faculty housing I’d shared so long with my mother. I sighed contentedly.
Brill heard me and smiled. “You seem pleased.”
I looked up at her with a smile. “Thank you for dinner. It was excellent and it felt really good to get off the ship.”
“You’re welcome, Ish. It was my pleasure. Next time, you can buy.” She was only half teasing, I knew, and I considered the idea.
We stepped through the lock and checked in with the watch stander. I was shocked to see that it was almost midnight. We split up then, each headed for our berths. When I got to mine, Pip was still awake, reading something on his tablet.
He looked up. “Hi, there. How was dinner?”
“Great. Brill took us to the Beef and Brew and I met the owner. Fantastic meal. Lotta fun.” I stripped out of my civvies and hung them in my locker, leaving on a ship-tee and boxers. I clambered up into my bunk, and was asleep before I knew I was laying down.
Chapter 17
Gugara Orbital
2351-December-10
The next day, I had the duty and Pip was off. He got up with me when the duty watch stander came to wake me.
He sat at one of the tables and watched me prepare the urns. “So, what’s the status?” I asked.
“I looked around for cargoes on the station net last night and I found some interesting things. I want to get over to the orbital as soon as I can and check them out.”
He hung around long enough to get fresh coffee and one of Cookie’s omelets then he headed to the orbital. “No money this trip.”
Cookie shouted after him. “You be careful just the same.”
Cookie and I spent a pleasant morning with the duty crew who came in for breakfast. He showed me his tricks for making perfect omelets. The key was using the proper amount of water in the egg. He placed a great deal of emphasis on mixing the two until the result was a precise shade of yellow.
It took a while for me to learn the technique. “No, no, young Ishmael, use the fork like a whisk, not a bat. You need to mix the egg with air to get the correct color. You’re not stirring porridge.”
Eventually, I got the hang of it. “Very good, You could be an excellent cook if you applied yourself.”
He entrusted the omelet making to me from then on and went off to set the yeast breads to rise.
Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I turned to Cookie. “How’s the stores trading coming?”
His smile shined whitely in the galley’s overheads. “Quite well, quite well. Pip and I have placed our orders and we found several excellent deals.”
“Did you get the Sarabanda Dark that you were hoping for?”
“Oh yes, and some lovely frozen beefalo at a very nice price. The profit from the frozen fish was not quite what we projected, but that’s to be expected. All told, it was a good first trial.”
“So, you’re pleased?”
He smiled, and nodded, then waved me out of the galley. “Go. Scamper. I need some peace and quiet in which to make pie crusts.”
I went back to the berthing area and crawled into my bunk. It was only midmorning, but I’d been up late the night before. I fell asleep almost instantly.
About a stan later, I awoke and Pip spoke from across the aisle, “You must have had a rough night.”
“No, it was lovely, but it was later than I’m used to and I just felt like a nap. What’s up? Did you see the cargoes you were looking for?”
“I did. I’m just trying to figure out what to do about them.”
“Them?”
Pip nodded. “Rugs. Here on Gugara they have a small specialty market in the things you can make out of beefalo, besides meat. One thing is a heavy robe. Another is a decorative rug. I met a dealer and the stuff is beautiful. The robes are really nice, more like a long, leather coat with a dark fur trim. The rugs are roughly animal shaped but still well done. Personally I think they’re kind of tacky, but who am I to say?” He held up his tablet and showed me some digitals. “I took these this morning.”
“I see what you mean, but what makes you think these would sell in Margary?”
“Most of the people in the system live in hollow rocks. Over the stanyers they’ve carved out hundreds of them. If you’re well off, you have your own. If not, or if you just don’t care about that kind of thing, you live in one of the habitats. But they’re all basically holes.”
“You’re painting a picture of cavemen in space.”
Pip chuckled. “Well, it’s not quite that bad. It’s not like all these guys are crawling around low-grav or no-grav asteroids with EVA suits and pickaxes. They seal the tunnels against air and water seepage as they go. After the asteroid is exhausted, they strip out the gear and the company makes them available to the Margary Station Authority for disposition. MSA cleans them up, carves out apartments, and lays down a slightly better grade of sealant. They install ship-grade power plants, environmental processing, and gravity flooring. When done, MSA rents them out as flats to the miners, prospectors, foundry workers, and ship yard crew.”
“Okay, I’m getting the picture, but beefalo robes?”
“I’m not too sure about the robes. Inside the units, it’s like being aboard ship, Constant temperatures and all. I’ve visited there before and if you didn’t know you were in a hole, you might think you were ship board. That’s why I’m considering the rugs.”
I looked around the berthing area and tried to image a beefalo rug. “I still don’t get it? Why would they be in demand?”
“Psychology. Everybody there knows they’re actually living inside a rock. They are cold, hard, and sterile, at least in their minds. You said it yourself-cavemen in space. I’m looking for something that’ll relieve that feeling. The rugs are soft, warm, and comforting.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Mass and expense. We can’t afford them.”
My tablet bipped then to remind me I needed to get up to the galley. “Back to work for me. Lemme know if you have any brain flashes.”
Pip nodded distractedly and I got on with the lunch duty.
As usual for a port-side lunch mess, it was mostly soup and sandwiches set up buffet style. There weren’t enough people to warrant setting up a serving line. The crew drifted in and out in doubles and triples. A lot of them loaded a tray and took it back to their stations. Brill came in and we sat together while she ate her soup.
“Thanks, again,” I said. “Last night was so much fun. And Maurice knows how to make a guest feel welcome.”
She laughed. “Yes, he’s a dear. I met him stanyers ago.” She dunked a chunk of bread in her soup and delicately nibbled off the wet edge. “Mmm, that’s not terribly good manners, but it reminds me of home.”
I chuckled. “No need to stand on ceremony here. We’re all family.”
“So, how’s the trading going?”
“Which trading?”
She giggled a little. “You got more than one?”
I nodded. “There’s the Pip and Ish pool. He’s trying to show me how this works. So far, I’m mostly just holding his coat and watching from the sidelines.”
She nodded sympathetically.
“Then there’s the ship’s stores deals.”
“Yeah, I heard about those. All the extra supplies on the dock attracted a bit of attention in Darbat and that pallet of Sarabanda Dark waiting outside looks very interesting.”
“Oh, good. It’s here then?”
