Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper)

by Lowell, Nathan

  “So, what do you think?” Kirsten watched my face as I finished my inspection of the bridge.

  “A bit worse for wear, and I’d need an engineering report and a full ship inspection before I’d get underway in it.” I was thinking aloud more than answering her, but she nodded.

  “This ship is going on the block, one way or another. Geoff made that decision himself a month ago.”

  I looked over at her. “Really?”

  She nodded. “DST is trying to standardize the fleet to the optimal hull configurations for our various cargoes. This is the odd-ship-out, as it were, for fast packets. All our other packets are Unwin Eights.” She ran a hand over the back of the captain’s chair and then flicked her fingers together as if dusting them off.

  “Did he plan to sell the ship to me?”

  She looked at me with an odd twist to her mouth. “Oddly, your name did come up, but mostly it was a response to the Tribunal finding that cleared the salvage claim for auction of the Chernyakova.”

  I didn’t see the connection. The lack of understanding must have shown on my face.

  “What he said was something like ‘With all that money coming in here, one of those new millionaires will be looking to strike out on his own. Maybe Wang will buy it.’”

  I wandered around the bridge a bit more, noting the relatively clean screens and console surfaces. The skid-grid on the floor wasn’t new but it certainly wasn’t the original. While I walked, I began to get some odd ideas.

  “So, this plan with Ms. Maloney? It was in his will, but I wasn’t really part of that, was I

  She looked at me and pursed her lips. “What do you mean?”

  “If he put the codicil on five stanyers ago, it was before we even knew about the Chernyakova. There was no way to predict that I’d be getting wealthy and striking out on my own. Right?”

  She shrugged and nodded.

  “So, what’s with Ms. Maloney? Why isn’t she just getting farmed out to one of DST’s trading partners for seasoning?”

  She sighed and shrugged again, looking at her smudged fingers for a moment before speaking. “That’s probably what Geoff was thinking when he put the codicil together.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ in there.”

  “But Ames and I both argued against that plan.”

  “Why?”

  “Politics. Here’s the nightmare scenario. Our future CEO goes to work as a quarter share for, say, Allied Haulers. They’re a good company, have a good market position , and they’d really like to have a bigger share of the shipping pie. How handy would it be for them to take our new CEO, majority stockholder, and either sit her on a pedestal for a stanyer not working, not learning, not really having much to do at all except drink coffee and eat bonbons, or actually teaching her the mistakes they want her to make when they send her back.”

  “So? Send her to Dunsany Roads. There’s no serious market competition from that far off. Get her a berth on one of the big corporate haulers like Federated Freight or Schulman.”

  “She’s not stupid or without resources. It would be easy for her to buy her way out of the obligation and come back in a stanyer not knowing anything.”

  “Would she? I mean, the first scenario, okay. I can see that, I think, but is she the kind of woman who’d play that kind of game?”

  “Can we take that kind of chance with the company?”

  “You’re going to give the whole company to her when she comes back. And if she’s really not stupid, then seeing what it’s like on ship should make a certain amount of sense.”

  “That’s the thing, Ishmael.” She leaned against the chair without sitting on it. “Does it really make sense?”

  I gave her a small smile. “That’s really the question I’ve been dancing around. What do you expect her to learn about running a shipping company by putting her in a quarter share berth for a stanyer?”

  Kirsten shook her head. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what Ames and I have been asking Geoff ever since he put the codicil on his will.”

  I blinked at her.

  She shook her head and went on. “I could see if Geoff had required her to work as a trade broker, or in an agent’s shop. It would even make sense for him to require her to go to school. There’s a great shipping management program at Port Newmar, but even the master’s of business program here at the University of Diurnia...” She sighed and crossed her arms under her breasts.

  I parked my rump on the pilot’s console and leaned my hands against the worn edge. “Then why are you trying to sell me on this scheme so hard?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t have a choice. It’s in his will and now he’s gone and we can’t get it changed. Ames and I—all of us involved—we care about this company and we want it to succeed. We want it to stay in the family, but even if we didn’t? We have to execute his will.”

  “How did I get mixed up in it? Geoff Maloney has been pulling my strings since I left the academy and now this?”

  She didn’t answer right away and after a few heartbeats I heard her sigh. “The last time we had this conversation with Geoff, Ames and I were trying to convince him to change the codicil. To have her do something—anything—that would help her run the company.”

  I nodded for her to go on.

  “Ames was very frustrated with him. He just wouldn’t budge on it. Finally Ames asked him the question that you just asked me. ’What do you expect her to learn as a quarter share that’s going to help her run the company?’ He just smiled in that maddening way he has, then he said, ’I don’t expect you’d understand, Ames, you’ve never been a quarter share and you really don’t know what it’s like out there.’” Her gaze focused inward as she spoke. “Ames was incensed. He actually shouted, ‘But how is that going to help her run the company?’ Geoff just shook his head and refused to answer. I tried to calm them down and said I didn’t understand either. Geoff grinned at me—the bastard—” her voice choked a bit. “He said, ‘Of course, you don’t. But Ishmael Wang would.’” She looked down at the deck again and one hand stole up to brush away a tear from her cheek that I pretended not to see. After a few heartbeats, she looked up at me. “And now you’re telling me you don’t know either?”

  I smiled at her. “Actually, I think I do. Now.”

  “What?” Her voice all but cracked on the syllable .“We’ve been wracking our brains for stanyers.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “Until you’ve been there, I don’t think you can really get it. It’s something you have to do, more than something to learn.”

  She scowled at me. “That’s not exactly a helpful answer. And, pardon me for asking this, but how exactly would you know? You were never a quarter share.”

  “Actually, I started there.”

  “You didn’t! I’ve seen your service jacket, Ishmael Wang.”

  I shook my head. “Look again. You’ve only got my record since the academy. My first berth was quarter share on the Lois McKendrick over in Dunsany Roads.”

  She blinked at me. “You’re not kidding, are you.”

  I shook my head again. “Not at all.”

  We stood there in the bridge in silence. The reflections from the skin of the orbital filled the bridge with a silvery light but gazing aft, stars dusted the velvety black of the Deep Dark. Staring out there, remembering the first time I’d seen the universe from the bridge of a ship, I was pretty sure I knew what Geoff Maloney wanted his daughter to learn before she took the helm of the company. I smiled.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said at last.

  She looked up at me, confusion washing across her face.

  “How much of this scheme is Geoff Maloney and how much of it is you and Ames Jarvis?”

  She sighed and shrugged. “Well, we’re improvising. Geoff was adamant about the codicil. Somewhere, somehow, we need to get her aboard a ship and she has to work there for a stanyer. The sooner the better b
ecause the clock doesn’t start ticking until she signs the Articles. The company can’t afford to wait too long with an acting CEO and a Board that’s prone to waiting for the heir apparent to take the reins.”

  “And...?” I prompted.

  “Well, this ship was already slated for disposal. It’s practically made for you and the company can afford to give you a good deal on it. Geoff had arranged for Gwen Thomas to get her master’s ticket over a month ago. We could have waited for another month or so before moving her up and given you another run with Agamemnon before making a leisurely transition after the settlements from the Chernyakova cleared.” She shrugged. “We weren’t really sure what you’d do with your share of the prize money, but with Gwen Thomas moving up, and the fleet consolidating, waving a metric buttload of credits under your nose before putting the ship up for sale seemed rather straightforward.”

  “He wanted to get rid of me?” I felt stung.

  She smiled and I thought her eyes were shining again as she shook her head. “Not at all. I think he knew he couldn’t keep you and this, such as it is...” she waved her hands around to indicate the ship “...well, I think it was his way of saying thanks.”

  “But he hated to lose people!”

  She grinned at me again. “Yeah, and he hated to lose good people more, but for all his other faults, Geoff Maloney knew his business.”

  I thought about that for more than a few heartbeats before Kirsten straightened up and headed for the ladder. “If you’ve seen enough for now, Ishmael...?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Thanks for the tour.”

  I followed her down and out of the ship, securing it once more behind us. We walked in relative silence all the way back to the entrance to the maintenance dock, where she offered her hand. I took it.

  “I think you can find your way back from here.” She’d regained her composure but she still looked exhausted.

  “Thanks again. You’ve given me a lot to think about.” I paused. “There’s still one thing that I don’t get.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Only one? There’s dozens that I don’t get about this whole thing.”

  I laughed but continued. “He hated to lose people. When I let Ricks leave the Agamemnon, he nearly blew a gasket.”

  She grinned at me. “But you still have Ms. Arellone aboard.”

  I blinked at her.

  “That bet cost me a hundred credits,” she said.

  “Bet?”

  She nodded with a low chuckle and crossed her arms again. “Stacy Arellone was ashore on half pay and in and out of trouble. We kept trying to get her onto a ship so we could either cut her loose entirely or get some work out of her.” She looked up at me. “Geoff bet me that he could get you to hire her. I told him you had too much sense to hire a brig rat.” She sighed and shook her head. “I never did find out how he got that outlander to offer Ricks the job, or even how he knew Ricks would leave, but less than a week later, Ricks was gone, you’d winkled her out of the brig, and had skedaddled off to Breakall with her. Even got her back up to full share.”

  I gave a bark of laughter. “That bastard!”

  She grinned sadly. “Yeah, that’s him.” After a few heartbeats she asked, “How did he convince you?”

  I looked at my boots and ran a hand down the back of my skull. “He told me that if Ricks left, he’d punish me by making me hire her.”

  A giggle bubbled up out of her and seemed to melt some of the tiredness out of her face. “The bastard!” she said, shaking her head in admiration.

  Still laughing, we headed in opposite directions around the promenade. I headed back to the Agamemnon, my head still spinning. She went her own way and I couldn’t help but wonder what her relationship to the late Geoff Maloney might have been—and what her current relationship with Ames Jarvis was.

  Chapter Four

  Diurnia Orbital:

  2372-December-18

  I slipped into the galley to relieve Mr. Pall at 0540. I found him helping Mr. Wyatt with the breakfast prep and the two of them looked up as I sauntered onto the mess deck.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” I said, forestalling the questions I saw on their faces. I snagged a mug and poured my first cup of the day, turning to rest my haunches against the counter while I sipped.

  After a few ticks of clattering, Mr. Pall asked, “What’s going on, Skipper?”

  I took another deliberate sip before looking at him. “Ms. Thomas is getting another shot at her master’s license.”

  The two of them shared a look, glancing briefly at each other before looking back to me. “And...?” Mr. Pall prompted.

  “And we’ll see how she does, but the smart money will bet on her making it.” I sipped my coffee again, hiding my grin at the flashes of consternation on their faces. “Shall we change the watch, Mr. Pall?”

  As the chronometer clicked over to 0545, we observed the requisite forms, even as Mr. Hill scooted onto the mess deck to grab a mug before taking his own post at the brow. He gave me a knowing smirk as he passed on the mess deck but offered no comment.

  I settled at my customary seat at the long table and watched as Mr. Pall finished setting up the griddle and Mr. Wyatt pulled a tray of biscuits from the oven. Mr. Pall kept glancing at me, but I noticed that Avery kept looking at him with a certain degree of amusement.

  Eventually, Mr. Pall noticed and frowned at him. “What’s so funny?” He kept his voice low but in the quiet of the docked ship, it was clearly audible.

  Mr. Wyatt shot me a look, that Mr. Pall echoed. “Well, Mr. Pall, it’s only been about a stanyer but I’ve learned that our captain here—” he nodded his head in my direction while his deft hands stacked biscuits into a basket, “—will tell us whatever is going on as soon as he can.”

  I toasted him with my mug even as Mr. Pall’s face fell a bit in a combination of chagrin and disappointment.

  After a few heartbeats he looked up again, his glance going from Mr. Wyatt to me and back again. “But something is going on, right?”

  Mr. Wyatt nodded before speaking. “Oh, yes, Mr. Pall, something is most definitely going on.”

  The console keyboard was still on the table and I used it to pull up the outgoing manifest—three cans for Jett. The delivery bonus was based on delivery by the end of March. Even if things went a little oddly, the Agamemnon should be able to make good on those.

  Mr. Pall focused on flipping some pancakes on the griddle, the tip of his tongue caught in the corner of his mouth in concentration, but Mr. Wyatt saw me looking at the cargoes. He arched an eyebrow in my direction but I gave a slight shake of my head and a little shrug.

  He pursed his lips and returned the shrug just as Chief Gerheart and Ms. Thomas came onto the mess deck with big smiles and broke up our little man-fest.

  Ms. Thomas grabbed a coffee and sidled comfortably up to Mr. Wyatt to survey the breakfast arrangements. I made it a point not to notice the pat she gave Mr. Wyatt’s butt although I did see Chief Gerheart grin into her mug.

  “Okay, close enough! I’m declaring breakfast open. Captain? If you’d do the honors?” Mr. Wyatt looked pointedly at the end of the line and I dutifully took plate in hand and dished up the ceremonial first helpings of pancakes, bacon, eggs, biscuits, and what looked like a very smooth sausage gravy.

  “What? No potatoes?” I looked up at Mr. Wyatt with a frown and a wink.

  “Skipper, any more carbs in this breakfast and we’ll need a bigger lock just to load the crew.”

  The crew shared an appreciative chuckle and by the time I’d taken my seat, I noticed that Misters Schubert and Hill had joined us although there was no sign of Ms. Arellone. Counting noses, I realized that the crew was all at breakfast with that one exception, a notable occurrence for first day in port.

  We settled in to enjoy the food almost silently and I ignored the curious glances that didn’t quite end in questions. At 0605 we heard the lock start to cycle and Mr. Hill left his breakfast to tend to it. Ms. Arellone accompanied
him back onto the mess deck. She wore civvies, and looked rather like she’d enjoyed her evening.

  “Sorry, I’m late.” She looked around the table, scanning faces.

  Mr. Wyatt finished chewing and wiped his mouth with a napkin before answering. “Plenty left, and plenty of time.”

  I could see her glancing at me out of the corner of her eye and then she shot Mr. Schubert a questioning look.

  He gave a short shake of his head and continued eating.

  “Well, I’ll just get changed and be right back then.” She announced it quite loudly and totally unnecessarily.

  I didn’t even have time to finish my biscuit before she was back, properly attired in a clean shipsuit. She worked her way methodically down the serving line, helping herself as she went. She placed her meal at her normal place and then looked up the table to Ms. Thomas. “Can I get you anything while I’m up, Ms. Thomas?”

  Gwen smiled at her and shook her head. “No, thank you, Ms. Arellone. I don’t want to eat too much before the exam.” She looked around the table with a grin. “I don’t mind admitting, I’m a bit nervous.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine today,” I said. “Tomorrow’s the interview and that’s really the harder part.”

  “Oh, yes. No question there.” She paused and looked at me with a question in her eyes .“I still don’t know how you managed to get me another Board. I did this last year, just before you joined us.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t. It was Geoff Maloney’s doing, apparently.”

  That brought a lot of looks in my direction.

  “I was going to put you in when we docked, but who knows how long it would have been before they got to you.”

  She nodded, a rueful smile curling her mouth.