Ships of My Fathers (3 page)

The nods around the circle came one by one, so Michael prompted them. “Anyone else? I know you’ve got to work, and there’s no point in hanging around playing nursemaid to me.”

Wendy spoke up. “Takasumi Lines has a posting for an engineer. I’d have to play catch-up with whatever ship they post me to, but it’s available today.”

“You’d go corporate?” Liam asked. He had been their prime shift navigator for two years and never had a kind word for the larger shipping lines. Malcolm had hinted at some bad blood between Liam and one of the larger shipping lines, but he had never given the details.

She shrugged. “Hey, they’re offering five-year contracts. Good money, too. You should check it out.”

“No thanks,” Liam replied. “Besides, with all my time logged past the border, I’ll have no trouble finding a berth from here.”

“Maybe for you,” Henry said, “but I think Wendy’s onto a good thing. Did you see anything for systems?”

She nodded. “Two of them, one general and one mechanical specialist.”

Isaac gave him a nudge in the ribs. “Sounds like that mechanic spot might be your ticket out of the sludge tanks.”

Henry nodded. “Yeah, it would.”

“What about you, Isaac?” Michael asked. Isaac had been there longer than any of the others, a full four years, but even that was a little short compared to other family ships he knew. Malcolm had been a good skipper, but he had also been a hard skipper.

The older man looked at him with a hint of sadness. “I don’t think I’m ready to ship off quite yet. I’m no nursemaid, but I figure I should keep my eye on Skipper’s boy at least a little longer.”

They wrapped it up with a heartfelt round of handshakes, though Wendy had given him a hug that lasted a lot longer than Michael was expecting. They said their goodbyes at the door, and Michael and Isaac staggered to an auto-pod for the ride back to their hotel.

The message light was blinking when they got to the room, so Isaac hit it.

“Mr. Fletcher, this is Charles Hollings from Walters and Merrimack. The local court has appointed me as your representative for the dissolution of your father’s estate as well as the advocate for your minority status. I have set up a meeting for ten tomorrow morning at my office,” he said and rattled off the address. “Please be there.”

Isaac turned back to face Michael. “Well, that was quick.”

The room began to turn, and Michael stumbled towards the toilet to throw up. He did not make it in time.

Chapter 3

“It’s not so much that I lied. It’s more that I simply hadn’t gotten around to telling her the truth yet.” — Malcolm Fletcher

M
ICHAEL SAT IN THE RECEPTION
lounge of Walters and Merrimack. It was high in one of the super towers downtown, well west of the port, but he could almost make out the control tower through the low morning haze. At the very least, he could see the occasional glint of a ship punching up through the fog, but he tried not to look too much. Even through the shaded glass of the office building, the glare of the sun made his head throb.

He had worn his dress uniform for the meeting. It was as close to a suit as he had, and he always thought he looked older in uniform than in his civvies. He knew his clothes were not going to fool the lawyer about his age, but he hoped it would at least impart some sense of maturity. Short of a Captain’s star, these non-military uniforms rarely showed any rank, but it did show him as a working member of the crew rather than some ship-schooled passenger.

Isaac had offered to come along, but Michael had insisted he go alone. “I’m hoping to convince this guy I don’t need much supervision,” he had said. “Showing up with a chaperone doesn’t exactly help.” Isaac had protested, but in the end he had stayed back at the hotel suite.

At five after ten, Charles Hollings emerged from the back offices. “Ah, Mr. Fletcher, come this way.” He wore a formal suit with the double-breasted vest that was becoming fashionable on colder worlds. It had the effect of making Hollings look broader than he actually was. Michael had tried one once, but its bagginess only accented how thin he was.

He followed Hollings into his office and sat opposite the desk while Hollings opened the files on his desk screen. “First of all,” he said, “let me offer my condolences for your loss. I never met Captain Fletcher, but from what I have read, he was a fine man.”

Michael sighed. He still was not used to hearing about his father in the past tense, but at least he had stifled the urge to correct people. “Thank you.”

“I see you came alone. Are you staying with anyone?”

He tried to sit a little straighter without making it look like he was puffing out his chest. “I asked my first officer to stay in port while we sort out the details on the ship ownership.” It was sort of true, but phrasing it that way made Michael sound far more like the responsible party.

“I see, well, we can get to the guardianship in a moment. The ship ownership should be fairly simple.” He swept his hands across the desk screen and the virtual papers shuffled around. “I see that
Sophie’s Grace
is held by the Fletcher Trust. I read through the formation and bylaw documents yesterday afternoon, and if we wait until next year, the transfer should be a straightforward matter. We could proceed now if you wish, but the complexity would still add significant delay.”

Michael tried to follow the language, but much of it turned to mush in his aching head. “What’s the delay?”

“Well, as I said, if we wait until your eighteenth birthday, the transfer is not much more than a simple filing with the port registry. The bylaws of the trust are clear that on the death of Malcolm Fletcher, Michael Fletcher becomes the executive trustee, and in that role, you can become the primary signatory for all the ship’s business. However, there is a clause for taking care of things if the death occurred before your majority, which it has. If you want the ship to continue to operate, you and I will have to select an executive trustee to act for you, but I don’t recommend it.”

“Why not?

“Well, it’s the short timeframe. For ship trusts, the executive trustee is typically someone with a captain’s license and a background in law. We would have to select one, convince him to hire on, and then there are a few hearings and a filing to be sent to the sector registry offices. When it’s all said and done, we’re probably looking at three to six months before you would be operational. But the question is for how long? While you could keep the hired captain on, his role of executive trustee would evaporate after a few short months. I think we’d be very challenged to find someone willing to take it on for such a limited duration.”

Michael thought it about for a moment. It would go much more smoothly if only Isaac could pass the Captain’s exam, but he always insisted he did not have the engineering skills to pass. In truth, he was more of a glorified navigator than a true first officer, but then navigation had always been a mathematical mystery to Michael. “I’m not so sure,” he said finally. “I do have a lot of friends in the shipping business. I might be able to convince one of them.”

“To give up their own vessel or posting to take yours on for a few months? I can’t speak to the quality of the friendship, but I would be truly surprised to hear of someone with the necessary background who would make that kind of decision.”

Michael shrugged it off. “Well, I may ask around, but for now let’s assume that I’ll be clear in nine months.”

“That may be the best attitude. Your luck may surprise me after all, but I wanted you to know what you were up against.”

“So
Sophie
will sit there collecting dust in that sealed dock in the meantime. Who pays for that?”

The lawyer sighed. “Well, regrettably the storage fees accrue against you and the trust, but they aren’t as much as you might think. I imagine Captain Fletcher’s accounts would be sufficient, but failing that, I understand there is a possible litigation against one Wall-to-Sky repair facility here on Taschin?”

Michael shook his head at the thought of the accident, watching that errant thruster again in his head. At a trial there would be the video, cross-examinations, and questions of why he had not gone into help his father. Help his father like he should have. Damn.

“You’d rather avoid the trial?”

Michael looked up. “How did you know?”

“It’s not uncommon. I’m not going to push it on you, and I imagine they would be eager to settle out of court. It wouldn’t be enough to retire on, certainly, but it would easily cover your living expenses for the upcoming year along with any port fees that accrue. I could start the process if you’d like.”

He nodded and looked out the window beyond Hollings. This one did not face the port, but north to the snow-capped mountains instead. It was not nearly as bright, so his head did not throb as much. “I guess the question is, what will I be doing for the next nine months?”

“Then let’s move on to the matter of your guardianship.”

Michael shook his head to clear it and focused on Hollings. “Yeah, I had a thought on that. I get along pretty well with my first officer, Isaac Rubin. He agreed to stick around for at least a while. I imagine I could hire him on to fulfill whatever guardian requirements there are for the next few months.”

Hollings shifted the virtual pages around again. “With due respect, Mr. Fletcher, I don’t think the court would be satisfied with that kind of arrangement. Traditionally the guardian holds authority over the child. He is not an employee of the child.”

Michael waved his hands to cut him short. “Semantics aside, he’s a good guy, and he’s looked out for me before at other ports.”

Hollings frowned briefly before masking it. “Certainly, the court is likely to look favorably upon his present assistance and will not press for foster placement, but I did perform a next-of-kin search, and without overriding factors, the living family takes precedence. In fact, I already took the liberty of sending notice to your uncle Hans, but with transit time and not knowing where he is on his own shipping route—”

“Wait, Uncle Hans? I don’t have any Uncle Hans.” He blinked twice and tried to focus on the virtual pages before Hollings. “For that matter, I don’t have any uncles. Mom was an only child, and Dad’s little sister died when she was my age.”

Hollings referred back to the pages on the desk screen. “Oh, sorry, I meant Hans Schneider, the older brother of your birth father Peter.”

“My what?”

“Your birth father,” he replied, still reading the pages, “Peter Frederick Schneider.”

“Birth father? What are you talking about? My father was Malcolm Fletcher.”

Hollings looked up and paused. “Oh, dear Lord, I am so sorry. I thought you knew.”

The room was threatening to spin. “Knew what?”

“Uh, perhaps we should take a moment. Can I get you something to drink?” He reached for the intercom. “Jenny, could you fetch Sarah for me?”

Michael leaned forward and grabbed hold of the edge of the desk. “Fuck the drink. You thought I knew what?”

Hollings licked his lips and swallowed. “I’m so sorry you have to find out this way, Michael, but you were adopted. Your parents, Sophia and Peter Schneider, died in 3381 on board the
Kaiser’s Folly
. Malcolm Fletcher filed for adoption two weeks later. I have the paperwork right here.”

Virtual pages fluttered across the desk screen towards Michael. He tried to read them, but his vision blurred. “No,” he said. “There must be some mistake. Mom and Dad were married. She died on our old ship, the
Hammerhead
.”

His memory of it was vivid, the day Dad showed him where it happened. It was the day after his seventh birthday when he had asked. They had gone back to the starboard cargo access, and Dad had pointed to the welds where the hull had blown out. “Fucking pirates,” he had told him. “Never forget that, Mikey, and never let them get away with it.”

He looked back up at Hollings. “The papers aren’t true. They can’t be.”

Hollings sat there a moment with his jaw hanging. “I’m, uh, look Michael, I wasn’t there. I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of what happened or who did what. I only have the records, and that’s all I have to work with.”

Michael staggered to his feet. “Well, the records are wrong, and anyone who tells you different... well, they’re lying. Malcolm Fletcher was my father, and Sophia Fletcher was his wife. You understand?”

“Perhaps another one of my associates could explain…”

“No, there’s no explanation. I know what I know,” he said, waving his hand across the virtual pages, “and all of this is bullshit.”

The door opened behind him. “Charles? Jenny said you needed me.”

Michael did not bother to look at her, keeping his gaze locked on Hollings instead. “Yeah, he needs help getting his facts straight.”

“Michael, I don’t know...”

Michael stood straight. “Yeah, you don’t know shit.” He stormed to the door, the startled Sarah stepping back and clenching a pad to her chest. He paused in the doorway and looked back at Hollings. “You ask around, and you’ll hear the truth. Call me when you get your records squared away, and we can talk about my real father, Malcolm Fletcher.”