seeing her on the mess line.
“Hey!” she said with a smile when she saw me come in. “I wondered if that was your gear up there. I saw you up at the booth with Brill and heard you’d transferred into the division.”
“Yup. That okay?” I asked, nodding toward my bunk.
“You bet. You don’t snore do you?”
I laughed. “I don’t know, but Pip’s never complained about it.”
“Well, if he hasn’t complained, you’re probably okay,” she said with mock ruefulness.
“Who’s in here?” I asked indicating the lower under mine. It was the only other bunk taken in the quad.
“Mitch. You know him? Fitzroy—machinist over in propulsion?”
“Medium height, brown hair, about twenty-five?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s him. Of course, that also describes about half the men on the ship. Whatever happened to tall, dark, and handsome as a description?”
We laughed and I realized that everything was going to be okay.
***
Morning routine was typical for port duty. Sean Grishan, the duty watch stander, managed to find me in my new bunk. Everybody aboard knew of the crew changes in the works, of course. The details were still up in the air, but we all knew the ship would leave St. Cloud with a new hand. As I showered and got ready for work, I wondered if there had been the same air of quiet anticipation just before I had joined the ship in Neris. I pushed that thought away and beat feet for the galley.
By the time I got there, Cookie had already started setting the bread, and I kicked into prep mode. Starting with coffee, I moved to biscuits and finished at the omelet station. I pulled out some of the dried mushrooms we had gotten on Margary and put them in a little warm water to loosen them up. Then I diced some onion and grated a bit of cheese. All the ingredients went into small bowls that Cookie or I could draw from when we started making the omelets.
“So, young Ishmael,” Cookie spoke at last, “today may be our last time working together. How does it feel?”
“Strange. This has been my home for the last six months and now I kinda feel like I’m moving out.”
“You have accomplished much here, and you will accomplish more I am certain.” He finished rolling up the loaves and covered them with clean towels to proof. Most of them would be sandwich bread by the time the day was out. Cookie surprised me then by taking a plate and going to the customer side of the omelet station. “I wonder, Ishmael, if I might trouble you for an omelet,” he said with a smile. “Could I have one with mushrooms, cheese, and perhaps some ham?”
I gaped for a moment in surprise. “My pleasure, Cookie. You like your omelets a bit loose, right?”
“Just so, Ishmael. Just so.”
Before long the morning watch came in and I took care of them while Cookie enjoyed his meal on the mess deck.
Pip showed up near the end of breakfast. “Good morning! It seemed strange to find your bunk empty.”
“No stranger than waking up in engineering was for me, I bet. You want an omelet?”
“No thanks. I just came down for coffee and a pastry. I told Biddy I’d help her set up the booth this morning. We’ve already covered our fees for this trip, so I’ll probably take some more of the stones up and set them out while I’m there. This afternoon I’m going to go looking for that statue guy and the yarn people you talked with yesterday.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it planned out pretty well. What did you learn about the dyes?”
“Well not surprisingly, Dunsany has a lot of textiles. They process a lot of the wool from here, and they grow cotton and flax locally. They have some local dyes—mostly plant based—and I was right about the red, purple, and black dyes. They do buy them from here and they’re pretty highly valued. I don’t know how much production is available. If we could get a container load, we could probably sell it.”
“You’re thinking about Mr. Maxwell’s empty container?” I asked him.
“Yeah, but I don’t have a line on commercial quantities, so I don’t know. What we can get easily here in container loads is wool, rice, and frozen fish, but the margins are really small on those items. I’ve already recommended that we go ahead and load one container with raw wool. We’re already taking three containers as part of a scheduled shipment and adding one on spec isn’t really very expensive.”
“Well, for our stuff, I’ll contribute the extra ten kilos I’m getting for moving up to half share, and you’ve got all our joint funds still, so whatever you find at the flea market is fine by me. I’m not going to get back up there before we get underway.”
“Okay,” Pip agreed, “between us, we’ve got a lot of open mass so I’ll probably try to fill it.” He slipped into his free-flowing analysis mode. “I’m leaning toward the yarn. I talked to Sean last night after you left and he says this is prime material and clued me in on some things to look for. But if we buy forty kilos that will be a lot of yarn, and I’m not sure we can sell it in Dunsany. How about we commit to twenty kilos for now and I’ll see if I can find anything to diversify the load with?”
“Sounds good. I trust your judgment. I’m trying not to be spoiled by the successes we’ve had so far. We’re bound to throw a deal here sooner or later.”
Pip gave a self-deprecating laugh. “That’s probably truer than I’d like to admit to myself.”
I pointed at the chronometer. “If you’re meeting Biddy, you better move it.”
It was still early when I finished the breakfast cleanup, and Cookie shooed me out of the galley, so I headed back to the gym. I did not usually run early in the day, but with so much uncertainty, I thought I better get it in while I still could. I overheard one of the deck gang saying that the captain had already gone down to the planet, so we could expect a new hand any time.
After my run and a shower, it was still early. I rambled on down to environmental to check in. Francis had the port duty watch, and he grinned when he saw me. “You reporting for duty?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Still waiting.”
“Nerve-wracking, isn’t it?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Unbelievably!”
“Oh, I believe it. I think almost everybody has been through it at least once. In a way, shipboard promotions are worse than transfers. With a transfer, you pack your gear and you’re gone.”
“Someday you’ll have to show me how that works.”
“How what works?” he asked.
“Transfers. For instance, how did Gregor get a new berth without going down to the Union Hall?”
Francis looked concerned. “You’re not planning to leave already, are you?”
“No, no. It’s just one of those mysteries that I’ve always wondered about. Why does the captain have to go down to the Union Hall to hire a new hand but Gregor gets a new berth on another ship almost before we dock?”
“When you get a tick, bring up the communications options on your tablet.”
I groaned and had a flash of deja vu. All through my first weeks aboard, Pip kept springing little surprises like this on me. I had been aboard for weeks before I discovered the ship had a gym. My tablet had a good schematic of the ship, but I had never thought to check for recreational areas. It was one of those situations where, if you did not know it existed, you never thought to look. I could not remember the number of times I had tripped on that mistake and was chagrined to think I had just done so again.
I pulled the tablet out of its holster and pulled up the communications options. At first I did not see what Francis was talking about, and then I saw the
Francis came around to glance over my shoulder. “Bring up that opening for spec three in ship handling.” He pointed out an item on the list. I did and the full listing popped open on my tablet just as if I were sitting at one of the Union Hall data ports. “See that little icon?” He pointed out a tiny picture of sparks. “That’s the comm link.
