Richard shrugged. “Even at that, some villages don’t have one.”
“I don’t understand,” Otto said. “Why won’t they help?”
“Politics.” Richard spat the word as if it were a bad granapple.
“They don’t want to get between a girl and the company?” Rachel asked.
“Basically. There’s apparently noise going around that the company wants to do away with the shaman exemption. They don’t want to rock the boat by expanding the number of shamans while the company is thinking about doing away with them.”
Rachel bit her lip and glanced at Otto.
Otto took a deep breath and blew it out again slowly. “You told her, I take it?” he asked with a nod at Sarah’s bedroom door.
Richard shrugged. “I thought it would be best she heard it from me.”
“Probably.” Otto looked back and forth between his parents. “Now what?”
Richard said, “She’s got three choices. Job, marriage, or leave.”
Otto sighed. “Looks like I’m going crabbing.”
“Say what you will, it’ll get you out and working for yourself. Sorta,” Rachel said. “Days you need to tend to your flock here, you can stay in. Go out when the tides not good for walking the beach.”
“You can listen to the world out there almost as well as here,” Richard said. “It’s weak, but it’s something. Long as she’s crew, she’ll stay here. Comstock can’t challenge that.”
Rachel reached across to pat Otto’s forearm where it lay on the table. “Who knows? In time, she may well find somebody to marry and the point will be moot.”
“Things could be worse,” Richard said.
Otto looked over at him, surprised at his comment.
“This could be her eighteenth birthday and she’d have ninety days to get off St. Cloud.”
In spite of himself, Otto grunted a single laugh. “There’s that.”
Rachel pulled plates from the cupboard and ice cream from the freezer. “Meantime, this cobbler’s getting cold. We need to get the birthday girl out here to blow out the candles before they puddle all over the place.”
Otto rose and crossed to the girl’s room. Knocking once, he opened the door and slipped through.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Cape Grace: May 22, 2346
OTTO ENTERED ED COMSTOCK’S office with a flutter of trepidation in his gut. “You wanted to see me, Ed?”
Ed waved him into a chair and took a seat beside him. “Thanks for coming, Otto.”
“When the company calls ...” Otto shrugged.
Ed chuckled a little, but it sounded more like nerves than amusement. “I’ve got a problem that I hope you can help me with.”
“I will if I can, of course.”
“Yes, well.” Comstock dithered and stared at his hands. “When I said I thought I could get Sarah settled in a job, I guess I over spoke.”
The admission startled a laugh out of Otto. “You’re giving up after a stanyer?”
Comstock smiled and offered a shrug. “She’s a brilliant girl. Just ...”
“Scattered? Unfocused? Not quite there?” Otto asked.
“Yeah. You knew this would be a problem?”
“I know my daughter. She’s a shaman. You put her on the beach, let her wander through town, let her do anything that has to do with the wider world and she’s a hundred percent there. Put her in a room with a boring, repetitive task with no interaction beyond a display terminal? She’s not going to make it.”
“So, what kind of job do you think I could get her to do?”
“You mean a job where she’d actually show up and do it?”
Comstock laughed. “I have to admit that day we found her on the far side of town scared me a little. When she didn’t show up for work, I didn’t know if she was just sick or if something had happened to her.”
Otto nodded. “I figured she was all right, but I also thought she was at the office all day.”
“How can I help?” Comstock asked. “I heard through the grapevine that you’re unable to get a quorum together.”
“And I heard that the company may try to remove the shaman exemption.”
“Over four thousand nonemployees on planet. It makes home office nervous.” Comstock shrugged. “That’s the rationale, anyway.”
“Four thousand plus people you don’t pay but who help keep the employees more or less happy and healthy. Most of whom won’t be going anywhere because they’re married to a company employee.” Otto stared at Comstock for a few heartbeats. “If they weren’t shamans, most of them would still be nonemployees on planet. This makes no sense unless they think it’ll save them legal fees. Fees they’d save anyway if they just released the gender clause.”
“Granted.” Comstock sighed. “Personally, I think it would be a mistake to remove the exemption. I know what the shamans mean to keeping the machine going. That’s neither here nor there.”
“True.” Otto shifted his weight in the chair and looked at Comstock. “Why do you care?”
“About Sarah?”
Otto nodded.
Comstock took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I hate losing people. Losing Carla was a blow to the whole community, not just you. I take it personally when I lose people like that.”
“We’ve lost people to boxfish before. My father almost died from one.”
“Really?”
“Just about the time Jimmy Pirano started looking offshore for fishing grounds. He had everybody who could fish out on a boat. He even went out himself.”
“I remember,” Comstock said.
“My father got volunteered to work as crew. Brushed up against a boxfish one day just off Callum’s Cove. The medics got him ashore in time. He’s never been quite the same since.”
“I had no idea.”
“Long time ago.”
“Otto, I want you to know I think Sarah is a very special young lady. I want to keep her here in Cape Grace, if possible, but on planet where she can be near family and friends.”
“We have common ground there.”
“So help me help her. The only way she’s going to stay is if she gets a job or gets married.”
“I need time,” Otto said. “She’s just turned seventeen. Even if there was somebody she wanted to marry, she’s too young.”
“I’ll file the exemption as soon as you sign it,” Comstock said, looking down at his hands. “I know the year’s not up, but I didn’t really understand what I was up against.”
“How’s the crabbing?” Otto asked.
“Crabbing?” Comstock looked at Otto with a frown. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I said no fishing but I might have been a bit hasty.”
“We only have two crabbers in Cape Grace. It’s not exactly a booming market here.”
“You’ve got Steve and Marty Grosvenor in one boat and Arlene Sanmarco crabbing with her grandmother.” Otto asked. “What if you had a third boat? Fifty percent increase in crab landings. I hear that’s a nice luxury niche.”
“Who told you that?”
“My mother.”
“Isn’t she a data analyst for Pirano?”
Otto smiled. “She also did the prototype work on the crabbers and pots. Those are her designs you’re fishing with.”
Comstock tilted his head to the left and raised an eyebrow. “Who’d run this hypothetical third boat?”
“Me.”
“You? What do you know about crabbing?”
“Who do you think crewed for my mother?”
Comstock’s face relaxed into a grin. “Brilliant.”
“Get me a boat and about fifty traps. Set up an account for it at the chandlery and increase your bait order.”
Comstock’s face fell. “Bait has always been tight. That could be a problem.”
“Who’s running the long lines for you?”
“We don’t have anybody here.”
“Who do you need to keep out of troubl
e?”
“That Tatum kid. Bobby.”
Otto frowned. “I know that name. I’ve met his father. He’s a problem?”
“His old man has a temper. You ever met the missus?”
“Not that I remember.”
“You’d remember.” Comstock glanced away and then back at Otto. “If you get a chance, you might look in on her.”
“Isn’t Bobby fishing with his father?”
Comstock shook his head. “Father’s working the line in the freezer plant. None of the captains will take him and I can’t transfer him out unless he asks.”
“He hasn’t asked?”
Comstock shook his head again. “I think he likes the line. Good pay. Been on evening shift for a couple of stanyers now. It’s not a bad job and he seems to have made some friends. At least they all seem to get into trouble together.”
“Why won’t the captains take him? He seemed like a nice enough guy the few times I’ve met him.”
“He doesn’t play well with others. Especially when he’s liquored up.”
“Oh. Not good.”
“Like I said. If you get a chance, you might wanna look in on the missus. In an unofficial official capacity.”
“I’ll do that. In the meantime we’ll need bait. Is there a reason you’ve not set up a line for it yet?”
“With two boats? Don’t seem worth the effort.”
“You’re the Pirano guy here. What do you think of expanding the crabbing?”
“The two boats are earning good. It’s pretty easy money for them and you’re right about the crab being a premium product. We use everything they catch right here in town. That’s just the hotel and restaurant trade, plus what they sell direct off the boats.”
“Company takes a cut?”
“Of course, but it’s minor. Ten percent and we give them the boat and gear. They just need to take care of the fuel, bait, and maintenance.”
“Sounds fair. So, boat? Traps?”
“I’ll have to put a req into the Inlet, but they’ve never given me any push back on hulls.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “What’d it take to set up a bait operation here?”
“One of the five-meter utility boats, some tubs for the bait, and a few thousand meters of trawl line with hooks. Couple of buoys. Couple of anchors.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, somebody to do it and a decent place to run the lines. We used to run them outside of the crabbing grounds. Couple of kilometers offshore is usually good. Doesn’t take much skill. Just the ability to run out, drop the line, then go back and pick it up the next day. Pull the fish, rebait the hooks, and set it out again. It’s a lot less gear than a dragger but a lot smaller take, too.”
“What if we put the word out to the fleet to keep the trash fish instead of tossing it back overboard?”
“Worth a look. I’m not sure how much trash they’d pull off the grounds during the season. A hundred crab pots would need two or three hundred kilos of bait a week.”
“I think they’ve only got a hundred traps between them now.”
“Well, I could probably double the landings, then.” Otto shrugged. “My mother ran a hundred most of the time.”
“Seems like a lot of traps for a small area.”
Otto grinned. “Would be if we only fished in the harbor.”
“All right, Otto. You got a deal. I’ll submit this exemption and requisition a crabber with running gear from the Inlet. You hire that daughter of yours as crew and we’ll be all straight with the company.” Comstock offered hand. Otto shook it.
“One thing?” Comstock asked.
“Yeah?”
“If you know so much about crabbing, why haven’t you been doing it all along.”
“It’s hard to be shaman and fish, too.” Otto shrugged. “Besides? Didn’t need to. Invested Carla’s life insurance and we’ve been living off the income from that ever since.”
Comstock’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t look so surprised. I’m a pretty cheap date.” Otto grinned. “Now where’s this form you need thumbed? I need to go see a woman about a whelkie.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Cape Grace: June 15, 2346
SARAH STOOD ON THE dock and looked at the boat. “You want me to do what?”
Otto looked up at her from the cockpit. “I want you to listen to the world.”
“That sounds like something Grampa would say.”
“Where do you think I learned it?”
Her lips squirmed into a grimace and her brow furrowed in a frown.
“Here’s the deal. You need a job. There’s a lot more to being a shaman than just walking on the beach and carving whelkies.”
“Like what?”
“Like figuring out what’s going on in the village. What do people need? How can you help them?”
“You do that?” Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Of course. What do you think I do with all the whelkies I carve?”
She blinked at him several times as if trying to process the question. “Um. I’m pretty sure that a lot of them are just tucked into drawers and cans in the shop.”
He laughed. “Yes, well, there are some there. I’ve built up a bit of a stockpile over the stanyers. I think it’s a holdover from my time at Maggie’s Landing when I couldn’t find enough decent wood to carve.”
“When were you at Maggie’s Landing?”
He shook his head and motioned her down into the boat. “Come down here and we’ll talk. We need to get this out for a little shakedown cruise before we load it up with crab traps.”
“You’re serious?”
“Oh, yes. You and me, we’re going crabbing, now get aboard and let’s go take a little cruise around the bay.”
She stepped onto the rail and then onto the deck. “All right. I’m aboard. Now what?”
Otto grinned. “Well, first we check to make sure the safety equipment is here.” He opened a large box tucked under the rail. It was stuffed with dayglow-yellow flotation vests. “Vests, check.” He turned to the engine cubby and pointed to a fire extinguisher bolted to the box. “Engine extinguisher, check.” In the cockpit proper he pointed to another one latched onto the control console. “Secondary extinguisher, check.” He straightened up and dusted his hands together. “That’s the easy stuff. We’ve got navigational aids, and there’s a life raft up on the bow.”
Sarah walked around the console to the front of the boat and looked at the raft. “This isn’t much more than an oversized life ring. Are we supposed to float in that?”
“I suspect that if we have to choose between floating in the water with one of those yellow vests or sitting up a little on the raft? The raft will win.”
She considered the raft again. “Good point.”
“Well, shall we see if it’ll start?”
“Why wouldn’t it? Didn’t the company just sail it over here from the Inlet?”
“Yes, but it’s been sitting here for a couple of days. It might not.” Otto clicked the engine override switch off and powered up the electronics. “Looks good so far.” He checked the throttle, then pressed a red button on the console. The engine fired on the first turn. It coughed a bit of gray-blue smoke from the exhaust near the stern and then settled into a low murmur.
“I think the washing machine makes more noise,” Sarah said.
“Idling here at the dock, I suspect you’re right. It’ll be louder when we put some load on it, but not a great deal.”
“What do I do?” she asked.
“Get the mooring lines off.”
She started to untie the ropes from the cleats on the gunwale.
“Ah, no. Go up on the dock again. First we need to single up the lines. Then we can pull in the mooring lines except for a spring line to pull against. Then we can get the boat moving away from the dock, and then we let go the spring line and you jump in before I get too far away.”
Her eyes went as large and round as a pair of teacups. “
I what?”
He laughed. “One step at a time. You can do it. If you can walk the stones out on the point, you can do this. I promise.”
“Should I put on a vest first?”
He shook his head. “Just get up there on the dock. I’ll walk you through it.”
In less than five minutes, Otto backed down against the spring line and the bow started to swing away from the dock. He pushed the throttle forward a bit to take the strain off the line. “All right. Loosen that last line from the cleat up there and drop the end over the rail into the boat. Just step onto the rail and into the boat near the stern. It’s wide enough to walk on and the boat’s big enough it won’t capsize.”
“It’s moving!”
“Not very fast and it’s not too far for you to step yet. Just do it before it gets too much.”
She unraveled the line, tossed it into the boat, and all but ran the four or five steps she needed to get to the stern. In two easy strides she stood safely in the stern with the dock slipping away as Otto steered out into the channel. The engine purred quietly under the deck housing. She grinned at him.
“It’s easy as long as you keep your head and don’t try to rush it,” Otto said. “Even when the tide’s higher, it’s pretty easy. Worst case, you slip and fall between the boat and the dock.”
“I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“Be glad I didn’t tell you before you had to do it.” He grinned at her. “You’ll be fine. It’s just another slippery rock to step on.”
“Rocks don’t move,” she said.
“But they’re harder than water if you fall on them.” Otto glanced over his shoulder and pushed the throttle up a bit more. The boat picked up speed and moved into the main channel. A bit of swell from the open ocean made it into the harbor, lifting the vessel up and down ever so slightly.
Sarah grabbed the back of Otto’s seat and held on, knuckles white against the tan of her hand.
“This is where you listen to the world,” Otto said.
“I can’t hear much over the wind.”
“Listen with your legs.”
“What?”
Otto stood up from his seat and gripped the wheel along the top edge. His body swayed as the boat rose and fell on the waves. He hooked the wheel in one finger and held out his free hand. “Easy. Be ready to grab something if we get an odd wave, but you’d have to be hanging half over the rail to fall overboard. Worst case, you’d fall onto the deck and bruise your ego.”
Cape Grace Page 18
