Half Share (14 page)

“How was your first full day, Sarah?” I asked.

Long,” she said shyly. “But fun in a way. I think I’m going to like it.”

She went on into the berthing area while Pip and I talked in the passage. “Well?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I have no clue. She’s like a different person.”

“How’d she do?”

“Great! She catches on really fast and she has a knack with breads as you probably noticed with the biscuits.”

“Good. So, what about this yarn? You got a lot of it? Wanna give me a peek?”

Pip grinned and led me into deck berthing. He opened his locker and it was stuffed full. Then he opened the locker that went with the empty bunk under his, and it was full, too. I started laughing and then channeled Pip and his famous sayings. “My dog and her little puppies, Pip, how many are there?”

“One hundred skeins. Each one weighs two-hundred grams.”

“They sell it by weight?”

“Apparently. I shoulda talked to Sean a little more, I guess. I thought it would be by length or something awkward like that to calculate.”

“How much?”

“A hundred creds,” Pip said.

“A cred each?” I was in shock that we got such a good price.

Pip laughed. “Yeah, it’s insane, but that’s what they charged me. They were selling it for three in the booth, so either their markup was really high or they needed to clear some inventory.”

He closed the lockers, pulled out his tablet, and we settled in at the table.

“Okay, we’ve got a meeting scheduled with the Co-Op Steering Committee tomorrow afternoon, are you free?” Pip asked.

“Yup.”

“The preliminary numbers are that the booth’s take from the flea market trading was four hundred and twenty creds which will be split between the booth captains and the co-op. That’s more than enough to cover Dunsany Roads, so we’re good there.”

“I’m impressed. How’d you and I do?”

“I sold about three hundred and fifty of the stones with the leather thongs on them and all the belts and buckles. We’ve covered the costs for all the goods, so anything we sell is gravy at this point and we have a nice bit of a cushion to boot.”

He turned the tablet around so I could see his calculations, and I did a double take. The number at the bottom of the column was five thousand two hundred and eleven.

“What? How!”

“Between the raw belts we sold at Margary, the ones with buckles we sold here, and a very large pile of small stones that’s what’s left. And get this…that’s AFTER I took out the costs of everything: the belts, buckles, stones, leather thong, and the yarn. Oh, and the dyes. They were cheap. I think twelve creds for the lot.”

“But three hundred fifty stones at two creds comes to what? Seven hundred?”

“Your math-fu has no match in this universe,” he replied dryly. “And you would be right except they seem to have some kind of fetish on St. Cloud for that kind of thing. They sold for three to five creds each. Quartz was particularly popular and I had more than one bidding war over a good piece. I sold one of them for ten creds.”

I gasped. “That’s crazy!”

“Maybe, but that’s what happened. Now, I’m going to keep one thousand two hundred and eleven for the pool and split the remaining four kilocreds between us fifty-fifty. Is that agreeable?”

I laughed. “Yeah. I think I can cope with that!” I pulled out my tablet and watched my credit balance go from five hundred and twenty to two thousand five hundred and twenty in the blink of an eye. I stared at it for a few ticks in disbelief.

As I put my tablet away, it reminded me of something. “Oh, are you done using the portable computer I lent you? I remember you said you were going to put your stores trading algorithms up on the ship’s computer…”

“Yeah, that’s the plan, but it’s been kinda crazy. You need it right away?”

I shook my head. “No, but I want to start working on some of the course work I downloaded from the university. I think the plant sciences courses might be useful.”

“Can I have a couple of days?”

“Sure, I’m gonna be distracted by watch standing anyway. And I’m going to start working on my full share collection again.”

Just then, Sarah came out of the quad wearing her ship-tee and boxers. She seemed a little self-conscious but crossed into the san with only a smile and a little wave.

Pip lowered his voice and said, “We need to feed her more.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Could have something to do with the way her knees and elbows are the largest parts of her arms and legs.”

I snorted a short laugh of agreement before standing up. “Well, I need to rack out. I’ve got the mid watch. I’m outta here.”

“You’re not even gonna say hi to your ex-bunkie?” I heard Bev say from the quad.

Chuckling, I walked into the quad. “Hey—” I started to say. Out of habit, my eyes were drawn to my old bunk and clipped to the partition I saw a small statue with a bit of shell as the heart.

Bev must have noticed my shocked stare as she asked, “What?”

“Sarah has one of the statues,” I whispered.

“What statues?”

I sat on the lower across from Bev. “Brill and I found this odd guy up at the flea. He had a table full of dozens of these little statues. Each had a bit of shell as a heart. When I saw them, they looked—I don’t know—kinda odd. Like some kind of religious icon or something.”

Pip had come in behind me then and I nodded toward Sarah’s partition.

“I’ll be—” he said.

Bev climbed out of her bunk to see what we were talking about. “What is it? Some kind of seagull?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s a raven.”

“How can you tell?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but that’s what it is. That one was made by a different person than mine and Brill’s, but it’s definitely a raven.”

“You’ve seen a whelkie before?” Sarah asked, coming in from the entry to the quad.

“Yeah, in the flea market the other day.”

“Really?” she asked. Sarah kept her arms self-consciously in front of her as she moved past us and slipped up onto her bunk. After wrapping her blanket around her, she seemed more comfortable. I know I felt better because she was so bony it was difficult to see her that way.

“Yeah,” I told her. “Funny old geezer had a table full of them. What did you call them?”

“Whelkies. They’re carved from windrift and each one has a bit of whelk shell as the heart.” Sarah pulled hers down and held it up so we could see it. The rough, primitive carving had a shell with just the barest tinge of purple to it. “Some of the people on St. Cloud think of them as a kind of spirit guide.”

“A what?” Bev asked. She seemed really interested.

“A spirit guide. Depending on how superstitious you are, they’re anything from a curiosity like a horoscope, to a focal point for your spirit, or for some an actual guide.” Sitting there, holding her raven, and telling us about it she seemed almost relaxed. “Almost every little fishing village along the south coast has a shaman who carves these and hands them out to people. Usually if there’s sickness or tragedy in the house, the shaman will come and leave one of these behind.”

“That is a raven, right?” I asked her.

“Oh, yes,” she said, looking at me for the first time since she had hopped up on the bunk. “Are you sure you saw somebody selling them at the flea market?”

“Yup. There was this strange man in homespun clothes who had a weird way of talking. I thought it was just flea market patter.”

“Patter?” she asked.

Bev explained, “Yeah, sometimes a vendor will have a little act they do to make their goods more appealing or to draw people in. Sometimes they’ll tell jokes, or they’ll have a story about whatever it is they’re selling.”

“Ah,” said Sarah, “now I understand. Patter,” she repeated the word as if seating the term in her brain. She focused back on her whelkie. “This raven came to me about three weeks ago, now. It’s kinda rough, but I like it. The smoother and more finished it is, the more highly valued they are. Also, supposedly, the deeper the purple in the heart the more power it has. This one’s just got a little bit of purple, but he was powerful enough to lead me here,” she said with a smile which was a welcome sight to see, if only for its infrequency.

Pip asked me, “Doesn’t your dolphin have a really purple heart?”

“You have a whelkie?” Sarah asked, her eyes wide in amazement.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small packet. The string slipped off easily and the cloth fell away revealing the dolphin. The deep purple heart glinted in the overhead light.

“Wow!” Bev said, looking from Sarah’s raven to my dolphin and back. She started to reach for mine, but stopped and had an expression that seemed to be asking for permission.

I shrugged and offered it to her. She lifted it out of the little piece of cloth and held it up so the light gleamed off of its sleek sides.

As she was holding it up, Bev nudged me with her elbow and nodded toward Sarah. Our new shipmate was frozen, staring at the dolphin.

“Where did you get it?” she asked breathlessly, not taking her eyes off it.

“I told you. There was a guy selling these at the flea market.”

“You bought it?” she asked, and there was genuine surprise and possibly even shock in her voice. For the first time since meeting her she looked me directly in the eyes.

“Well, no,” I corrected. “Not this one. I did buy some—ten of them in fact, but this one was a gift.”

“It came to you,” she said.

“Came to me?” I asked. “What’s that mean?”

Sarah shook herself and took a deep shuddering breath. She held it, closed her eyes, and then slowly let it out. She spoke without opening her eyes. “The tradition says that the whelkies know where there is need and will come to those who need their help. Each is tuned to a particular individual and it will find its rightful owner.” She opened her eyes again and looked around self-consciously. “It sounds silly, I know, and I never believed in the old stories myself.”

Bev touched her arm gently. “Until your raven came to you?” she asked.

Sarah nodded. “My husband was—is—a fisherman. He’s looked up to in the village as a leader, but he’s really just a bully. He strong-armed my father and I became his wife.” She indicated the bruises on her face. “These are from him. About three weeks ago, he threw me against the wall so hard I cracked a rib.” She touched her right side. “The shaman came to treat my injuries.” She held up her left arm, and I could still see the residual bruising. “When he left, the raven was on my night stand.”

She took a few deep breaths and I thought she was done, but after a short while she continued, “That evening, just after sunset, I was sitting on the back stoop with the raven in my hands. I was frightened because I didn’t know what to think or what to believe. As I sat there, a spark of light glinted off the heart’s shell. It startled me until I realized it was just the reflection of the orbital glinting in the final rays of the setting sun—just a pinpoint of light in the darkening sky. I looked up just in time to see another point of light break off from it and drift away.”

She paused again before continuing, “A week ago, my husband went out fishing. His boat goes out for days, sometimes weeks at a time. As soon as he was gone, I made my way to the Union Hall at Port Starvey where Captain Giggone saved me.”

She gave a small, nervous laugh. “So, was it the raven that led me here? Or just the coincidence of reflected light?” She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. What I do know is I am here. What I feel is that I am safe for the first time in longer than I can remember. What does it mean that you have that beautiful dolphin?” Again she shrugged. “Perhaps, it’s just a lovely memento from somebody who cares for you. Maybe it’s a whelkie come to help you. Who’s to say?”

She heaved a great sigh. “There. That feels better.” Then she smiled.

The little trance-like state was broken. Bev stroked the side of the dolphin with the ball of her thumb as if remembering she still held it and then handed it carefully back to me.

Pip stared at Sarah like he had never seen her before. I knew the feeling. Bev was the first to find her voice and said, “Well, I know a couple of mess attendants who need to get some sleep, even if some environmental people don’t.” She stared pointedly at me.

“Oh, yeah.” I shook myself. “Right. As I was saying, I need to rack out myself. It’s been a long day.” Before I left, I turned to Sarah and said, “Thank you for telling us about the whelkies. I knew there was more to them than just simple bric-a-brac.”

“Well, now you know the story. What you believe in, is up to you.”

“True, and thanks for trusting us with your own story. You’re right about being safe here. Lois will take care of you.” I smiled at her and headed for my own bunk.

It had been a long day.

Chapter 11

ST. CLOUD SYSTEM
2352-FEBRUARY-23

I must have been tired because I slept straight through until the watch stander woke me at 05:30. Francis and I joined the other second shift crew and all of us managed to cycle through the san in just a few ticks. Nobody said much. I got the feeling it was more because we were all groggy rather than any deference to the sleeping crew.