Starship's Mage: Episode 2 (3 page)

On the fourth day in Corinthian, David Rice found Damien under the forward radiation cap on his own, putting the final touches on a re-inlaying of the forward rune matrix. This section had survived the pirate attack relatively intact, but had needed to be cut around when the repair crews had replaced the forward turret.

“You realize we’re supposed to be on station meeting Bistro in less than two hours,” the Captain observed, slowing his drift through
zero-gravity to come to a rest next to the Mage. He glanced over the rune matrix that the young man was working on. Even to his eyes, it looked different than the old version – most notably, there was a blank space where one of the youth’s ‘seven limiter sub-matrices’ had been.

“Hadn’t been watching the time,” the Ship’s Mage said
distractedly, carefully connecting a final set of runes with an odd looping line that Rice was sure meant something quite specific to the Mage. The Captain noticed, with a minor pang of envy, that the Mage was standing on the deck to work, in his own magically generated field of gravity.

“
I need to get down to the engineering spaces once I’m done here,” Damien continued. “The repair crew is working on the main hydrogen feeds for Engine One. I’ll need to check for rune damage when they’re done.”

“
I note, Damien, that there
are
no runes on the hydrogen feeds,” Rice observed dryly. “We were told to bring the ship’s officers, which includes the Ship’s Mage.”

“There are runes close enough to the feeds that a
Mage need to check they’re intact,” Damien replied. “Those include the runes on the main heat exchanger, which I
really
don’t want anyone else taking a look at.”

Rice shook his head as his youngest officer
. “They’re not going to be any more or less damaged tomorrow,” he told him. “I appreciate both the concern around strangers looking at our runes now, and your dedication to overseeing the repairs.”

“That said,” the
Captain continued, “I believe I am
ordering
you to take the evening off. Finish up the runes in this section and then get yourself cleaned up. Clear?”

The youth looked at
his boss and sighed.

“
Clear, Captain,” he replied.

“
We’ll meet in the lobby of the hotel in ninety minutes,” Rice concluded. “It’ll take you fifteen to get there, so you’d better work quickly.”

Damien stumbled out of the hotel room shower with about five minutes to spare on Rice’s deadline. The hotel Bistro had put the senior officers up in was located next to the docks to allow easy access to the ship and had floors marked with gravity runes throughout to avoid the dock’s lack of gravity. Maintaining the spells that allowed artificial gravity required weekly renewing by a trained Mage, which explained much of the cost of the rooms.

To Rice and most other ship’s captains and officers, the extra price was worth it to be
close to their ships and still not have to sleep in zero-gravity. Damien agreed completely, as the rune work he’d been doing around the new forward turret had taken longer than expected. If they’d been staying at a hotel any further away, he wouldn’t have been able to be ready in time for the Captain’s deadline.

As
it was, he carefully rushed dressing. He slipped into black slacks and the black mock-nocked dress shirt common for Mages. Where a non-Mage’s shirt collar would fold down over the tie, Damien locked the warm leather of the rune-inlaid collar that carried his medallion over the half-neck. That gold coin, with its three stars and quill, marked him as a recognized Mage of the Royal Orders and Guilds of the Protectorate of Humanity. Without it, he would feel naked.

In the end,
he was two minutes late into the lobby. David, Jenna and Kellers were all waiting, the ship’s two senior officers in quiet conversation with the dark-skinned engineer. He joined them wordlessly, exchanging nods with the other officers.

“Where’s Narveer?”
he asked.

“There was a problem with one of the heavy lift shuttles,” Jenna explained
. “He didn’t make it back to the hotel until after you did, he’ll be a few more minutes.”

The Captain shook his head with a smile, and was
about to say something more when the ship’s First Pilot bustled into the lobby, his turban neatly tied, but his dark blue tie flapping loosely around his neck and the jacket of his charcoal suit wide open over it.

“Stop,” Rice ordered
flatly as the Pilot reached them. “Hold still.” The squat Captain swiftly grabbed the loose ends of Singh’s tie and knotted them in a blur of motion. “Better. Are we ready?”

Kellers
and the Captain wore the same style of charcoal gray suit as Singh, similar enough that Damien suspected they’d all be acquired at the same time. Jenna wore a plain black suit that looked somewhat newer than the men’s, though still worn.

All
four of the ship’s officers, including Damien, nodded their readiness to the Captain.

“Alright,” Rice replied
. “Let’s go collect our paycheck.”

The
Captain led them out and drifted into a transit pod that would take them to the Spindle. Damien kicked off after him, stepping out of the gravity in the hotel lobby and into the zero-gravity of the docks.

He caught the handle on the side of the pod and swung in, managing not to embarrass himself too
badly he thought. The other officers quickly followed, all moving with the practiced ease of professional spacers that Damien had not, quite, picked up yet.

The pod shot away as soon as the five were
all aboard, a small acceleration pressing the officers into the back of the cushioned seats.

“How are the
repairs proceeding, James?” Rice asked once they were on their way.

“Better than
I was figuring,” the engineer shrugged. “Forward repairs are basically done, and the repair crew promised to have the engine conduits fixed up tonight. If they manage that, we’ll have the new rear turret bolted on and wired in by the end of tomorrow.”

“Those turrets are getting expensive to replace,” Jenna observed
. “That’s two sets in as many trips!”

“
I’d rather replace them than not have them,” Rice told them all grimly. “So we’ll be done the major repairs tomorrow then?” he asked, sounding surprised to Damien’s ears.

“
We’ll have dozens of tiny repairs throughout the interior of the ship,” Kellers admitted, “but the major work will be done. I’d like a couple of days to test everything too, but technically we could jump out tomorrow evening.”

“Let’s not,” Damien said
dryly. “I’d like a couple of days myself to review the entire rune matrix. With all of the repairs, there may still be issues I’d missed.”

“
I don’t expect to be leaving tomorrow,” Rice assured them both. “I do want to be able to tell Bistro how quickly we can depart if he does have a cargo for us.”

The conversation
was interrupted by their arrival at the Spindle. Damien felt a bit better about his own original awe at the sight of the interior of the cylinder when he saw Singh and Kellers both stop and stare in shock.

“
Impressive, isn’t it?” Jenna told them with a chuckle. “The Captain and I came through here back before we commissioned the
Blue Jay
. It’s a bit of a shock to see for the first time.”

They could
only spare a few moments to look at the impressive view down the rotating cylinder with its parks and towns, though, as the cab Bistro had sent was already waiting for them. Rice gestured them forward, and the freighter officers piled in.

The conversation
in the human-driven taxi, Damien noted, was far sparser than it had been on the entirely automated transit pod. Like the others, he kept in mind that there were ears listening, and they talked little in the five minute trip before the cab delivered them to a sprawling mansion, tucked away off a side road from one of the main LengthWays and concealed by a forest that looked to have been planted when the Spindle was built.

A uniformed
butler met them as they exited the car, gently directing them into the house. Damien almost took him at face value, until Singh bumped him, directing his gaze with a jab of the chin. As the butler opened the door for them, his suit jacket opened enough to reveal a shoulder holster. Secure Bistro might be here on Spindle, but he clearly took no chances.

Bistro was waiting for them in the front hall of the mansion accompanied by another man that David didn’t recognize. The stranger was younger than Bistro, tall and slim with dark red hair and piercing green eyes. Dressed in a demure dark gray suit, he fit into the elegant furnishings of the mansion like he belonged.

“Captain Rice, welcome to
my home away from home,” Bistro greeted him, offering his hand for a firm handshake. “I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Carmichael, a business associate of mine. I am only going to be on Prime for tonight, so I decided to combine two dinners into one. This isn’t an issue, I hope?”

Rice shook
his head – he was hardly going to object to whoever the billionaire magnate chose to include in the evenings events.

“
Mr. Carmichael,” he greeted the stranger with a nod and turned to present his crew:
“
My first officer, Jenna Campbell,” he introduced Jenna. “Then this is my Chief Engineer, James Kellers, my First Pilot Narveer Singh, and my Ship’s Mage, Damien Montgomery.”

“
I have heard of some of your crew before,” Carmichael murmured, shaking hands with each officer in turn. “But Mr. Montgomery is new to me. I believe you had a McLaughlin aboard before?”

“Yes,” Rice said
shortly. “He is sadly no longer with us.”

“Of course,
my apologies,” the stranger murmured. “It is a pleasure to meet you all.”

Bistro shook each officer’s hand
in turn as well and gestured everyone towards a door off of the wood-paneled hall.

“The dining room is through here,”
he announced. “I believe the cook should have dinner just about ready, if everyone can take a seat.”

David waved his crew ahead of him, and
eventually ended up seated at the right hand of the head of the table, directly across from Carmichael and next to Bistro. Jenna sat to his right, with Damien opposite her next to Carmichael, the youth looking somewhat out of sorts, though David suspected he had more experience with high society dining than the other three officers put together.

As the food arrived, Bistro slid a small black chip across the table to David, which the
Captain took and pocketed with a nod.

“Payment for a successful delivery,
Captain Rice – and I hope, only the beginning of our commercial relationship,” Bistro told him quietly. “I have managed to confirm some details around that commission we spoke of, but nothing is set in stone yet. You still have some repairs to complete, you said?”

“
It will be at least two or three days before we’re even ready to begin loading cargo, let alone planning on shipping out,” David agreed. “If you’re thinking you may have a cargo for me, my ears will be open for a few days more.” More than that could put his ability to find a cargo in Corinthian at risk, something he was unwilling to do.

“What is the cargo
we’re speaking of?” he asked. “I’ve learned in the past that not asking too many questions can get me in more trouble than I’m prepared to accept.”

From the way Carmichael
nearly choked on the extremely good clam chowder the cook had served, the other man knew something of the events David was referring to. That was… unexpected.

“
It will be a load of machine parts and antimatter,” Bistro said calmly. “The only -- complications -- are that it’s shipping to Legatus, one of the UnArcana worlds, so there is always more paperwork.”

David nodded
. Of the just over a hundred known colonies, fourteen had officially banned the practice of Magic on their planetary surfaces, a decision that put them in sharp dispute with the over-arching government of the Mage-King of Mars. They sent their representatives to the Council at Mars like every other world, and jump ships still carried Mages to the worlds and Mage-commanded Martian warships guarded their worlds… but no Mage was allowed to set foot on the surface except on the King’s business. Collectively, those fourteen systems were known as the UnArcana worlds, where Mages feared to tread.

“That
makes sense,” he agreed. “As I said, it will be a few days before we can begin to load cargo, so I can wait and see if your commission comes through.”

“
It will,” Carmichael observed quietly, laying his spoon down on his empty bowl and leaning back. “The right requests have all been filed; it’s just making its way to the desk of the man who signs off on these things. Antimatter shipments are especially sensitive, as it’s so damned hard to make the stuff without magic.”

David nodded
silently as the soup plate was removed, and a plate of chicken and vegetables was placed in front of him. From the looks of it, the chicken breast had come from an actual bird, rather than a vat as most ‘meat’ aboard a space station or starship did. Neither Bistro nor Carmichael, however, acted as if this was unusual.

“What was
it you do, Mr. Carmichael?” he asked politely, wondering how this man could speak so authoritatively.

“Ah,” the man sighed
appreciatively as he swallowed a mouthful of chicken. “This is good, Bistro,” he said to the Magnate at the head of the table, then turned back to David. “I am an information broker,” he explained. “I deal in being aware of events across as many systems as possible, and providing that knowledge to men like Bistro here for a fee.” He glanced down the table, at the mostly silent faces of David’s crew, wisely focused on the food.

“In fact,
Captain, you may be able to assist me,” he continued. Laying down his fork and carefully cleaning his fingers, he removed an archaic paper card from the breast pocket of his suit. “I like to get the first-hand impressions of ship’s captains of the systems they’ve visited – the kind of details that don’t make it into the news download. There would be some compensation if you could make time for me.”

David shrugged and took the card.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said noncommittally. His time for the next few days would be tied up quite tightly. On the other hand, having an information broker owing you a favor was never a bad thing.

“Enough dreary talk of business,” Bistro interjected, somewhat
boomingly and then directing his attention down the table. “Young Montgomery! I take it Corinthian is the first world you’ve visited since you left home, correct? What do you think of the Spindle?”