at the time nor the ship’s full crew, had begrudged it. Those with her had collected hundreds of pounds for the one ship and she herself had several thousand.
Bramley, however, had taken some dislike to her on her last cruise and set about investigating her past. His letters, demanding the whereabouts of all those crew members — which Alexis certainly didn’t know — and the location of everyone’s awarded prize money, grew more querulous with every arrival.
Alexis was certain he’d receive some notification of her arrival at Zariah and track her down, so best to avoid that. Penduli would certainly have enough idle hands to crew Elizabeth.
She was also unsure of how locating a crew would actually work, but Penduli was a major Naval station, with dozens of ships laid up in ordinary after the cessation of hostilities with Hanover. Thousands of men would have been paid off and at loose ends, and the merchant traffic couldn’t have absorbed them all, no matter how lessened by impressment their crews had been during the war.
With so small a crew and Elizabeth’s full hold of stores, she could have, in fact, made the trip nonstop, but Alexis did make port calls at some systems for fresh supplies and news, and at each stop there were a few prospects looking for a berth. They reached Penduli System some six hands greater than they’d left Dalthus, but Alexis began to question whether she’d manage to field a full crew at all.
Her worries grew when they finally docked and there was no one at the berth in response to the announcement she’d sent to the station’s newsfeeds.
“What did you place, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?” Villar asked.
“The same as all the other systems we’ve stopped
in,” Alexis said. She brought the station’s feed up on her tablet and showed him.
Spacers Wanted
Former Royal Navy Preferred
For action in the Barbary
Standard wages and prize distribution
Apply at the private ship Elizabeth
Penduli Station, Quayside
“I … see,” Villar said.
“Hhmm,” Isom added, reading over his shoulder.
“What?” Alexis asked. “Is it not good?”
“It is … straightforward,” Villar said.
Isom pursed his lips. “Lacks a certain …”
“Something,” Villar supplied.
“Aye, a something,” Isom said.
“What ‘something’?” Alexis asked. “It’s perfectly factual.”
“Well, yes … yes, it is.” Isom nodded. “Factual is a thing, I suppose.”
“Indeed. Entirely factual.”
“And there is the ship’s name,” Isom said.
“You did say she’d be renamed,” Villar said.
“Well, yes, but I really haven’t thought of anything … I supposed we’d do that prior to reaching the Barbary.”
“Hhm,” Isom said.
“What?”
“It’s only that, well …”
“It lacks something, sir,” Villar said. “For a private ship, I mean.”
Alexis stared at them for a moment.
“I suppose you two think you could do better?”
Villar rose quickly. “Happy to help, sir, we’ll just …” He gestured for the hatch and Isom rushed to open it.
“Yes,” Isom said, “don’t you worry on it. We’ll just …”
“Give it …” Villar shared a look with Isom.
“Something.”
“Aye, something, sir. Never you worry.”
Thirteen
SPACERS WANTED!
Men of Heart! Men of Action!
Ship paid off and left you IN-ATMOSPHERE?
Are your fortunes still held HOSTAGE by the Navy's PRIZE COURT?
Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5) Page 9
