In Ashes Born (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1)

by Nathan Lowell

  He shrugged and looked at his feet. “I didn’t know what a shoulder flash was, so I looked it up. Then I looked at some samples. Civilian flashes just list, like, the police or fire department name. That usually includes the city or town name. Military flashes list the branch and little else on the official flash, but some of them had ship names and designators as well.” He grinned. “Some of them looked pretty elaborate.”

  “Some of them are,” Pip said.

  “You can dress that one up with some gold thread or something, but you said something last night. Something like you should be able to look at the shoulder and know who goes with which ship.”

  “This is good work,” I said, fingering the flash for a moment before handing it back to Pip.

  “Albert said it was a simple setup, one of the simplest. He just ran it up on a piece of scrap for me.” He looked down again. “I know you didn’t ask for it, but I wanted to see what it would look like.”

  Pip grinned. “Do you have the graphics files we need?”

  “Oh, sure.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a data cube, and held it out. “Both designs are on there. I gave you the one you asked for and the other one. Albert added the machine layout for the shoulder flash with that design on it. He said it’d work on most commercial embroiderers.”

  Pip took the cube and wrapped his fingers around it. “If not, I’m sure the graphic is enough to jump-start the process.”

  The kid beamed. “I still can’t believe my design is going to be on the side of a space ship.”

  “Mr. James, your design is going to be on the side of a space fleet before we’re done,” Pip said. He winked at me.

  “What do we owe you?” I asked.

  He rummaged around on the work bench for a moment and pulled up an invoicing tablet. “I—uh—ran up the invoice. We didn’t agree on a price before you left last night.”

  “Sorry about that,” Pip said. “We were just so excited.” He took the offered tablet and frowned at it for a moment before handing it to me.

  I took it and looked at the total. I looked at the designs on the table and then at the two little images across the room and shook my head. “This is not anything close to satisfactory, Mr. James.” I handed it back to him with a glance a Pip who had a grin hiding behind his hand.

  “Oh. Uh. I can make an adjustment. It’s just the normal price, but if it’s too much—” He took the tablet back from me.

  “You misunderstand, Mr. James. It’s not too much. It’s not nearly enough. We are purchasing these graphics from you for the sole use of our company in perpetuity. You’ve charged us for the paper to print it on. We wish to purchase the rights to use it however we deem necessary.”

  He looked up and the lost expression on his face made me take a couple of stanyers off my estimate of his age. “Well, uh. I’ve never done that before.” He looked from me to Pip and back. “How much were you thinking?”

  “Add a couple of zeros to the end of that,” I said.

  “Then double it,” Pip said.

  “That’s more than I make in a year,” James said.

  I shrugged. “Not my problem, Mr. James. We’ll need a receipt for our records.”

  “And we’re in rather a hurry,” Pip said. “If you’d make those adjustments, we’ve got a ship to catch.”

  The poor kid fumbled it a couple of times before he got it right, but I thumbed the invoice and sent the receipt to Pip’s tablet.

  We left him staring at the invoice, his jaw slack and his head shaking back and forth like a loose shutter in a light breeze.

  At the door, Pip stopped. “Oh, Mr. James?”

  He looked up. “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  His breath whooshed out. “Thank you!”

  We closed the door and headed for the shuttle stop.

  “Was that too extravagant?” Pip asked.

  I looked over at the shoulder flash that he still held. “We got the better of that deal,” I said.

  He looked down at it, flexing it between his fingers. “Yeah. I guess we did.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Port Newmar:

  2374, June 9

  Pip and I rode the noon shuttle back to campus. We had a few stans before we had to catch the orbital shuttle from the academy’s spaceport.

  “How soon do you want to go up?” I asked as we separated at the cottages.

  “There’s a shuttle at 1700. We can get dinner upstairs and that gives me time to finish wrapping up the loose ends from the convention.”

  “I’ve got to see my therapist in a stan, so that’ll work.”

  He waved a hand and disappeared into his cottage while I confronted the mess that remained in mine.

  The frantic stan or so I’d spent in the morning had crystallized my thinking on what might be important. I went to my “Keepers” trunk and went through everything there one more time. Rank insignia. Master’s license. Uniforms across a range of utility.

  I swapped the civvies I’d worn to town for a set of undress khakis and addressed the unruly pile of castoffs. That uneasy feeling I’d thrown away something I shouldn’t have still nagged. I had plenty of time before my appointment with Gains, so I spent it pulling everything out of the discard trunk and making sure I’d not left anything in the pockets nor wrapped anything important in a cast-off garment.

  Within half a stan, I found myself standing with an empty grav-trunk and a pile of odds and ends of clothing. Rich or not, I had qualms about discarding the trunk. The clothing would go into the recyclers and be extruded as fresh fabric and fittings, but I’d paid good credits for the trunk. I suspected Gains would say my family-of-origin frugality interfered with my new reality.

  For a moment I wondered if Pip wanted it.

  Then I knew what I’d use it for. I got on the network, placed an order with the academy store, and paid for expedited delivery. It took a bit of math for me to calculate just what I needed, but I was grinning when I latched the door behind me and headed for Mal Gains’s office.

  He greeted me as always and after satisfying the preliminaries got down to it.

  “You’ve accomplished a lot in a short time,” he said.

  “I’ve got more to do, but I’ll have to deal with it later.”

  “You’ll manage. Tell me about this deal you’ve got going?”

  “Pip and I are going into business. Again. It’s going to be fun, I think.”

  “I don’t usually hear people talking about going into business as fun.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, well. I know it’s going to be a lot of work. Long hours. Probably some disappointment. We’re still waiting to find out if we have the funding we need. And I’m going to have to deal with the Chernyakova again.”

  “What made you decide to do that?”

  “Pip made me see that a lot of my emotional response was fear. Rationally, it’s just a ship. A ship with an unfortunate past, but just a ship. I know how to fly that ship. How to make it safe.”

  “You’re going to exorcise your demons,” Gains said.

  “Sounds silly.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s such a cliché isn’t it? Face your fears and defeat them.”

  “What are those fears?”

  “That I might make the same mistakes they did. That I could kill people out of negligence or stupidity or just bad luck.”

  “Are those real fears? Or just something you’ve layered on to help you deal with the horror.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know how I’d know. The Chernyakova was pretty horrible.”

  “I’m not talking about that horror.”

  He didn’t say it very loudly but it echoed in my head.

  The flashes of reality as I’d watched Greta die in front of me while I lay helpless beside her on the deck all came rushing back. I felt the room compress around me, like I was about to pass out from blood loss again. I had to force myself to focus on breathing.

  Gains waited me out. I
finally said, “I don’t know.”

  His smile—thin as it was—felt genuine. “At least you’re paying attention to the right horror, now. We’ve accomplished that much.” He consulted his tablet. “Tell me about this pile of castoffs. Why does it have you so bothered?”

  “I just keep looking at it feeling like I’m leaving something important behind.” I shook my head. “I’ve checked and checked. I’ve got my uniforms and the few things that are important to me all packed and ready to go, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve left something important behind.”

  “What are the important things you packed?”

  “Uniforms, license, my captain’s stars. A couple sets of civvies and the artwork that was the inspiration for our logo.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Oh, I have a photo of my father as a young man. It was my only connection to him growing up. I met him on Diurnia, but that photo is still how I see him in my head.”

  “Is he very different in person?”

  “Not really. Less hair. More wrinkles. The same smile. Same eyes.”

  “But it’s a memento from your life on Neris,” he said.

  I took a breath and considered that. “I suppose.”

  “Do you have anything else from then?”

  I shook my head. “That’s the last physical thing that’s survived all this time.”

  “You have your memories.”

  “And some digitals that I keep. Pictures of the campus there. Images of my mother. Some of them I took. Some that I recovered from her effects after she died.”

  “What else is important to you?”

  “I have a collection of whelkies from St. Cloud. Those are going with me.”

  “The spirit carvings?”

  “Yes. I purchased some for trade when I was on the Lois. I was never able to sell them. I just keep giving them away.”

  “From what I understand they’re very collectable.”

  “I’ve had offers to buy them. It doesn’t seem right.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the seabird. “This is mine. I had a dolphin for stanyers. It was a gift from a friend. I got that the same time I bought the collection. When I lost Greta, we found this in her effects and I kept it.”

  “What happened to your dolphin?”

  “Christine Maloney has it now.”

  “You gave it to her?”

  “I like to think that it found its new owner.”

  “Anything else that’s important?”

  I shook my head. “That’s all I’ve packed.”

  “And you’ve left your old clothes to be recycled.”

  “Yes.”

  “Like a snake shedding its skin.”

  I laughed at the image. “Yeah. I suppose.”

  “Do you think the snake misses its old skin?”

  “I’m not sure I’d anthropomorphize a snake to that degree.”

  “All right then. Do you think you’re just missing your old skin? That’s why you keep thinking you’re leaving something behind?”

  Something in his question caught in the corner of my mind and I couldn’t quite reach it.

  “Don’t think about it. Tell me,” he said.

  “I can’t quite get it. It’s not the clothes. They’re just clothes. Some of them don’t fit. Some of them have lost buttons or broken zippers. Boxers with broken elastic. All of them are excess baggage.”

  “Stay with it. What else are they?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to see what lurked in the back of my mind. “They’re old. They’re stained. They’re mine.”

  “Yes,” Gains said.

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Yes?”

  “Yes,” he said and nodded.

  “They’re mine?”

  He grinned.

  “What does that matter?”

  “Our time is almost up so I’ll leave you to ponder that in your travels. Consider it a long term research assignment from me.”

  “How will I know if I get it?”

  “I don’t think you’ll have any doubt.” He paused. “You may need to work the question around a little. It’ll be a good exercise for you.”

  “So you think I should take them?”

  He shrugged. “I think that’s up to you, but you’ve already determined that they’re excess baggage. That you have sufficient resources for your immediate future and the wherewithal to obtain anything you might need but haven’t anticipated. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “No doubts there.”

  “No.”

  He shrugged again. “Seems like you have a good handle on it and I want to talk about one other thing. That artist in town?”

  “Erik James.”

  “Yes. While we were getting settled you said you overpaid him for the work he did.”

  “Did I?” I tried to think back.

  “I don’t remember the words but something about paid him more than he asked.”

  “Yeah. We did.”

  “Why? He would have been happy to have you pay what he asked.”

  “It wouldn’t have felt right to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I know what that kind of work costs. He provided us a valuable service, even if he didn’t know how much that service was worth. Pip and I both did. We probably would have had to pay twice what we actually paid him if we’d bought it from a design and marketing firm in Dree. And it wouldn’t have been as good.”

  “But he undervalued his work and you felt you should—what? Teach him a lesson?”

  “No,” I said and then had to pause. “Well, maybe. I don’t know. He kinda reminded me of me.”

  “Now we’re getting there. What about him?”

  “I don’t know. When I joined the Lois I had one skill that mattered. I could make good coffee. Before then I knew I could make good coffee but I didn’t know anybody would value it. The first thing Cookie asked me to do was to taste the coffee and tell him what I thought of it. It was horrible.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Yes. In hindsight, my own arrogance staggers me.”

  “What happened?”

  “He asked me to do better.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. It was the bane of my existence for nearly a stanyer. I was always making coffee. I couldn’t keep the urns full.”

  “So, how do you see that applying to Erik James?”

  “Cookie taught me something with his little test about the coffee. He could have made better coffee himself, probably. He didn’t. The crew wasn’t complaining. The coffee was the coffee. When he asked me to make better coffee, he didn’t tell me how to do it. He gave me the opportunity to exercise a little initiative. I think he wanted to see what kind of kid I was. If I had the skills to back up my claims.”

  “And James?”

  “James impressed us right out of the box, but instead of giving him his due and letting him guide us, we told him what we wanted.”

  “You felt guilty for stepping on him so you overpaid him?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe, but mostly it was to encourage him to continue to exercise his initiative. To value his work enough to stand up for it. We didn’t ask him for a sample of the shoulder flash. Just a design that would work on it. He’d never even seen a company logo on a hull before Pip showed him the image of one. He took what we asked for, added his own expertise, and then did something we probably should have done—might have done if we’d thought of it—and looked at what other companies do. I wanted to reward him for that effort.

  “Maybe I was paying it forward for the lessons that I learned from Cookie and Alys Giggone about doing the best job you know how, even if it’s more than is being asked for.”

  He grinned. “That might be the most you’ve ever said in one go since we’ve been working together.” He stood and held out his hand. “Our time is done for now and you’re on your way out. Keep working on this. Keep thinking. I don’t think you’re a danger to yourself or others,
but I think you’ve still got a bit of inner dissonance about who you think you are and who you think you should be.”

  I shook the hand and felt myself grinning. “Thanks for all you’ve done. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of this work will be coming back around to me as we head out.”

  His grin broadened into a full smile. “That’s the plan. So go do your part.”

  I felt lighter as I left. He was probably right and I still had stuff I needed to work on, but the universe kept unfolding—and in its broad sweeps, I found I needed to work a bit harder to keep up.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Port Newmar:

  2374, June 9

  When I met Pip on the path, he eyed my second grav-trunk. “I thought you were going to leave that.”

  I shrugged. “I discovered I needed it for a few extra things I purchased while here.”

  We fell into step, heading for the terminal. The system primary was already well on its way to setting, and the shuttle wouldn’t wait for us if we weren’t there.

  He started to say something else but I asked, “Heard from your father yet?”

  “No, and I’m really getting worried.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “I sent it on the sixth.” He counted on his fingers. “Sixth, seventh, eighth, today’s the ninth.”

  “So. Four standard days and it has to go all the way around the loop to Dunsany Roads and back?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Seems like a lot longer.”

  “We’ve been busy.”

  “True. Did you wrap things up with your therapist?”

  “Yeah. I’ve still got to deal with some internal dissonance and think about whether or not a snake misses its old skin.”

  He looked at me like I’d grown a third head. “Snakes miss their old skin?”

  “There’s a class of reptile with no real appendages. They’re called snakes. They have various modes of locomotion—”

  Pip punched me on the arm.

  “Hey! You’re assaulting a senior officer.”

  “I did no such thing. I slugged a wise guy. Qualitative difference.”

  “I don’t think a captain’s mast would find it significant.” I grinned at him. “You know what a snake is, spaceboy?”