I shook my head, unable to speak.
My tablet beeped. Cookie’s voice came over the speaker. “Your presence is needed on the mess deck, Mr. Wang. Number two urn is out of coffee.”
Chapter 4
Neris Orbital
2351-September-07
The duty watch stander woke me and Pip ending a long stretch of restlessness. I’d thrashed around the whole night unable to sleep knowing the ship would leave Neris Orbital and get underway for Darbat later that day. Pip slid out of his bed and slipped past me heading for the san. I chided myself for being nervous as I straightened the blankets on my berth and secured my loose gear. I had already been confined for days but now it would be different. We’d be heading out into the Deep Dark and I would be locked in. I stretched to straighten my pillow when a voice startled me. “Nice package, sailor, but would you mind moving it out of my face?” The sound came from the approximate level of my knees.
The voice, a woman’s voice, startled me so much that I fell into the empty lower berth under Pip’s, banging my head on the upper rail. She lay in the bunk under mine. Even as I struggled to my feet, I noticed how attractive she was with her dark skin and hair. She wore just a ship’s tee over an extensive collection of tattoos and blinking blearily she said, “You must be the new guy.”
I tried to stammer something apologetic but didn’t know what the appropriate comment might be. “C-c-c-call me Ishmael.”
She propped herself on an elbow and squinted at me. “You’re kidding, right?”
I shook my head, unable to think of anything else to say.
Pip, wet from the san and struggling into a fresh shipsuit, rescued me. “Beverly, stop scaring the help. Ish, get your butt in the san. We don’t have much time to get to the mess deck.”
The woman held up a slender hand to shake. “Beverly Arith, pleased to meet ya. Wake me for afternoon watch?”
I shook the offered hand, mumbling, “Ishmael Wang,” before retreating to the san.
Pip gave me grief all morning. “You’ve never seen a girl before, Ish?”
“She startled me. I didn’t realize anybody was there until she spoke.”
I’d known there were women in the berthing area. Tabitha Rondita slept on the other side of the partition from me, a nice woman and I didn’t mind her little snorty-snores through the wall. We all shared the san and that didn’t bother me. Bathing is bathing and everyone likes a little privacy when pooping. The shower and toilet stalls all had doors. I’d lived with my mom and she was not shy so seeing women in various states of undress was no big deal. All told, it felt like summer camp except we were adults and not giggly kids-supposedly.
When Beverly came through the serving line at lunch, Pip nudged me.
For her part, Bev just smiled, nodded, and moved on.
We’d had a particularly robust lunch that day and many people sat around afterward to catch up with each other. After the sparsely attended meals I’d grown accustomed to while docked, it seemed crowded and noisy. Even some of the officers stayed for a bit, chatting.
After the lunch clean up, Cookie took me and Pip aside. “Gentlemen, we’ll be doing dinner differently today because of departure. The captain has scheduled pull out at 16:00 and we’ll still be maneuvering at 18:00. We’ll be doing bento-boxes for the evening meal. Mr. Carstairs, you know the drill. Mr. Wang, it’s important that we have plenty of coffee, but make certain the urns are secured. We may get bumped a bit and I want to keep things under control.”
I nodded my understanding. Each of the urns had a lid that made them spill-proof once locked. A simple system of curved pipes kept the pressure normalized inside without violating liquid integrity. “Two urns or three, Cookie?”
He thought about it before replying. “Load and prep all three, but only brew two. We can hit the button on the last when needed.” Obvious and logical, I should have thought of it myself and I made a tally on my personal mental midget list.
All the preparation talk made me a bit nervous and Pip noticed. “It’ll be fine, Ish. We might get a little bump, but usually it’s nothing. We just don’t want hot stuff splattered around if we happen to get a rough tug skipper. Once we get pulled back and the sails are up, it’ll be smooth again. You’ll think we’re docked.”
There was nothing I could do about what was going to happen to the ship. The professionals would be working that end of things. To distract myself, I obsessed over the minutiae of keeping the urns full. I ground enough coffee for six full batches, throwing the extra into an air-tight and dropping it in a chiller to keep it as fresh as possible. The trick was in the timing. With everybody on board again, I assumed they would consume an amazing amount.
Bento-boxes turned out to be the ship board equivalent of takeout, finger food that wouldn’t make a mess while eating. Cookie drew on his ancestral heritage and made up a couple of variations of spicy fillings. We spread the mixture over flat bread rounds, folded, rolled, and then wrapped them in clingfilm. Pip, Cookie, and I set up a production line. Forty-five crew needed a hundred and twenty of these little buggers. I thought it would take a long time, but it took less than a stan once we had a rhythm going. We’d done them at a rate better than three a tick. I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised considering Cookie did two for every one that Pip and I completed. Spread, roll, wrap, stack-a mindless, but oddly social task. The three of us gathered around the prep table and worked side-by-side to prepare for the evening meal.
I thought we’d put them in paper bags for easy carrying but Cookie had a better idea. He pulled out a stack of stamped, creased cardboard sheets and quickly formed one into a box with a clever folding lid. He repeated the action slowly for me to watch. I mimicked his moves and produced an identical box. It was as if I’d been born folding them. Even Cookie seemed impressed by how rapidly I caught on and he left the folding to me while he and Pip filled the boxes: two rolls, one piece of fruit, a cookie, a package of sliced vegetables, and small cups of dressing for dipping. The condiment was the only thing that might have spilled, but each container held only a few milliliters. With the lids closed, the boxes stacked on each other and I noticed small indents that kept them from sliding apart-clever and then some.
“What about drinks?” I asked. “I assume people can’t come down for coffee, can they?”
Cookie pointed to large insulated containers under one of the counters. “You’ll be delivering. Fill one with black coffee and the other with light and take a pocket full of sweetener packets.”
As the clock ticked down to pull out, the mess deck crowd thinned. I was able to prep and secure the urns with two fresh and full, and one on standby. We stacked the boxes on trays and placed them in the coolers. Cookie had it down to a science. While Pip certainly had been through it before, I marveled at Cookie’s expertise.
“We run a restaurant, gentlemen,” he reminded us regularly. “The customers don’t have any other choice, but we owe them our best just the same.” Finally, we completed the preparations and Cookie declared us ready. Pip and I collapsed into chairs at one of the mess tables to wait.
A few minutes later, the speakers announced,
“Do we need to strap in or anything?” I looked from one to the other.
