by Dan Thompson
“Sure, as long as they’re not expecting breakfast in bed or some kind of special kelp and tofu diet, ’cause I don’t do that shit. I mean, I’d rather they ate the same as us, sir.”
“I think we can make that a stipulation.”
“Then no problems from me, sir, but I will need to lay in more stores for the pantry. Should I do that now?”
He nodded and sent her on her way. They would probably be taking on cargo in the next few days, so she may as well get that detail out of the way now. He glanced at the crate resting in the corner and saw an envelope taped to the top with his name on it: Michael Fletcher, Sophie’s Grace, route via Taschin ground port.
“Captain, you have a call.” It was Carlos up on the bridge.
“I’ll take it down here,” he said, opening up the call on his computer.
“Captain Fletcher, I have some good news.” It was Janet Bower from the Guild offices up on the station.
“I could use some. What do you have?”
“I believe you know that Captain Wallace spoke to us on your behalf a couple of weeks back. Well, he also stopped in at Cenita last week and spoke to them there as well, and it turns out there’s something we can do. The exec there found a clause allowing provisional memberships for legacy members, that is, the children of current or former members. It will grant you some of the privileges, even though you’re not bonded yet.”
“What privileges?”
“Not many, truth be told, and it’s only for six months, but it will let you represent yourself to clients as a member of the Guild within certain parameters. I’m sending you the details in writing. Apparently, the idea was for parents who sponsored their children into the Guild, and this gave them a longer window to sort out the finances. Fortunately, though, there’s no stipulation that it has to be the actual parent acting as sponsor, so Captain Wallace serves perfectly well.”
“But I still have to come up with the bond in six months.”
“I said it was good news, not great news. It’s the best we could do for now, but you should definitely stop in to talk to Mr. Johansen the next time you’re at Cenita. His message definitely made him sound like an advocate for your case.”
He nodded. He would be at Cenita soon enough, but Rapoen first. “Well, thank you, Ms. Bower, and I will definitely stop by to see Mr. Johansen.”
Feeling good about that, he stood to investigate the crate again. He peeled off the envelope, tearing it in the process, and read the handwritten letter inside.
Michael,
I presume you have made it back to Taschin by now. I have returned to Callista Prime to take over the role of Chief Executive for Schneider & Williams. I have traded in my ship for a house, and as part of that, I have retrieved several old things out of storage, including my old library. I found some of Peter’s personal effects as part of that, and I feel that you should have them now. It isn’t much, but hopefully it should tell you something about who my little brother was.
Take care of yourself out there, and if you ever need anything feel free to ask. Just stop by any S&W office. They’ll have directions to offer reasonable assistance. I wish you well on your licensing exam. To tell you the truth, I had to take it twice, but I would rather that not get around. Peter got a perfect score on his first time, and he gave me grief about it right to the end. Do well enough, and I’ll be happy to let you carry on his tradition.
With love and respect,
Hans Schneider
Michael stood there, staring at the page blankly. His uncle had been conciliatory toward the end, but Michael had a hard time believing this had come from the same hand. Not once had he referred to Peter as Michael’s father, not even as his birth father.
“What do you have there, Skipper?” Carlos leaned against the hatch frame in the corridor.
“Something from my uncle.”
“Any idea what?”
Michael looked down that crate, secured by a built-in keypad lock. He scanned back over the letter but found no numbers. “No idea. He didn’t include the combination.”
Carlos shrugged. “That’s a weird uncle then. So, what did that lady from the station want? The ID said she was Guild.”
Richard came around the corner. “About the passengers …”
Michael held up his hand. “I am now officially a provisional member of the Captain’s Guild.”
Richard raised an eyebrow. “Provisional?”
Michael shook his head and sighed. “It’s a technicality, but it buys me six months.”
Carlos nodded eagerly. “A technicality. I like it. I can work with a technicality, especially if it has the Guild seal. How about you, Mr. Mosley?”
Richard nodded. “I think I can work with that, probably even get full cargo rates. So, I suppose congratulations are in order, Captain.”
He smiled. “Provisional congratulations. About the passengers, I already spoke to Winner.”
Richard nodded. “As did I. I simply wanted to know if we had a departure date to put on the listing.”
He thought for a moment. He had seen several cargoes that would work, and he presumed any outbound passengers were eager to go. He had his license, his ship, a crew, and now a provisional Guild membership, whatever that meant. It was time for this first command decision.
He looked at his watch: half-past four. “We’ll make for Rapoen in three days. Let’s shoot for a morning departure.”
Richard smiled. “I’ll get us a slot on the departure schedule and post it to the port authority and the transit board. With luck, we’ll get at least one or two passengers.”
“You do that,” Michael replied.
Richard left, while Carlos remained in the doorway glancing back and forth between Michael and the crate.
“What is it?” Michael prompted.
“Oh,” Carlos glanced back at him. “I was thinking about the passengers.”
“What about them?”
Carlos took a deep breath and grumbled out a rough sigh. “Skipper, I think you know I’m fine with your ... well, with your age, and certainly the rest of the crew has signed on for it, too. But I wonder if the passengers might not be so understanding.”
Michael frowned. “Well, it’s not like they’re going to be checking my ID.”
Carlos shook his head. “No offense, Skipper, but they won’t have to. You look a little ...” he trailed off with a shrug.
Michael looked away. “I know, but I don’t think bleaching my hair gray is going to convince anyone.”
“That would be quite a sight,” he replied with a chuckle. “But I was thinking more about a beard. Hell, even a moustache.”
Michael grinned a bit at that, recalling how Peter Schneider’s bristly moustache had been called “the broom of doom” among the various S&W crews. He ran a hand over his chin. The truth of it was, he had been shaving since before his sixteenth birthday, and it did start to show when he skipped a day or two. “Maybe,” he replied at last. “You ever grow one?”
Carlos gave a soft laugh. “When I still wanted to look older,” he answered, running a hand over his own chin. “I shaved it off when it started turning white. But on you, yeah, as long as it’s not too patchy, it would look good. Maybe stick with a goatee, like that actor everyone’s fawning over ... Marcus something or other.”
“Kearn,” he replied. “Marcus Kearn.” He ran a hand over his chin one more time. “I’ll think about it.”
“Well, I’ll see you around, Skipper.”
Michael pulled up the file photo of Peter from his records. Peter had only had the moustache, but if Michael had the right genes to make his own beard come in that thick, it would definitely add a few years to his face. If nothing else, he could let the shaving slip during the trip to Rapoen.
He stood and considered the crate again. He might be about to rely on Peter’s genes for the beard, but he had no idea what else his birth father could be good for.
Chapter 6
“Years of anticipation
have taught me an important lesson. The things I missed yesterday because I was looking forward to today may become critical tomorrow.” – Peter Schneider
MICHAEL WATCHED THE OSTRICHES pace around in their miniature habitat. One of them was squawking and ruffling its feathers in what he presumed was some kind of mating ritual.
“They’re not real, you know,” Annie said.
He looked over at her as she leaned against the rail, popcorn in hand.
“They look pretty real to me,” he said.
She shook her head. “The originals went extinct back on Earth before ever being carried out to the other worlds. Some zoo over in the Catai spliced these together from other bird genes and old reference photos.” She pointed to the plaque beyond the railing. “Struthio camelus nova.”
“Interesting. Is that why you picked them as the place to meet?”
She held out the popcorn. “Try it. They make it with real canola oil here.”
He took a small handful and popped it into his mouth. “It’s nice,” he said, but he so rarely ate popcorn that it did not taste all that different to him.
She took the bag back and began picking popped kernels out one at a time. “I looked at the port registry. I see the Sophie is scheduled to depart tomorrow morning.”
“They’re loading cargo as we speak. That’s why I called.”
She gave him an approving nod. “Well, it looks like you made it. Do you know when you’ll pass through next?”
“I don’t know. I’m starting with a meandering run in to Arvin, but after that I think I’d like to go back to some of Malcolm’s old routes.”
“He came through pretty regularly. Are you sure you want to settle for a route that boring?”
He smirked, remembering some of the places he and Malcolm had ended up. “It wasn’t as boring as you think. He had something of a cloverleaf pattern with Taschin at the center, but each of the four loops had two or three variations. About the only predictable part was hitting Taschin every couple of months.”
“Well, Malcolm had his reasons.”
“That’s part of what I wanted to ask you about.”
She frowned. “I was afraid of that.”
“Why? Was it bad?”
She shrugged. “It was what it was, but it might change the way you remember Malcolm. Plus,” she said, pausing for another piece of popcorn, “I worry about you and Josie.”
“Why?”
“Because neither of you knows what you want. You just want.”
“Fair enough,” he replied. “But what about Malcolm? What did he want?”
“At first he was like any other …,” she trailed off with a sigh. “He was a regular client. Cash for services. No questions, maybe I’ll see you next time. Then Sophia died, and he showed up with you.” She shook her head. “After that, I started getting deposits from his bank here on Taschin on the first of each month, regular as clockwork. We never talked about it. He asked once to make sure I was receiving it properly. It went up a little over time, so by the time he died last year, it was up to twenty-one hundred a month.”
“Twenty-one hundred?” He tried to fit that into what he had seen of Malcolm’s ship budgets.
“Yeah, it’s a lot. Not enough to live on, but it paid the rent. Plus, he bought me things when he came through. I kept my schedule clear the times he was likely to be in port, and I canceled everything if he ever had a surprise visit. It was a good deal.”
“I suppose, but I always wondered why he didn’t just … well …”
“What? Marry me?”
“Yeah.”
Annie laughed. “If he wasn’t going to be married to your mom, he wasn’t going to be married to anyone. I mean, sure, we got along and had some good times, but ...” She looked back out at the ostriches. The squawking had stopped for now. “I’ve known a lot of men, and I’ve seen them fall into love and right back out of it, but not Malcolm. He cared for me, but he was never in love with me.”
“You’re sure?”
She shrugged. “As sure as I can be of anything. Why, did he say something to you?”
“Not really, but I will say this. When we talked about heading back here, he never said ‘Let’s go back to Taschin.’ It was always ‘Let’s go home.’”
She looked away for a moment and sniffled a bit when she turned back. “Thank you for that.”
“So you never answered my question. Why the ostriches?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. They’re cute in a goofy kind of way, and they remind me that some things are best left in the past.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “You tell me. Plus,” she said, pointing to a red and white striped cart, “it’s next to the popcorn. Let’s get another bag and feed it to the elephants.”
They wandered through the zoo for another hour before parting. It was nice, reminiscent of the times she had taken him to some local attraction as a child while Malcolm had had business elsewhere on Taschin. He had never quite come to think of her as a mother, but the truth of the matter was that she was as close to one as he had ever known. Knowing the details of Malcolm’s arrangement did not make it any easier to understand.
“I was hoping to see Josie again tonight before I left,” he said at the exit to the zoo. “I called twice but only got her voice mail.”
Annie frowned. “It’s probably best if you leave it with the fancy night you already had.”
Michael chewed on it for a moment. “She said she didn’t want to see me?”
“No.”
“Then what did she say?”
Annie frowned. “She’s confused, Michael, maybe even more than you. Best not to add to it right now.”
“I don’t understand.”
She smiled up him. “That’s right. You don’t.”
Robert Bishop walked down the passenger ramp at Tsaigo station and handed his ID to the customs agent. It listed him as Martin Escher, but it was not a proper cover identity. Martin Escher was alive and well back at Arvin and would be unaware of this little trip he took until he reviewed his bank account the next month.
A young woman in a Hannover Shipping coverall waited for him beyond. Her blonde hair was cut short and spiked up into a flattop with the tips tinted pink. An elaborate brass chain hung from three points on her left ear, and a webbed tattoo rose up right side of her neck, but Bishop still recognized her.
“Captain,” he said when he reached her.
“Bishop,” Elsa replied and led him away from the crowd. “It’s Patrice now. Patrice Parker.”
“Nice to make your acquaintance, Miss Parker. Officially I’m Mr. Escher, but I’ll need to replace that soon enough.”
She nodded and headed toward the lifts. “I’m sure we can set you up with something more permanent.”
“Thank you,” he said. “And I appreciate you coming to meet me personally. After your departure at Arvin, I began to wonder about your commitment.”
She led him into a lift, and they rode down two levels in silence as other people came and went. They exited in a quiet industrial area, and she beckoned him to the left. When they were alone again, she gave him a polite nod. “I would not forget my loyal crew. In fact, I arranged both for your bail and for the ease with which you skipped out on it.”
“That could not have been cheap. The bond was a million credits. Conspiracy to commit piracy, arms smuggling, kidnapping. Heady stuff.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t as expensive as you think. It was more paperwork than cash. A bail bondsman with a fake history, hard to check into on a Friday afternoon, and when the station magistrate tries to collect, they’ll find an office as empty as the bank accounts.”
“And the rest?”
She turned to the right, two more corridors and through a loading door marked only with a number. A high-ceilinged warehouse lay beyond, filled with shipping containers three high. “My exec was a harder case, so I passed that one to a friend who assured me of a mi
x-up during a future trip to a court appearance. Another associate is taking care of some of the evidence that was confiscated from the Jaguar, mostly altering the chain-of-custody paperwork, and within a month there will be a flood of dismissal motions claiming grounds of inadmissible evidence.”
“What about little Maya?”
Elsa sighed. “She presented us with a much more difficult situation. I understand they have video of her taking down one of the local security at point blank range, plus shooting up one of their precious naval officers. We’re going to have to wait until after her trial and sentencing, but I’ve sent her my assurances that she will ultimately be freed. We’ll arrange some snafu during a prisoner transport, and before you know it she’ll be walking the deck with a new identity.”
They turned down a short row of containers and went into a small office. She poured him a drink from behind her desk and put her feet up. “But I’m hanging Jimmy Anders out to dry. The kidnapping was his operation from the start, and someone has to take the fall. Plus, he was never truly part of the organization.”
Bishop accepted the drink. “Speaking of the organization, I confess I’m surprised to see you doing so well. I had thought, perhaps, your star would have been extinguished.”
She smiled. “Merely tarnished. I suppose I’m on a bit of probation, but as soon as Mr. Fletcher is taken care of, my accounts will be in the black again.”
He took another sip. It was far from his favorite but passable. “So, the boy still holds your interest.”
“For another two or three months, tops.” She poured a drink for herself. “Though I might keep a vial of his ashes afterwards as a memento.”
“Do you have a plan?”
She nodded. “Parts of it are already in play, but I’m assembling a team to finish it off.”
“Are you looking for volunteers?”
She shook her head. “I would appreciate any recommendations you have, particularly for ship-qualified wet work. The truth is I’d love to have you on this, particularly for Fletcher’s final disposition. You always had such talent for that end of it.”
“But you have something else in mind for me?”
