Shooting the Rift - eARC

by Alex Stewart

  I slowed my pace a little as I drew nearer the towering hemisphere into which my new home was nestled, although, of course, I could see nothing of the ship itself—nor would there have been anything particularly interesting about it if I’d been able to. All starships looked pretty much alike, metal spheres completely featureless apart from the outlines of their external hatches, with only their sizes varying. Of course you could tell a lot from the number of hatches, and where they were placed, but you’d have to be a pretty obsessive ship-spotter (or a Navy brat like me) to do so, even if you could get close enough to the hull to take a look.

  As I approached the nearest hatch, I found my ‘sphere beginning to clutter with data blurts, mostly to, from, and between the steady procession of drones entering the vessel with stacked pallets, or scooting back out again unladen. The nexus of all the activity seemed to be a heavyset man in disheveled coveralls, sporting a Guild patch on one sleeve, and a rough circle of cleaner cloth on the other where a similar badge had been recently ripped away. I sent a brief ident, and he looked across at me just long enough to scowl.

  “What do you want?” he snapped, even though the packet I’d just sent had contained all my personal details.

  “I’m Simon Forrester,” I said, refusing to rise to it. “Captain Remington’s expecting me.” If anything, the scowl intensified. “This is the Stacked Deck?” I added, although the ident still being broadcast in the background left no room for doubt about that.

  “It is now.” If anything, the question seemed to make matters worse, and the fellow glared at me with undisguised loathing. He jerked a head in the direction of the open hatch. “If he’s expecting you, you’d better find the captain.” The last word contained enough venom to fell an ox. “Some of us have work to do.”

  “Thanks,” I said. One of us could be civil, at least. Leaving him to vent his anger on the uncomplaining drones, I made my way across the threshold of the hatch, and found myself, for the first time in my life, standing on the deck of a starship.

  “Hi.” I turned, startled. Lost for a moment in the realization of my life’s ambition, and trying to orientate myself in the cavernous space of the cargo hold, I’d failed to notice I wasn’t alone. My interlocutor smiled at me in a guardedly friendly fashion. “You’re going to get squished if you stand there,” she added.

  “Squished. Right,” I said, pirouetting out of the way of a drone cradling something large, heavy, and wrapped in a tarp. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her smile spread. “You’re a pretty good mover.”

  “I’ve done some athletics,” I said, conscious as I spoke that it was a lame thing to say.

  “I’ll bet you have.” She was about my own age, quite pretty in a gamine sort of way, and dressed in the same kind of coverall as the fellow outside. In her case, though, there was a crew patch on her left sleeve instead of a patch of bare cloth, newer and cleaner than the rest of the garment: a fanned quintet of cards, with Stacked Deck overlaid on what looked to my inexpert eye like an unbeatable hand. (At least in the games I was familiar with—I’d no doubt there were far more variations than I’d ever heard of played out among the stars.) The girl looked me up and down in the appraising fashion I’d long grown used to, but with an easy friendliness that made a welcome and refreshing change. Then she stuck out a hand. “Clio Rennau.”

  “Simon Forrester.” I bowed formally, and began to raise her hand to my lips, as Avalonian etiquette demanded on first meeting a lady. Clio laughed, seized mine in a surprisingly firm grip, and pumped it energetically for a couple of seconds.

  “Just a handshake will do.” She regarded me from under her fringe. “You’re a fast one. I can see I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”

  “My apologies.” I felt a warm flush of embarrassment rising up my neck. “No offense was intended, I can assure you.”

  “Just teasing, Si.” She flashed me another smile. “That was just what people do around here when they meet someone new, right?”

  “Right.” I nodded, relieved not to have offended her. “I can see I’ve a lot to learn.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Another solar system, another set of customs to get your head around. That’s the advantage of being in the Guild, of course. Everyone adjusts to us instead. Saves a lot of time.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, feeling even more out of my depth than ever.

  “Good.” Her demeanor became suddenly businesslike, and she nodded at my baggage. “Is that all your kit?”

  “Yes,” I said. Two carryalls and a rucksack. Not much to pack an entire life into. But Clio was nodding approvingly.

  “Just the essentials, then. You’re off to a good start.” The grin surfaced again for a moment. “You won’t believe how much some dirtwalkers think they can bring aboard.”

  “Dirtwalkers?” I asked, and a flicker of embarrassment passed across her face.

  “Planet dwellers. It’s just an expression. Not disparaging.” She paused for a second, tact and candor at war in her features. “Not very, anyway. And besides, you’re not one, are you? Not any more.”

  “I hope not,” I said, finding to my vague surprise that it was true. “But Captain Remington said I had to make it to Numarkut before he’d make up his mind about taking me on.” I hesitated a second, then decided I might as well ask. “That is the right thing to call him, right? But the guy outside was a real grouch about it.”

  “I’ll bet he was,” Clio said, with a sympathetic smile. “But don’t mind Dad. He’s just still pissed about losing the ship to John.”

  “What?” I felt as though someone had just switched the gravity in a different direction. “You used to own the Stacked Deck?”

  “No, Dad used to own the Sleepy Jean.” She began to lead the way through a labyrinth of cargo containers, exchanging brief greetings with the handful of people we met along the way. A couple were clearly part of the crew, sporting the same hand of cards patch as my self-appointed guide, but how many of the others were among my new shipmates, or just dock workers aboard to help supervise the stowage, I had no idea. “New skipper, new name. It’s a Guild thing.”

  “Right.” I hesitated for a moment, before curiosity won out over tact. “What happened?”

  Clio shrugged. “Long story. Short version: John paid off some people we owed, and took over the ship as collateral. Good deal for everyone, except Dad’s too pig-headed to see it.” She led the way up a flight of stairs to a catwalk near the ceiling of the hold, on which my boot soles echoed loudly enough to be heard even above the clamor of the cargo being stowed beneath us. From up here it was easy to see the layout, which, conventionally enough, was a blunt-ended wedge, an eighth the circumference of the vessel: I had no doubt that there were seven more holds identical to it completing the circle. The blank wall at the end, towards which we were now walking, would be one side of an octagon, giving access to the slightly smaller holds above and below, and, higher and lower than them, the crew quarters and utility areas containing the ship’s propulsion and life support systems. A large cargo elevator would run between the hold levels, but, glancing down and through the massive open doors, I could just see the platform on the lower tier, locked down, while the handling drones flitted directly up and down the shaft.

  “It must have been hard on you both, though,” I said. “Losing your ship like that.”

  Clio shrugged again. “Ships change hands all the time,” she said. “He’ll get her back, or take on a new one—just got to wait for the right opportunity.” Which all sounded astonishingly casual to me, but then Guilders were different: something I supposed I’d get used to in time.

  “What did your mother think about it?” I asked, more for something to say than anything else, and Clio glanced back at me, looking surprised.

  “All for it. Who did you think we owed?”

  “I see.” At least I thought I did. “And I thought my parents didn’t get along too well.”

  “They get along great,
” Clio said, a faint frost entering her voice. “But a deal’s a deal. Can’t renege on a contract, whoever it’s with.” So at least one of my preconceptions about Guilders seemed to be true.

  “Do you see much of her?” I asked, conscious of skirting a conversational minefield. I was acutely aware that I was going to be spending a lot of time aboard the Stacked Deck, at least if things went as well as I hoped, and I needed to be making friends among her crew. At least Clio seemed to be making allowances for my naivety, although I’d clearly got off on the wrong foot with her dad.

  “Whenever we’re in the same system.” Clio led the way through a doorway at the end of the catwalk, and I found myself in a stairwell, between the inner and outer walls of the central octagon. As she started to climb a few steps ahead of me, I found myself appreciating the view rather more than I suppose I ought to have done. “We’ll find you some quarters, then you can officially report to the skipper.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I agreed, as we reached a landing and my field of vision became less distractingly callipygian. Beyond another door was a corridor, painted in some muted shade of not-quite white, which was probably supposed to seem warmer and less harsh in the overhead lighting, but didn’t. A strip of carpet, in varying hues of stain, completed the effect, which reminded me of nothing so much as my old student dorm back at Summerhall; certainly the last thing I’d have expected aboard a starship.

  “This one’s free,” Clio said, stopping outside a random door and tugging it open. It slid aside easily, and I stepped through, finding myself in a small stateroom, barely the size of Aunt Jenny’s guest quarters. For all that, it was more spacious than I’d expected. “Head’s through here.” She indicated a door I’d taken for a closet, but which indeed led to a small private bathroom, almost big enough for a grown adult to stand in without banging their elbows on both walls at once. “Okay?”

  “More than okay,” I assured her. “I’d thought there’d just be a communal one.”

  “Guilders like their privacy,” Clio told me. “Especially on a ship this size. Otherwise things can get . . . tense.”

  “I guess so,” I agreed, happy to take her word for it. “How many people are there aboard?”

  “Seventeen, last time I looked,” Clio said. “Counting you.”

  “Seventeen,” I said. I was no expert, but that seemed pretty low for a ship this size. The Queen Kylie’s Revenge had almost two hundred officers and ratings aboard; all right, a lot of them were gunners, or other specialists a civilian cargo barge had no use for, but even so . . .

  Clio nodded, clearly reading the doubt on my face. “It is a bit high,” she said, “but John’s a soft touch. Doesn’t like to split families.” She shot another appraising glance in my direction. “Or lose the chance of a bit of goodwill from a regular client.”

  “I’m sure he and my aunt have the measure of each other,” I said, trying not to think too hard about our earlier conversation on the subject.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Clio agreed, with a faint smile. She glanced at my kitbags, still lying on the bunk where I’d dumped them. “Do you want to unpack now, or go see the skipper?”

  “Skipper,” I said. Stowing my few remaining belongings would only take a handful of minutes, and I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with the captain. The trip to Numarkut wouldn’t take very long, and I felt I’d need every moment of it to make a good enough impression to be allowed to join the crew on a permanent basis.

  “Skipper it is,” Clio agreed, stepping back into the corridor to make enough room for me to leave.

  I followed, and slid the door closed, tripping the latch. “How do you lock it?” I asked, after a moment of fumbling.

  “Lock it?” Clio looked surprised. “Why would you want to?” Sure enough, on closer examination, none of the doors in the corridor seemed to have locking plates.

  “Security? Privacy?” I ventured.

  “No one’s going to steal anything,” Clio told me, looking faintly offended. “Where would they go afterwards? But if it really matters to you . . .” She pulled a reasonably clean handkerchief from her pocket, and draped it over the handle. “No one’ll go in now.”

  “Really?” I glanced up and down the corridor; sure enough, a few of the other doors had pieces of cloth tied to them, apparently indicating a desire for privacy on the part of the occupants—as we passed one, I heard what sounded like the echoes of energetic carnal congress within, and I picked up my pace a little, trying to look casual.

  Clio smirked. “Not many prudes on a starship,” she said, reading my embarrassment rather too easily.

  “I’ll let you know if I find any,” I retorted, failing to fool her for a second.

  CHAPTER NINE

  In which my first voyage commences, and I’m sent to fetch tea.

  Captain Remington was, as I’d expected, on the bridge, though not, as I’d expected, barking orders at his subordinates in the way that my mother would have been. I’d half hoped and half expected Clio to accompany me the whole way, but after steering me back to the stairwell she simply meshed our ‘spheres for a moment and transferred a schematic of the Stacked Deck across to mine.

  You can’t miss it, she assured me, and clattered back down the stairs to resume whatever job it was in the cargo hold that my arrival had interrupted.

  In that, at least, she was right; a couple of flights further up, and I was in the nerve center of the entire ship. I must admit that, crossing the threshold, I felt a little tingle of excitement—which fizzled out almost immediately, as soon as the realization sank in that actually it was just a room full of stuff not doing anything particularly interesting, including the captain. Unlike the virts, no one was striding purposefully across the middle of the room with an urgent message, or gazing intently at complicated instrument panels. Indeed, there were very few of those, mostly powered down, and the ones that were activated were simply repeating dataflow that was cascading through the fringes of my ‘sphere. The ship, it seemed, was flown by neuroware interface, with the physical controls just there for backup.

  “You made it, then,” Remington greeted me, glancing up from the chair in which he was sprawled, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. He licked a smear of escaping mayonnaise from his fingers.

  “Simon Forrester, reporting for duty,” I said, suppressing the urge to bow formally as I spoke. Clio’s reaction to my Avalonian greeting had put me on my guard, and I resolved to act a little more casually around my new shipmates, at least until I got a handle on the Guild way of doing things.

  “Right.” Remington nodded, and slurped from a tea mug. “Found the crew quarters?”

  I echoed the gesture. “Clio showed me. I’ve already picked out a room.”

  “Good. You meet Rennau on the way in?”

  “Her father?” Remington inclined his head in confirmation, still apparently more interested in his snack than in me. “He sent me up here to report in.”

  “In a few well-chosen words, no doubt.” Remington chewed and swallowed the last of his sandwich. “Not one for diplomacy, our Mik. But a good man to have at your back.”

  I found myself reflecting that if Rennau had Remington’s back he’d slip a knife into it as likely as not, but Guilders apparently had their own ways of looking at things, so perhaps the Captain’s confidence was justified.

  Remington looked at me for a second or two, as though surprised to find me still there. “Cut along, then. Tell him to find you something to do.”

  “Yes, sir.” I hesitated, wondering if I was supposed to salute or something, and Remington sighed.

  “Call me Sir if I get a knighthood. Till then, stick to Skipper. Or Captain, if you’re feeling formal, or we’re trying to impress a dirtwalker.”

  “Yes s . . . Skipper.”

  I left the bridge, and descended the stairs, once again wondering what I’d got myself into.

  I’d like to say I found my feet quickly, but I spent most of the next few d
ays getting in the way of people who knew what they were doing, and following the instructions they’d given me in varying tones of tolerance or exasperation. Rennau had started me off by stowing cargo, heaving the pallets the drones had delivered the last few inches into place and securing them, under the direction of Rolf and Lena, a couple of transgeners who’d clearly gone all out for physical strength. Both quite literally bulged with muscle, lugging crates larger than I was with scant sign of visible effort. Despite their intimidating appearance, however, they welcomed me aboard with surprisingly delicate handshakes, and spent their breaks discussing philosophy and literature in terms so abstruse as to leave me floundering within minutes.

  On the whole, I felt I did a reasonable job, and the simple physical work seemed to agree with me: by the time we were ready for departure I’d regained the muscle tone I’d been in danger of losing after neglecting my regular training regime for so long, and resolved to continue working out in order to keep it.

  Not that lugging boxes around was my sole occupation in the days leading up to our departure. (And days it was: Remington’s implied threat to leave me behind having turned out to be either a test of my resolve, or a negotiating tactic to wring some unspecified further concession from my aunt.) If anything needed to be fetched, I went for it. If anyone needed a spare pair of hands, mine were the ones required; I saw a lot of the ship’s internal systems while passing tools to people wedged into awkward corners. But cargo stowage took up the greater part of my days for the greater part of a week. It was almost a surprise when Rolf stood back from the containers we’d been securing, and I turned to find the last of the drones humming away towards the hatch.

  “That’s it,” he said, nodding in approval, then smiled in my direction. “Till we shift the whole lot out again at the other end, of course.”