Quarter Share

stuff down here.”

I was a runner, but Pip liked the exotic weight machines and motorized devices. Personally, I thought he was just a gadget head, but endorphin junkies can’t afford to be too judgmental. We split up and I climbed the short ladder to the track while he went to the workout equipment. He moved from one to another in some pattern that must have made sense to him. I lost track of Pip after I finished my stretching and dropped into a running trance. I knew I would probably regret pushing so hard, but it just felt so good. I could only go about eight laps before a lack of wind and an excess of lactic acid pulled me to a stop. I met up with Pip again and he led me through the changing room into a shower where we sluiced off the worst of the sweat, and then into the sauna for a luxurious steam.

I confess that I was a bit nonplussed when I sat down next to Pip on the smooth wooden bench and realized the older woman across from us was the captain. I started to get up again when she spoke. “Mr. Maxwell tells me you’re fitting in nicely, Mr. Wang.”

“Yes, sar. Thank you, sar,” I mumbled, embarrassed to be caught in a towel.

She gave me a gentle smile. “Well, keep up the good work. I need to get out of here before I melt and I have a lot left to do tonight.” She rose, then and spoke in a voice that carried through the steam, “Good night, crew.”

A chorus of “G’night, Captain” came from around us in the steamy depths. She strolled out toward the showers and I couldn’t help but admire her legs.

Pip elbowed me sharply. “She’s old enough to be your grandmother.”

I blushed and hoped that the steamy air and the heat hid it but I heard a low chuckle from somebody just out of sight around the corner and blushed even more.

The gym, or at least the sauna, turned out to be the social hub of the ship. Even during the afternoon, I’d find deck, engineering, and other watch standers taking advantage of the facility. Evenings were more crowded and I was as likely to see the captain or Mr. Maxwell there as anyone else. At first, I was a little nervous about seeing the captain nearly naked, not because she was a woman, but because she was the captain. It didn’t matter what she was, or wasn’t, wearing, the mantle of her office stayed with her wherever she went, so I got used to it pretty quickly.

From that night on, my daily routine included a work out at the gym followed by a sauna. Most days we took our midafternoon break there and I found it refreshing to go back to the galley after a bit of exercise, a nice sauna, and a cool shower. We also adjusted our day to include some kind of intellectual stimulation. Between Pip’s knowledge of ships and trade, and what I was learning about cooking, we had quite a lot of expertise between us. I even got Pip to tell Cookie about his background.

Pip was full of ideas for trading and broached one with Cookie during one of our sessions. “Trading ship’s stores? Mr. Carstairs, you shock me.” He frowned at Pip but turned his back, hiding the wink and the discreet thumbs up he gave me. “I wouldn’t dream of using inferior ingredients.”

“Oh no, I didn’t mean that. I have to eat here too. I’m just thinking we could afford better stuff on the same budget if we get a bit creative about what we buy and where.”

After that, Cookie and Pip spent at least a stan every day going over the inventory and budget. They were hatching something, but I didn’t know what, and Pip refused to discuss it with me. Cookie treated my friend with new respect and I found myself smiling whenever I saw them with their heads together over their tablets.

That left me with my own problem. What specialty did I want to pursue?

It was odd, really. My classmates back on Neris had all played the what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up game with themselves and each other. I’d watched them find and explore what they thought might be their particular callings: music, art, even business, and education. Personally, I just never felt the need. Mom had insisted that I take advantage of her position and the university-for all the good that did. I’d agreed to study something, just for the sake of going, because it would buy me some time to figure out what I wanted to do, but I’d never really found the thing that made me say, “Yes. This is why I’m here.”

Aboard the Lois, for the first time in my life, I felt the need to make some decisions. Life on a freighter was just unusual enough to have an appeal. The very idea of traveling through the Deep Dark intrigued me. Besides, with my food and living expenses covered, I could probably make a pretty good living. I hadn’t seen a pay chit yet, so I wasn’t sure. The company typically disbursed pay just before docking, and I had no need for creds aboard the ship. I knew there would be taxes and union dues deducted, along with a mandatory retirement contribution, but there would also be a share of the profit from the trip, a small share, but the potential for a little something extra. Somehow the pay didn’t seem to matter. Lying in my bunk, listening to the low voices of my shipmates around me, I could begin to envision what it might be like to do this awhile, and it didn’t seem half-bad after all. I fell asleep without getting closer to a decision about my specialty, but after my earlier disquiet, feeling much better about being aboard.

***

It took me about a week of evenings to make it through the various specialties listed in The Handbook. I didn’t want to leave the ship, but I discovered some interesting things about ratings and slots. For example, you could take any job listed at your rating or lower. I didn’t know how that played out in practice, but I could see where, in a pinch, you might want to take an ordinary spacer slot in order to get off-planet when an able spacer berth wasn’t available. Some ideas were self-evident. The more ratings you had, the more possibilities for employment. Despite that, most people specialized in one area and concentrated their efforts to get the largest share ranking possible in that division. That piqued my interest and I ran some questions by Pip the day before we hit the jump point.

“Why do people work up through a specialty?” I asked.

“Why not? The higher you go, the better the pay.”

“Well, yes, and no. Within some narrow range, your pay is largely determined by your share and not by your specialty, right?”

We were swabbing down the mess tables and he stopped to look at me. “Sorta. Your salary goes up based on rank even after your share maxes out. The difference in base pay between able spacer and spec one is pretty large but they’re both full share berths.”

“Okay, but the key to earning is being on a ship, isn’t it?”

We had finished with the tables and moved on to sweeping the floor. “I’m not following where you’re going with this, Ish.”

“Suppose something happens here and I get put ashore. As a quarter share, I don’t have much to draw on for a new berth.”

“I’m with you so far.” Pip rinsed out his rag in a bucket and nodded for me to go on.

“Now, if I qualify as a half share in, say, cargo, then my options begin to open up. I’m eligible to take any quarter share berth that comes along or a half share cargo slot.”

“But why would you want to do that?” he asked. “Take the quarter share berth, I mean.”

“Well, maybe the next ship in port doesn’t have a cargo slot open. It would be a cut in pay for me to take the quarter share, but it’s still more than I’d make planet-side earning nothing and paying for everything.”

“True enough.”

“Now, what if I qualify as half share in cargo and engineering? Or cargo and deck?”

“Why wouldn’t you go for full share in cargo?” he asked.

“Well, the qualifying exam for full share is roughly twice as hard as for half share, isn’t it?”

Pip considered this and shrugged to grant me the point. “Yeah, I suppose that’s one perspective.”

“So, for the same amount of effort for full share cargo, I could get two half share ratings in other divisions. And if my goal is the best possible chance of staying employed, wouldn’t it make sense to get a second and third half share rating in order to diversify my options?”

He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me, his head tilted a little sideways. “That’s an odd way to look at it.”

“Yeah, but play the game with me. Take the long view. Where are the most jobs?”

“Full share berths are the most common. So if I want to be guaranteed, as much as possible, that under any given circumstances I can get a position on the next ship, what do I need to have?”