“Come on, Herm,” Apones said, and they headed for the door.
“Yeah,” Mosler said in a too loud voice, “he’s probably got plans himself. Don’t wanna get in an officer’s way, now do we?” The way he said officer made it clear that it wasn’t a term of respect or endearment.
I let it go and focused on the trembling woman on the rowing machine. “Are you all right, Ms. Nart?”
She looked up at me with an expression that clearly said, “Are you insane?”
“I’m sorry,” I added almost immediately. “Of course, you’re not okay. Is there anything I can do to help? Anything you need?”
She shook her head silently, and I saw tears start to well in her eyes before she ducked her head so I couldn’t see them slide down her face. All through it, she kept rowing.
“Do you want to press charges?” I asked.
She let out a single wretched, “Hah!” She didn’t look up. After a moment she added bitterly, “No, Mr. Wang, I think I’d prefer to live, thank you.”
“Very well, Ms. Nart. Please let me know if I can help,” I said, cursing myself for offering platitude in the face of pain, but I really had no idea what else to do. I crossed the room and positioned myself to begin the Wu Long Form.
“Thank you, sar,” she called after me in a small voice.
“You’re welcome, Ms. Nart,” I replied and let the ship disappear for a time as I focused on my qi.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DIURNIA SYSTEM
2358-JULY-18
The afternoon watch was uneventful when I finally got there. I wanted to mention something to Mr. Burnside about the incident with Apones, but in the end, I didn’t know what to say. In theory he wasn’t supposed to allow harassment of crew at all, let alone when ostensibly on his watch. Asking Mr. Burnside to keep a shorter leash on his watch standers would be an exercise in aggravation for both of us, so in the end, I didn’t say anything. It ate at me, but I just didn’t know what else to do.
I realized it upset me more than I had thought when Ms. Cramer brought my lunch before I’d even gotten through the change of watch reports. Nothing outstanding had happened, but I found myself reading the same thing over and over.
“Thank you, Ms. Cramer,” I told her when I realized she was standing at my elbow.
“Where would you like me to put this, sar?” she asked.
I started to point to the side of the desk when I noticed some kind of spill there. It looked like about a half a cup of coffee that had almost dried. Frowning, I realized that the entire desk had something or other smeared on all the available surfaces. The fact that I’d been sitting there for almost half a stan and hadn’t even noticed it underscored my mood.
“Oh I’m sorry, Ms. Cramer,” I said totally disconcerted by the situation but not wanting her to put the tray down in the mess. I pointed to the systems console, and said, “Over there if you would please. I’ll need to get this mess cleaned up.”
“Of course, sar,” she said with a smile and a pleasant wink to Ms. D’Heng, who’d relieved Ms. Jaxton for lunch already. “Penny—that’s Ms. Davies—asked me to thank you for speaking to the chief, sar,” she said over her shoulder.
“It was my pleasure,” I told her as I rummaged in the broom locker for some of the cleaning supplies we kept there.
She smiled again, watching me spray off the desk and wipe it down, then she nodded once more to Ms. D’Heng and retreated down the ladder.
“You’ve another fan, Mr. Wang,” Ms. D’Heng said from the helm, a cheerful smirk plastered on her face.
Distracted by Burnside’s apparent willingness to make a mess on purpose, I looked up blinking and replaying the last few ticks in my brain. “Oh, Ms. Cramer? She’s a very capable messmate.” I replied a bit fatuously.
“Yes, she is, sar.”
I finished wiping down the console and stowed the cleaning gear back in the locker. Ms. D’Heng’s tone registered then and I found myself wondering what, exactly, she’d meant.
“Is there something I’m missing, Ms. D’Heng?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m sure I couldn’t say, sar.” The smirk never flickered.
I crossed to the systems console and sat down to eat. Ms. D’Heng watched me with that look so I bowed to the inevitable. “And you have a secret bit of knowledge that you’d like to share with me, Ms. D’Heng?” I asked, taking a sip of the coffee while it was still mostly warm.
“She wants to join your harem, sar,” she said with almost a straight face.
It was only with a great deal of control, and no small amount of practice, that I managed not to spray coffee across the console. “My harem?” I finally asked when the liquid was more or less under control.
“Juliett and I, sar,” she said with a small, amused twitch of her lips while staring straight ahead at the helm console.
“You two are my…” I paused, not wanting to actually use the word. “…harem?”
“Some of the less well-informed believe so, sar,” she replied smoothly.
“You know, Ms. D’Heng, when I was at the academy, they tried their best to prepare us for what we’d be facing when we got out into the field.”
“Yes, sar?”
“I don’t think they ever had this situation in mind.”
“No, sar, I’m sure they didn’t. But if I may say so, sar, you’re handling it very well.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, forcing myself not to grab a handful and pull. With as much calmness as I could muster I said, “Thank you, Ms. D’Heng.”
“You’re welcome, sar,” she replied as if we’d been discussing the weather.
I turned to my lunch and tried to sort out the horror and dread. Somewhere, people on this ship thought I had turned my watch section into a harem. On this ship, it seemed that was a very real and literal interpretation. As I worked my way through a rather bland bowl of noodle soup and a crusty roll, I remembered the morning’s incident with Apones and Mosler. The implications made me very uneasy. Was it actually necessary for women on this ship to need protection from the males? And if they did, what harm was it for me to provide said protection with this fiction? The people who knew it wasn’t true weren’t the problem.
That was the rub. The ones who believed it were the people from whom the crew needed protection, and they were stupid enough, and likely strong enough, to take exception to my getting in the way of their fun. People like Apones and Mosler—the “boys will be boys brigade” and their ringleader, David Burnside.
Ms. Jaxton returned from her lunch and took the watch back from Ms. D’Heng while I stayed lost in the horrible realization of just how nasty the whole situation had gotten.
With a sigh I tossed the crust of a roll onto the tray, salvaged the last cup of coffee from the carafe, and covered the remains with my napkin. Ms. D’Heng took the tray with a smile and headed back down the ladder.
“Back in a flash,” she said as her head disappeared.
I took my coffee and went back to the bridge console to finish checking reports.
“Something wrong, sar?” Ms. Jaxton asked.
“I’m fairly certain there is, Ms. Jaxton, but it’s not going to get solved on this watch.” I settled into the console and she took the hint.
Around 13:00 Ms. D’Heng came back and the two of them busied themselves doing the wipe down and quick sweep we did during day watches. More and more, the only time we had any serious amount of cleaning to do was when we followed first section. I sighed as I considered the implications of that. I needed to have a heart to heart talk with Arletta.
In the background I heard Juliett and Charlotte chatting. They really were funny together—Charlotte the vamp and Juliett the humorist. Except sometimes they forgot their roles and Juliett vamped while Charlotte loosed a wickedly dry sense of humor.
It wasn’t long before they finished the afternoon clean up and settled in to study.
“Sar?” Ms. D’Heng asked. “Do you think it would be o
ut of place for us to help Penny and Karen clean up the mess deck this evening?”
I must have looked very blank.
“Sar?”
“Yes, Ms. D’Heng, I’m just trying to switch mental gears. Penny and Karen? Ms. Davies and Ms. Cramer? Are they soliciting for help to clean the mess deck?”
“Oh no, sar,” Juliett said. “Charlotte heard them talking about it and offered to help, but they were concerned with whether or not it would be proper to have people who weren’t, you know, messmates working on the mess deck.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Every time I thought I’d plumbed the depths of this benighted ship, something new and troubling came to the fore.
“Why would it not be proper, Ms. Jaxton?” I asked, trying to see a course through the asteroids.
“Well, you know. It’s not my job, really, sar.”
“Is it your ship, Ms. Jaxton?” I asked.
“Well no, sar, it belongs to the company.”
The answer was breathtaking. Literally. I had trouble breathing for a couple of ticks after she said it. Everything was so obvious.
“How about you, Ms. D’Heng? Is it your ship?”
She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “No, sar,” she said with a little shrug. “Juliett just told you. It’s the company’s ship.”
I smiled.
Juliett and Charlotte exchanged glances.
“No, ladies, it would not be improper for you to help your shipmates,” I said. “That’s what crew does. They help each other.”
“Like you helped, Ulla, this morning?” Charlotte asked.
“If need be, yes,” I said. “But I’m thinking more like your helping Juliett and I keep the bridge clean and sitting with us up here on watch.”
They looked at each other again.
“You two never worked on another ship?” I asked.
“I’m on my second contract on the Billy,” Juliett said a little sheepishly.
“The Billy’s my first ship,” Charlotte admitted.
“Why did you stay, Juliett?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I’m not pretty or popular. I don’t get the attention that some others do.” She was carefully not looking at Charlotte. “I know there are problems aboard, but so far nobody’s pressed me.”
Charlotte flushed, but didn’t say anything.
“I take it things are different for you, Charlotte,” I asked. I felt brutal asking, but I tried to keep my voice soft.
“This trip’s been much better,” she said, not looking at me or Juliett.
“You had trouble—unwanted attention—before this trip?” I pressed.
“Yes, sar, and no. I’m not gonna tell. I have to live with these people,” she was quite vehement but still didn’t look me in the eye.
“And you’ll be leaving the Billy as soon as your contract is up?” I asked.
“The very first chance I get, sar,” she said, and at that she did look at me. “Unless things get a whole lot better, I’m out of here the day my contract expires.”
“Well, we’ll have to make sure you make able spacer before then, won’t we?” I said softly. “We’ve got plenty of time between now and testing.”
“Sar? I’m only a spacer apprentice,” she pointed out, speaking slowly for the benefit of the officer in the room.
“Yes, Charlotte, I know.” I smiled at her. “But I’m the training officer and I know what you need to do to make able spacer and it doesn’t involve taking the ordinary spacer exam first.”
“You don’t have to take them in order, sar?” she asked, her curiosity fighting with her disbelief.
I shook my head. “Nope. If you can pass it, it’s yours. Half a brain and a decent study regimen makes able spacer pretty easy.”
Juliett frowned. “I didn’t think it was that easy.”
“Ah, but you didn’t have me to help you, now did you?” I asked with what I hoped was an endearing grin.
“No, sar, that’s true. I didn’t.”
I shook my head again, to try to clear out the bees. “Okay then, we’ll just have to do what we can and tough out the stuff we can’t. You have any problems with that?”
They exchanged another glance and shrugged. “No, sar,” they said almost in unison.
“Okay, then. Back to the question that started this. Yes, it’s entirely proper for you to help clean the mess deck. You use the mess deck. It’s one of the common areas of the ship, and while it’s attached to the galley and the messmates have some responsibility of keeping the space up to snuff, there’s nothing in any rule, order, or custom that says you can’t help them. Anything from stacking your dishes, to running a wipe across a dirty table, to picking up stuff that’s been dropped on the deck. It’s all good.”
The both nodded and shrugged a little. “That makes perfect sense, sar,” Juliett said, “but what if some people won’t help?”
“What about them?” I asked.
“We’ll be doing things for their benefit, sar,” she said.
“Ah, that’s actually not true. As long as you’re getting the benefit, say from a clean place to sit and study with your friends, then what do you care what’s going on with this hypothetical freeloader?”
Charlotte piped up with, “But he’s getting something for nothing! That’s not fair.” She added, “Sar”—as a kind of afterthought.
“What’s your point, Ms. D’Heng?” I asked. “If the incremental cost to you is nil, and you’re willing to work for what you want, what’s the problem with a freeloader as a byproduct?”
“It’s not fair,” she said again.
“Not fair to whom?” I asked her.
“Well, to the people who did the work, sar. To have somebody just come in and take advantage of that work without…I don’t know…paying…” she said, petering out a bit at the end.
“Okay, try this on. Juliett, let’s say you have planetside liberty and want to go to the beach, but you need to rent a ground car to get there. What does it cost you?”
Juliett nodded. “Well, sar, I guess that depends on the system, but probably somewhere between twenty and thirty creds.”
“Exactly, and what would you get in return?”
She didn’t think very long before saying, “Use of the vehicle and a day at the beach.”
“So far, this is fair?” I asked Charlotte.
“Yes, sar,” she agreed.
“Okay, so, Ms. D’Heng wants to go to the beach, too, and your car can carry the extra load without any problems. How do you handle that?” I asked.
Juliett spoke first. “Well of course she can come with me.”
“I’d offer to pay for fuel or split the cost of the rental or something, though,” Charlotte added.
“Okay and we’re still fair?” I asked. “If she splits the cost of the car, she has some interest in what you do with that car, Juliett. Are you going to accept her payment?”
“I don’t know, sar,” she said, thoughtfully. “I never thought about it.”
“Fair enough, but now that I’ve raised the issue, what do you think?”
“I’d probably be grateful for a contribution to the fuel fund, sar,” she said at last. “But I’m not sure I’d be willing to give up control of the car by accepting a shared payment for the rental.”
Charlotte was thinking very hard about this idea. I saw the intensity in her face.
“Okay, so the two of you work out a deal. Whatever it is. Now suppose Ms. Nart wants a ride. She just wants to go out to the beach and doesn’t even a ride back. You going to make her pay, too?”
“Sar, I’m already tired of these negotiations, and we aren’t getting any closer to the beach,” Juliett said as understanding began to dawn. “I’d probably just tell her to get in and we’ll drop her off. We’re going that way anyway.”
“But it’s not fair, if I had to pay, sar,” Charlotte said.
“But you didn’t have to pay,” Juliett said. “You just offered to chip in som
e gas money, and maybe Ulla would to, but the point is that I rented the ground car because I wanted to go to the beach. I was going to pay the whole cost until you came along and wanted a ride, and I would have taken you just for askin’,” she said with a grin.
“Yes, but that wouldn’t be fair, so I offered to pay something to help out,” Charlotte insisted.
“Okay, and what if I refused?” Juliett followed the logic without needing my prompting. “What if I said, ‘Don’t be silly! Get aboard. I’m going anyway’?”
“That would be very generous of you,” Charlotte said.
“Not really,” I pointed out. “Just pragmatic. The value of her investment was not changed by your being there. For her the point is to get to the beach. If she decides to let you chum along, what’s the cost to her?”
“Nothing,” Juliett said, “and I might actually enjoy the ride more if you came with me because I enjoy your company.”
“So is it fair?” I asked again.
Juliett was smiling now, but Charlotte was still frowning and trying to process. Finally, Charlotte said, “Under those conditions, I can’t really say if it’s fair or not, sar.” She had a kind of helpless expression on her face.
Juliett turned to Charlotte and said, “It’s not a question of fairness. That’s the point. Your payment or not payment—it just doesn’t matter if I’ve rented the vehicle to get my butt to the beach. My willingness to let you ride with me has nothing to do with whether or not you’re helping to pay. The point is whether or not I want to sit in the car with you during the trip.”
I waited for Charlotte to catch up with that logic.
“So, what has this got to do with cleaning the mess deck?” she finally asked.
“Cleaning the mess deck is the trip to the beach,” Juliett said. “The question isn’t who gets to use the beach. It’s who do we want in the car with us. Just between you and me? Anybody who doesn’t want to help, probably isn’t going to be that much help to begin with so who cares?”
Double Share: Solar Clipper Trader Tales Page 15
