“That was my welcome to the fleet as an officer.” I sighed. “I did what I could. Worked with the crew that would work with me. I was the only male officer who didn’t abuse them.”
“Why didn’t Geoff Maloney do anything?”
I shot him a glance.
“Yeah. I’ve seen your public jacket. Alys sent it over,” he said.
“Back then none of the contracts allowed for appeal outside of the chain of command. What the captain did in space stayed on the ship until and unless the captain brought in the authorities. With the contracts he had, Mr. Maloney’s lawyers felt he had no grounds for dismissal and cautioned him against risking the company in court.”
“Yet, you broke it open.”
I shook my head. “No, I was just the catalyst. I didn’t actually do anything. That was the chief engineer and the cargo master. The first mate had his bully boys attack me one night. It didn’t work out well for the mate, and the captain made a mistake. That allowed the company to step in, remove him from command, and replace him with a captain who could bring in the authorities to put an end to it.”
“And you stayed there until you made captain.”
“I did.”
“I see.” He glanced at the chrono. “Well, our time is up for today but that sounds like a good place to pick up next time. How long will you be on-planet?”
“I was planning on a few weeks, but it may only be a few days.”
“All right. We’ll have to move fast. I’m going to give you some homework.”
“Homework?”
His grin lit up his entire face again. “Yeah. The family we’re born in has values and mores that color what we believe for our entire lives. Usually those values provide a firm foundation for growth. If they didn’t, the family of origin wouldn’t exist.”
“All right.”
“Sometimes, those values get—oh—misapplied, we’ll say. As each subsequent generation passes on the values, those values can evolve. Even be outgrown.”
“I’m with you.” I understood what he was saying but I wasn’t sure I liked where he was going.
“So, between now and our next session, I want you to ponder your families of origin and what values they passed on to you.”
“Families?”
“Your mother is your initial family of origin and you’re carrying a lot of her influence with you. Then Alys Giggone took over as a kind of surrogate mother, and the values you learned in her family are even stronger.”
The perspective twisted around in my head and then locked down. “Yes. I can see that. All right. When is our next session?”
He nodded and stood. “Tomorrow. 1100 hours.”
“All right.” I stood and headed for the door. “What do I owe you?”
“Commandant Giggone has the tab. You’re good.”
I looked at him in confusion. “What?”
His grin went all the way to the twinkle in his eye. “She has a budget for captains who need help. I’m on retainer.”
“Nice deal. Do you get many?”
He sighed and nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. Command messes up people who aren’t sociopaths to begin with. Empathy starts chewing on the good ones. Ego blinds the bad ones. A well-adjusted sociopath makes the most effective captain, but few people want to serve with one.”
“Job security for you?”
“There is that consideration.” He held out a hand. “Tomorrow, Captain.”
I shook the hand and left his office. He’d given me a lot to think about.
Chapter Eight
Port Newmar:
2374, June 3
I didn’t see Pip during the conference except to wave to in passing at the O Club or on the path to our respective cottages. He drew a crowd every evening, and I often heard the discussions—and laughter—well into the early morning hours. They didn’t keep me awake. Just something I would be aware of when waking in the night or hear as I dropped off to sleep.
My sessions with Mal Gains continued to be interesting even if I didn’t find them terribly fruitful. He introduced me to more family-of-origin stuff. He placed great store in the idea that I’d been raised in a culture of academe with its values of knowledge, truth-seeking, and reputation but then shifted to the culture of spacer with values like dependability, competence, and upward mobility.
Having achieved the upward-most mobility by becoming an owner, I suppose it was not too surprising that I felt at a loss as to what to do next. There was no new step up to take. My guilt over Greta didn’t help. I still had trouble with my anger. He assured me they existed; the white-knuckle sessions when we talked about my divorce and the Chernyakova supported his assertions.
The question that left me staring at the ceiling at night was “What do I want to do now?”
I found so many different facets of that question to examine in detail.
The first challenge was trying to tease out what I wanted from what I felt like I should do. I had worked under an external obligation for so long, the idea that I might have some say in what I might want—and the privileged position that allowed me to actually consider it—left me floundering.
Gains had asked, “If you could do anything you want, what would you do?”
Once I ruled out the physically impossible things—like going back in time to save Greta—and the things that I felt unqualified for—like starting another shipping company—I was left with a large empty space. I’d achieved everything I’d set out to do. Everything I’d imagined I might do. I was at a loss as to what I might do next.
I continued my sessions with Sifu Newmar, of course, and felt my body responding even after so short a time. I had to force myself to remember I’d only been on-planet ten days. Even with the growing heat of summer, I found my workouts with her became less strenuous. I’m not sure if it was because my form was improving or because my muscles were regaining tone. I suspected some of each.
She continued to give me simple cups with narrow bases while taking brightly painted porcelain or bone china cups for herself. I kept trying to find some meaning in those choices. Random choice would have suggested that I might get a cup with a handle occasionally. Instead I consistently got the simplest forms that made the function of tea-drinking possible.
I kept circling back to Pip’s offer to be captain of the Chernyakova. I’d been operating under the notion that I needed a job for so long that the idea I didn’t have one—and really didn’t need one—provided a constant tension. On the one hand, I had enough credits to stay in the cottage on Port Newmar for the rest of my life and live comfortably. I could even move to an orbital and live there in the finest hotel and not scratch my credit balance for a century.
It took Cookie’s wife to point me to a path I hadn’t noticed.
The conference was due to wrap up on the fourth. I suspected Pip would be anxious to head to Breakall for the auction. Cookie had the evening off and invited me to dinner at his home. He lived off-campus in a comfortable single-story house well away from the space port but with a charming view of the bay from the back porch.
His wife, Eloise, welcomed me with open arms. “Rafe has told me so much about you. I’m so glad we’ve finally met.” Being hugged by her was like going home.
She ushered me through the house and out onto the back deck where I found a collection of comfortable-looking lounge chairs and Cookie tending a compact grill. She pressed a cool glass of some citrus drink into my hand and winked before disappearing back into the house.
“So, Ishmael. What do you think of my view?” He waved his tongs at the ocean.
“I never took you for a waterman, Cookie.”
He smiled and flipped over the chicken breasts before answering. “Myself? I prefer the desert. The soft light. The shifting sands. Even the shimmering of the sun in the distance.”
“So you have an ocean view instead?”
He grinned and made a circling gesture with the tongs. “You know of many deserts on Newmar?”
Eloise returned with a huge bowl of green salad in one hand and a cloth-covered basket in the other. As Cookie’s gaze followed her, his smile seemed to soften.
He caught me watching him. “The only sight I really need to see, eh?”
Eloise looked at him. “What silliness are you spouting now, old man?” The laughter in her voice reminded me of someone much younger.
“Nothing at all. Merely contemplating our wonderful view with my old friend.”
She placed the bowl and basket on the table and turned her face to bask in the cool breeze coming in from the sea. “It’s truly amazing. I never imagined we’d live where water lay so plentifully on the land.” She smiled broadly at me, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. “And now we do.”
Cookie said, “This chicken is ready for you. Are you ready for it?”
“It smells wonderful, Cookie.” I rose and took the indicated seat at the small table while the two of them executed what must have been a much practiced dance of last-minute preparation.
The meal proved to be as good as I could have imagined. The spices and textures took foods that I felt I knew and pushed them into places I never knew existed. The sweet burn of the marinade on the chicken melded with the crisp crunch of the greens and the homely flavor of biscuits, one I’d nearly forgotten over the stanyers. We washed it down with a chilled citrus drink that balanced sugary sweetness against a puckery sourness. Cookie pulled out a hot granapple cobbler for dessert and topped it with a scoop of ice cream.
I felt like I put on two kilograms just at that one meal.
“You married a good cook, Eloise,” I said as they cleared off the dishes and returned with a coffee carafe and small cups.
She gazed at Cookie and pursed her lips. “He is an excellent cook, but I didn’t marry a good cook.”
Cookie grinned back. “You’ve taught me well, dear one. I just took your lessons to heart.”
She turned her smile on me. “I married a good man,” she said. “The rest flowed from there.”
“You taught him to cook?” I asked.
“Oh, heavens, no,” she said. “He’s been a cook as long as I’ve known him. He has a way with the spice rack, you know?”
The way her face lit up and the look on Cookie’s made me think there might be more to that statement than met the eye. Her hair might be graying and her skin no longer smooth, but Eloise’s fire still burned hot.
“So, tell me, Ishmael,” Cookie said. “What will you do now?”
Eloise reached over to cover his hand with one of hers and looked to me, her eyes sparkling in the evening light.
I groaned. “That’s the question everyone asks, and one I have no answers to.”
“What would you like to do?” he asked. “Surely there’s some path you’ve not taken yet.”
His knowing look told me he remembered his own advice to me in the mess deck of the Lois. To choose a path before I found myself on one that I hadn’t chosen. “You once told me that I should consider that I’m on the path I’m supposed to be on.”
He nodded. “I’m surprised you remember.”
Eloise patted his hand. “You often have more influence than you think, old man.”
I toyed with my coffee mug and pondered. “I feel like I’m at the end of my path. I don’t need to walk it anymore.”
Cookie nodded and turned his hand around so he could hold his wife’s hand in return. “There’s only one end to the path, Ishmael. You’re not there yet.”
“If you were, you wouldn’t be eating chicken with us,” Eloise said, an amused smile on her lips.
“I’ve gone through the list of things I might do. I’ve spent the last week pondering.” I shook my head. “Longer. I only came back to Port Newmar because I didn’t know where else to go. What else to do. Now that I’m here? I still don’t know.”
Cookie nodded but Eloise spoke. “Perhaps it’s because you needed to be here. Something totally unexpected may come along. Something that couldn’t happen anywhere else.”
I chuckled.
“Something tickles you?” Cookie asked.
“Yeah. I can’t tell you the unexpected things that have happened. Finding Alys Giggone as the commandant of the school. Learning that she married Benjamin Maxwell and that he’s now in charge of the orbital up there. Finding you here.” I shook my head. “Running into Pip again. The only thing I expected—well, hoped for—was that Margaret Newmar would still be here and teaching tai chi.”
“You see?” Cookie said. “The universe is filled with challenges and opportunities. You could stay here and teach.”
“Funny you should mention that. Alys Giggone said that if I was still on-planet come fall, she’d have me teaching.”
Eloise shook her head. “You don’t want that?”
I took a deep breath and considered for a moment before releasing it slowly. “Of all the paths I might follow, that’s one that I probably know the best. I grew up on a campus. My mother taught ancient literature. I know that life. Know it well.”
Eloise nodded, her deep brown eyes nearly black in the fading light of day. “Not your path.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps it might be.”
She shook her head. “No. If a familiar path called you, your feet would already be on it.”
Cookie’s white smile flashed. “See why I married her?”
“You married me because you love me. The rest is just fringe benefit, old man.”
He shrugged. “That, too.”
Eloise looked back to me. “In the ten days you’ve been here, have no other paths presented themselves?”
A chill ran an icy finger down the back of my neck. “Well, only one that I can think of.”
“Pip,” Cookie said.
I glanced at him. He shrugged.
“That man has made more plans than I’ve made biscuits,” he said.
I laughed.
Cookie leaned toward me. “Consider that most of them succeed.”
“The operative word there being ‘most,’” I said.
“What is his plan?” Eloise asked.
“To bid on a ship at auction and use it to test his economic models.”
“He wants you to be captain?” Cookie asked.
I nodded.
“Did you tell him no?” Eloise asked.
I shook my head. “I told him I need to think about it.”
“Why didn’t you say yes?”
“I have history with the ship. Lots of very bad memories.”
“What’s the real reason?” Cookie asked.
I looked at him. “Real reason?”
“There must be something else. A ship is a ship. You and Pip worked well together on the co-op. Both of you have learned many lessons. You cannot doubt Pip.”
I shook my head. “I don’t.”
“Will the ship do what he believes it will?”
“Probably. The performance only needs to support his model or prove it wrong.”
“Can he do it alone?”
“Without me as captain?”
Cookie nodded.
“Probably. I’m not the only captain in the Western Annex.”
“Then why do you doubt yourself?” Eloise asked.
I had to think about that and peered into my coffee mug as if the answer might appear floating on the dark surface. The horror of the Chernyakova still made my palms sweat, but the objective facts of the matter remained. I really did know what was wrong with the ship. I knew how to make it right. I knew how to fly it and how to make it profitable. From a pure investment perspective, it might be the best opportunity in the whole Western Annex.
I looked up from my mug and into their patient faces. “I don’t. It was the wrong deal,” I said. “I just didn’t recognize it.”
Chapter Nine
Port Newmar:
2374, June 4
By the time I got back from Cookie’s, I didn’t feel like braving the post-con
ference party still underway in Pip’s cottage. It sounded like a good time from where I stood at my front door, but noise discipline held and the level chopped down at 2200. The noise didn’t disappear, but it fell enough that I was only distantly aware of it. It didn’t really matter. I wasn’t ready for sleep and I had a lot to do.
I started with my grav-trunks.
What did I really need out of that massive pile of collected clothing? While I’d done a rough sort back on the Iris as I packed to leave, I set myself the task of paring down to a single trunk.
I pulled the trunks out of their storage slots and parked them in the living room of the cottage. A handy dining table served as a sorting and folding surface, and the sofa and chairs worked nicely as places to stack stuff I wanted to sort.
Two stans later, I had a mess. I couldn’t seem to make any progress at all. Every time I thought I had a handle on it, I wound up thinking, “Well, I might want this sometime.”
In a relatively short time, clothing festooned the living and dining rooms. Some civvies. Mostly shipsuits and uniforms. All of them still fit. Probably. I’d purchased all the civvies during my shopping trips with Stacy Arellone back on Dunsany.
I looked around at the chaos and realized that I had only one physical thing from my childhood on Neris—a picture of my father as a young man sitting at a restaurant table. I’d scattered my mother’s ashes in the sea here on Port Newmar while I was a cadet. I hadn’t even kept the urn. Her portable computer was long gone. I had some digital images and the one printed photograph. I picked up the dog-eared image and looked at the smiling face of the man who had been such a mystery for most of my life. I’d stared at the back of his head for stanyers not knowing I sat only meters from him as he worked the grill in his own restaurant.
I’m not sure I’d have recognized him even if he’d turned around and stared right at me.
I surveyed the mess again, holding the photo and wondering where I should put it. Almost two hundred kilograms of stuff and the only thing I found I couldn’t replace was a photo? Not even a current photo. I had new digital images of my father and me together on the orbital at Diurnia. Something about holding the one thing that had survived, the one link to my childhood on Neris, seemed important in a way I couldn’t explain.
In Ashes Born (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) Page 6
