Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper) (60 page)

“You look like you had fun at Ten Volt, Perc,” Ms. Arellone teased. “Do you remember any of it?”

He grinned tentatively and glanced around the table as if not too sure how much he should say in mixed company, officers being present and all. “I think I remember most of it. It kinda blended together after a while, and I didn’t sleep much.”

“Do you remember the pair we found you with?” she asked.

He nodded. “Oh, yes. Bets and Anna. Nice women. We—um...” He looked around and I could see him editing his planned remarks, slowly but at least he made the effort. “We danced a lot. They introduced me to a few of the regulars in port, some of the locals. There’s a lot of people on the local run between Foxclaw, Kazyanenko, and here. We saw you all one night, coming out of a restaurant.”

“
Danced
a lot?” Ms. Arellone looked skeptical.

He might have blushed a bit. As hung over as he was, it was a bit difficult to tell. He didn’t say anything, just offered a small shrug.

“Horizontal mambo, probably,” Ms. Arellone muttered into her soup, and Ms. Maloney laughed once before regaining her composure.

Something Mr. Herring said set me off. “‘We’, Mr. Herring?”

“Sar?”

“You said, ‘We saw you all one night.’ We who?”

“Oh, I don’t know who all, sar. Bets and Anna for sure, but there was a pack of us most of the time.”

“Where did you see us, Mr. Herring?”

“Oh, up on deck seven or eight maybe? I’m not sure. We were sitting at one of the cafes having a few ... that is.” He looked around. “Trying to decide where to go for dinner.”

Ms. Maloney hid a small smile, but her eyes never left Herring.

“And you saw whom, Mr. Herring?” I asked again.

“Oh.” He frowned. “Well, it was you, Captain, and Ms. Maloney.” He nodded at her. He looked at the chief but then at Ms. Arellone. “And Ms. Arellone.”

“That’s pretty good remembering for something that happened so long ago, Mr. Herring.”

“Well, they were all excited to see you, sar.”

“The party you were with, Mr. Herring?”

“Yes, sar. When they saw you come out one of the locals—a guy, Sammy? Sandy?” He shrugged. “I’m not sure which. He pointed you out and everybody was calling you ‘Flyboy.’” He grinned. “You earned me a few drinks that night.”

“I did?”

“You did, sar. I told ’em right out that you were Captain Ishmael Wang, sar. They seemed to know already, and were impressed that I knew you, and the names of the rest of the crew.”

“Really,” I said, beginning to get a very bad feeling where this conversation was going. “And you pointed out, Ms. Arellone?”

“Oh, yes, sar.” He turned to her and winked. “Couple of the guys thought you looked pretty nice, too.”

“And who did you say she was?” I asked with a nod to Ms. Maloney.

“Oh, well, I told them that was our cook, Ms. Maitland.”

“And did they believe you?”

“Well, sure, Captain. They even took some pictures of you through the window.”

Ms. Maloney and I shared a look and I sighed.

“Where’d you meet them—Bets and Anna?” I asked.

“Oh, they were walking just ahead of me on the dock when I left the ship, sar. We all wound up in the lift heading down to the oh-two.” He grinned shyly. “Anna said I was cute.”

Ms. Maloney just shook her head and sighed. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

“Oh, they were fun enough, Ms. Maloney, but I wouldn’t call them babes,” Mr. Herring said with a grin.

It was so unexpected I laughed, and so did Ms. Maloney. I don’t know if I laughed because of his comment or from the relief. Ms. Arellone looked at us like we were crazy.

I turned to the chief and asked my traditional questions. “Are we ready for space, Chief?”

“Oh, aye, Cap, we’re ready to fly.”

“Tanks topped and spares loaded?”

“Aye, Cap. Tanks are topped, see if they’re not, and spares are full. The kickers are hot, and the generators are on safety standby, sar, aren’t they? Sure they are.”

“Well, then Ms. Maloney, do we have stores and supplies sufficient to our voyage?”

“We do, Captain. Stores and supplies are full and ready for space.”

I looked around the table. “Anybody know any reason why we shouldn’t go?”

They all grinned back at me.

“Well, then? What are we waiting for?”

By 1250, we’d cleared the table, and stowed the leftovers. I called the crew to navigation stations, and put Ms. Arellone on the helm. Ms. Maloney took her customary seat in front of the consoles, and I took the engineering chair while the chief worked in engineering.

At 1300 traffic control sent us the go, and I released the docking clamps. Ms. Arellone pushed us back on maneuvering jets, and we skated smoothly back, made our orientation turn, and grabbed the beam. By 1330 we cleared local traffic, and I secured the navigation detail, freeing Ms. Maloney to go finish lunch clean up, and Mr. Herring to get a few stans of sleep before taking the watch at 1800. In less than two weeks, we’d be back on Diurnia.

I sat with Ms. Arellone on the bridge while we cruised out to the safety threshold, and walked her through the process of raising the sails. As we got the fields trimmed, her smile transformed into a grin.

“So, what do you think, Ms. Arellone? It’s a long way from the brig.”

She shot me an amused look. “It is that, Captain.” She paused and checked her console again. “And, Captain?” She turned to look at me. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Arellone.” We sailed along in companionable silence for a time before I asked, “Why do you think I need a bodyguard, Ms. Arellone?”

She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “It seemed like you’d need somebody to keep the gold diggers at bay, sar. When we left the
Agamemnon
, you were heading off to be the orbital’s most eligible bachelor.” She didn’t look at me. “And you looked out for me. I talked to Ms. Thomas and Mr. Wyatt about you, and they seemed to think you’d need some help, too.”

“Did they put you up to it?” I asked, more curious than anything.

“Oh, no, sar.” She looked at me. “I went to them about going with you, because I felt bad about leaving them short-handed, and I thought maybe they’d talk me out of it.”

“They didn’t, though, did they?”

She shook her head. “No, they seemed to think it was a good idea.”

We rode for a while then she added shyly. “Ms. Thomas said she thought you’d need somebody to take care of.” She looked at me sideways. “I thought that was funny because I thought you needed somebody to take care of you.”

“You’ve done a good job, Ms. Arellone.”

I saw her smile in the dim light of the bridge. “Thank you, sar.” She looked back at her console. “So have you.”

I sighed. With less than two months left on the note, I knew I needed to do a lot better. “Thanks, Ms. Arellone. It’s good to hear.”

A few ticks later an incoming message flashed through to my tablet. I opened it up, and found the notice from CPJCT that my small craft steward’s endorsement had been applied to my records. I doubted that it would be enough, but I hoped it would help.

Chapter Fifty-Three
Ten Volt System:
2373-February-6

We were five days out of Ten Volt before I got a chance for a quiet conversation with Ms. Maloney. Once we got into the routine without having any passengers aboard, she had taken to riding along in the bridge after cleaning up the lunch mess. The open ports in the galley gave her a view, but I think she just enjoyed the company. Most days she read, or just looked out the armorglass. At one point I thought she was studying but she didn’t volunteer, and I didn’t pry.

She seldom said much so when she opened the conversation, I was a bit surprised.

“I guess the torrid affair is off then, Captain?” she asked.

It took me a few heartbeats to catch up with her. “Unless there’s more than we can account for with a bit of carelessness on the part of our junior crewman.”

“Nothing I’ve seen,” she said. “Obviously somebody got wise to my presence aboard back on Welliver.”

“Probably, Ms. Maloney, but other than a bit of gossipy reporting, there’s nothing much of substance, as far as I can see.”

She pursed her lips for a moment before responding. “I agree, Captain. In a way, I’m relieved there isn’t a spy on board, but I’m embarrassed to have been so adamant to begin with.”

I shrugged it off. “It’s an issue of perspective. When you expect trouble all the time, it begins to color your world. I had a problem like that with Ms. Arellone back in the beginning.”

“Just because I’m paranoid...” she began the old chestnut with a grin.

I snickered. “True, Ms. Maloney. Very true.”

We sailed along in silence for a time. With the astrogation updates done, there was little to occupy me on the way out of Ten Volt. Once we jumped, I would have access to the Diurnia markets, and I could begin looking for outbound cargoes. The pace was a faster than I was used to. Not only were we getting to ports sooner, the speed of transit meant I had less time to find cargoes.

“So, what do you think, Captain? About the
Iris
?” she broke the silence again.

“I think it’s an intriguing design, Ms. Arellone. It’s obviously meant more to carry passengers than freight, but the small hold means that the burleson drives are always working on an ideal mass, and that’s what gives us such long legs.”

“Andy Leyman thought you should look into chartering long term.”

“It would have to be a lucrative contract. We’re going to earn a nice bonus going into Diurnia with all these small cargoes.” I sighed. “But I still don’t know how I’m going to pay that note off. All I can hope is that Mr. Simpson has wrangled an investor to take one of the remaining shares so I can sink it.”

“When I was small, before it became gauche to talk about the company at dinner, Father used to talk about the cash flow problems with ships.” She smiled out into the Deep Dark. “The ships cost so much to buy, the barriers to entry are horrendous. If you can buy one without having to incur too much debt in the process, you can make a nice living. There are apparently some accounting tricks with depreciation and taxes that I never understood.” She gave a low laugh. “He used to say, you could make a good living going broke every year.”

The comment caught me off guard and I laughed. “That’s probably true. If I owned the ship outright, the depreciation expense would chew up paper profits rather quickly.”

“You sound like him, Captain.” She turned her head away and looked back out of the armorglass. “He loved it out here, you know. I never really understood why, but I never saw it like this before.”

“The
Iris
is a special ship. I really don’t know why this hull didn’t catch on. Just the ability to cover the whole quadrant in a single jump makes a huge difference, and for passengers? The ability to lay in your bunk, and watch the universe sail by? Other than it being expensive, who wouldn’t want to do that?”

I saw her nodding. “Very true.” She turned back to me, as a sudden thought struck her, and grinned wickedly. “Oh, my.”

“What, Ms. Maloney.”

“I just thought of a very special market niche that this ship would be perfect for, Captain.”

The expression on her face said she had something in mind, but I couldn’t guess what it was.

“The honeymoon trade, sar,” she said, and I could see one of her eyebrows arch in the dimness.

“Oh, my, indeed, Ms. Maloney.” I started to laugh but she was right. “Love among the stars, eh?”

“Well at least passion, Captain. Don’t sell it short.” She grinned at me, and then turned to look back out with a languid sigh.

I knew she was twitting me, but somehow, I didn’t mind.

The air quality sensors pinged an amber warning and I focused on my console, bringing up the environmental warnings. The display showed a routine warning about the oxygen-carbon dioxide mix in the air. “Odd,” I muttered.

“What is it, Captain?”

“At the moment, it’s nothing, Ms. Maloney. An uptick in the CO
₂
mixture.”

“What causes that, sar?”

“Scrubbers need filters replaced, probably.”

“Didn’t you just do that on Ten Volt, sar?”

“Yes, I did and I asked the chief to double-check my work to make sure I’d done it correctly.” I looked at the calendar. “It’s been about the right amount of time that the other half of the filters are probably due for replacement.”

I fired off a message to Chief Bailey noting the discrepancy, and asking him to check it out.

“Is it serious, Captain?”

“No, Ms. Maloney. We’ve got spares and spares. With only the five of us aboard, there should be enough excess capacity in the system to get us to Diurnia without danger, even if we didn’t have extra cartridges.”

Normally we kept the engineering console on the bridge secured when underway. The pilot’s console had everything the bridge watch needed, and I only fired it up for docking maneuvers so I could deal with locks and docking clamps. The pilot’s console displayed simplified versions of the full engineering data, so I slipped out of the pilot’s chair and into the engineer’s to fire up the full display.

Bringing up the environmental history I saw the spike, and subsequent correction, from Ten Volt. The mixtures got back to normal relatively quickly, but after dropping down to mid-range normal, they’d been ticking up ever since.