little tsk’ing sounds.
When we entered the galley, I finally broke down and asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Split the commission. How stupid can we be?”
I chuckled. “I don’t know about you, but I have a proud history of being pretty stupid.”
“Hmm. Maybe it’s contagious and I’m catching it from you, then.”
Cookie was icing a cake for dinner and looked up at Pip. “No, Mr. Carstairs, you’ve always had a very healthy amount of your own,” he said with a wicked grin. He turned back to his icing. “And if you’re finished lazing about, number one coffee urn is out again.”
Chapter 27
Margary System
2352-January-15
After evening clean up, I settled on the mess deck with my handbook and a cup of coffee. The quarterly exams were only a few days away and, while I was pretty confident about the food handler test, I had barely looked at ordinary spacer.
It was huge.
Everything that didn’t appear on one of the other exams was on the deck division test-ship configurations, basic communications, and standing orders for: watches, helm, and gangway duty. My brain froze and shut down. Sandy found me half a stan later just sitting there staring into my tablet.
She waved a hand in front of my face. “Ish? Ish? You okay?”
“Oh yeah, thanks, Sandy. I just realized how much is on this deck exam. It flipped me out for a bit. The test is in ten standays and I’m planning on taking this one and the food handler exam.”
She chuckled. “You are a glutton for punishment, aren’t ya? Didn’t you take cargo and engineering last cycle?”
I nodded.
She looked over my shoulder at the tablet. “This isn’t so bad. I’m finally taking my Astrogation II exam this round. Once you start specializing it gets a lot harder. Look.” She pointed at the port starboard diagram. “If you don’t know that by now, you’re just so much congealed saltwater.”
I chuckled. “True.”
“And tell me you haven’t absorbed the watch stander schedule. What watch are we on now?”
“Evening, but…”
“See, this isn’t hard. You still have plenty of time. What haven’t you gotten to?”
“Standing orders. Look at how many there are. How am I supposed to memorize all that?”
She punched the button and brought up the first set. There were ten of them, but each was just common sense. She’d brought up the gangway watch orders and it started with, “Watch standers will report to duty stations fifteen ticks before the change of watch to assure a smooth transition of duty.”
“Hmm. This doesn’t look all that hard.”
“You’ve been hanging around with Pip too much. Maybe you should spend more time with Beverly.”
I’m pretty sure I blushed.
She patted me on the shoulder. “Look, you know how to eat an elephant?”
I nodded. “One bite at a time.”
“Yup. Dig in. I bet you can finish this one in a couple of days.”
I flipped back and forth a couple of times and began to realize she was right. The list was long, but the individual items were small. A lot of it I knew already having lived aboard for-gods could it really have been almost five months? “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t know what happened there. My brain just kinda seized up.”
She looked at me with a frown. “Hmm, you’ve been up since 05:00 and worked all day?”
I nodded.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate. I heard you had a meeting with the captain this afternoon. It seems like the co-op is shaping up.”
I nodded again.
“Well, let me ask you this. Don’t you think you should get some sleep? It’s almost time for the midwatch.”
I chuckled. “Which would make it nearly midnight and I’ve got to get up at oh-dark-thirty.”
She laughed then. “It’s all dark out here, but yeah. I’m off watch myself in a few minutes and I better not find you on the track.”
“Okay, okay, sheesh.” I laughed and stood. “Thanks, Sandy.”
“No problem, Ish.” She waved and headed out of the mess. “Sleep well.”
When I got to the berthing area, Pip and Bev were both already asleep. As I settled into my own bunk, I heard the little snorty-snores through the partition and thought,
For the next couple of days I focused on my exams and let Pip worry about the steering committee. He kept me filled in while we worked the serving line or during clean ups. The group liked the idea of splitting the commissions but were hung up on whether to split all of them or only consignment sales. Eventually they agreed to split them all and to put a ten percent no-cap commission on consignments. That seemed about right to me. Beverly and Rhon wanted more, but Diane and Francis wanted less so it was a good compromise. Personally, I liked the idea of splitting them all. Of course, we’d already decided that booth manager wasn’t subject to the one percent sales commission. It was a way to get more people to volunteer to be booth managers. Adding the commission split between manager and co-op, we developed a nice economic model that gave a little extra to anybody who worked for the common good.
I got through all the ordinary spacer material in just a couple of days and took a practice test with a seventy- five score. Good, but not enough to pass. I took a break and ran quickly through the food handler again, just to refresh myself and tested at ninety-four. By the end of the second day after transition, I was passing both tests consistently and I messaged Mr. von Ickles to let him know I’d be taking both deck and steward tests.
Sandy caught me after clean up a couple of nights after that. “How’re you doing? You still have a few days to study. You need help on the deck exam?”
“I think I’m good. Of course, I won’t know until I take the test next week.”
“Too true.” She gave me a sympathetic chuckle.
“How are you doing?” I asked. “You’ve been studying astrogation stuff ever since I came aboard.”
She smiled at me. “That’s normal. I had just made third before we got to Neris. After you make full share, you have to pick a specialty and work up through that ranking system.”
I grimaced but nodded my agreement. “Yeah, I saw that in
“Well, the extra mass is nice, and I suspect you’ll be full share before you know it. Look what happened with Pip.”
“Very true. Well, if you have a couple minutes, would you drill me on the deck stuff and see if I’m ready?”
“Sure, I’d be happy to.” She reached over and took my tablet.
For the next twenty ticks, she asked me questions and I gave her answers. It was fun. She had that same dry wit that Diane had and a take-no-prisoners attitude that reminded me of Beverly. When we were done, she handed the tablet back. “Okay, you just qualified for able spacer. I think you can pass the ordinary test.”
We laughed and I thought she was joking until I got my tablet back from her and looked to see the testing pool she’d been drilling me from. That made me feel a lot better.
