Temporary Duty (33 page)

As soon as Tollison was clear the Grallt was scrambling into the bucket. «Come,» he said peremptorily, and Peters came, finding the bucket tight but passable for two people. Dhuvenig raised it more smoothly than Peters could, and brought it to a stop in the area where Tollison had been working. «Show me what he did,» he demanded.

It was pretty obvious. The faces of the new tooth were smooth, but shinier than the old ones, and Tollison hadn’t bothered to make the cheeks perfectly flat. «Not believable,» the Grallt breathed. «How did he get it so perfect? It looks exactly the same shape as the others.»

Peters looked around, spotted and retrieved a blob of hard plastic lying on a flange. «With this,» he told Dhuvenig. «Look, he put this over a good tooth while it was still soft, and removed it when it became hard. Then he used it as a pattern to make the new tooth.»

«Yes, I see. And the colored stuff–Oh. If you put that on the pattern, and put the pattern on the point, the color will appear on any place that’s too high.» Dhuvenig shook his head. «This is a wonderful technique.»

«You don’t do this?»

«No, never.» Dhuvenig looked around. «We don’t have the machine to add the metal. How does it work?»

Dhuvenig appeared to follow along, nodding, as Peters explained a Laser Inert Gas welder as best he could. «Wonderful,» he said at the end. «We normally pay many ornh for the ship-repair people to do this type of work. How much will you charge for this?»

Peters shrugged. «We consider ourselves part of the crew of the ship. Repairing things is normal work. There won’t be a charge.»

«That’s good for us, but it doesn’t seem correct.» Dhuvenig frowned. «I will consult with the first crewman and the first trader. Something will be arranged.» He started the bucket down. «Tell your man he does excellent work.»

«I will.» Peters looked at the Grallt. «Does this mean we may continue this repair?»

«Isn’t it finished?»

«No, not at all.» The bucket grounded. «Tollison will now check the other points, to see if any might break soon, and repair them as necessary. Then we will clean the machine, and apply liquid to the parts that move, so that it runs more smoothly.» Peters grinned and shook his head. «Then we will probably paint it. It’s something we do fairly often.»

«’Liquid’? Oh, you mean grease.» The word was the same one used for the goo the sailors had been calling ‘butter’. Dhuvenig glanced at the overhead. «Do you have enough?»

«We probably have enough for this job, if we use only what is needed.» Peters smiled again. «If you have more, we can use it. It’s a big ship.»

Dhuvenig grinned back. «Yes, it is.» He looked around. The working party had formed a ring around them. «Tell your superior thank you, and that you may definitely continue the repair. Let us know before you start another one, though. Heelinig was very irritated.»

«Yes, I noticed that. We will consult in the future.» Peters looked at Warnocki, back at the Grallt. «How much longer will it be before the door is needed? We should know, to plan the work.»

Dhuvenig waved that off. «It will be at least two llor, probably three, before we come down from high phase, and another llor before we need to use the door. You should have enough time.»

«Is it safe to test it during high phase?»

«The aft door, yes. Don’t try it on the forward one.»

«Yes. Thank you.»

«Ssth. Thank you, Peters.» The Grallt looked over at Chief Warnocki, who seemed about to explode with curiosity. «Get to work,» he said.

After dealing with Dee, that kind of joke was no problem. "Aye, sir," he said in English, and Dhuvenig didn’t reply, just gave a nod and took himself away. "Well, that went well, I reckon," he said as the Grallt disappeared into the elevator.

"What the Hell is going on, Peters?" Warnocki demanded. "You’re supposed to share this shit with your Chief, dammit."

Peters flushed. "All set, Chief. Number One Attaboy for Tollison, he does good work. And we’ve got about three days to finish up."

"No objections to us fixing this thing?"

"Not now, Chief." Peters looked around. "Matter of fact, I reckon we can fix anything we want, now that Dhuvenig’s signed off on us. We’re supposed to check with the brass before startin’ anything new, though."

"Glad to hear it. Can we move the geartrain? Test it? We don’t know what it’s like outside."

"Dhuvenig says that’s OK on the aft door, but don’t open the forward one. He didn’t say why."

That got a ghost of a smile from Warnocki. "OK. Tollison, you got a good handle on this?"

"Yeah, Chief," was the reply. "We won’t finish up this watch, but we’ll be ready to cycle the door to test it by the end of the next one."

"Carry on," Warnocki told him, and pulled Peters aside as the others began swarming over equipment. "Peters, it occurs to me that we’ve never had that little talk about Off Limits areas, and now we’ve got a little more ground to cover than that. You want to come up to my quarters and fill me in a little?"

«Yes.» Peters flushed again, shook his head, and said in English: "I mean, Aye, Chief."

"Getting a little confused, are you?"

Peters shook his head again and sighed. "You don’t know the half of it, Chief."

* * *

They weren’t quite as meticulous this time, but the ship was about to do something major, and old habits die hard. Planes and equipment were chained and boomed, gear was stowed, and the humans were all in their quarters, waiting for the ship to end "high phase." The runner who brought the word had asked for Peters by name, and Peters in turn had translated the message, in longhand, before taking it to Chief Joshua.

The aft doors definitely worked better. The relay contacts were solid blocks of silver alloy, and at Schott’s urgent advice they’d left them alone, so they still started up with a crash and a flash like God’s camera, and nothing was going to stop that honker of a motor from sounding like a C-22 with the fan cowls off when it wound up. But the groans and shrieks of dry bearings were gone, as was the irregular thump as the geartrain jumped the missing tooth.

Howard hadn’t joined them this time. The CT was getting better in Grallt, but still hadn’t achieved Peters’s fluency, and found that highly frustrating. Peters and Todd watched the stars flee from the center of their field of view, and this time they were close enough to the window to see that they bunched up and changed color, yellow shading to deep red forward, green shading to electric blue aft. Something about that seemed wrong, but neither one knew enough to figure out what. Again there was the peculiar feeling of lightness, this time directed aft, not nearly enough to push them off their feet; then the ship was stable again, stars shone in the window, and Peters turned away. "That’s all of that, I reckon. Let’s go, I’m starvin’." The change had happened just before a meal, which had been delayed to accommodate it.

Blue-and-whites were opening up the hangar accesses as the sailors reached the ops bay in a close bunch of hungry humans, and the doors began cycling as they crossed the deck. The difference in sound between the forward and aft ones was notable; more than one Grallt head swiveled back and forth, and Peters shared a grin with Tollison. The elevator was full, and while they waited for it to clank and groan back a
zerkre
with a hand-pusher brought out the big
dli
, with two smaller ones following under their own power. They had to stand back as the elevator disgorged Grallt, including the tubby gent they’d seen before, who eyed them with curiosity but didn’t speak as he passed.

By the time they’d finished eating the bay was empty. The doors were still open, and sunlight flooded the bay from aft at an oblique angle. Framed in the forward opening was what looked at first like a very bright star. On closer inspection it was big enough to be a little disk instead of just a point of light, and all around it were smaller sparks that moved just fast enough to be in a different position when you looked away, then back.

"You reckon that there’s Keelisika?" Peters asked with a gesture.

"I don’t see how it could be anything but," Todd opined. "And if those are other ships around it, it looks like a fairly busy place."

They watched for a few minutes. Sparks drifted into new configurations, but the–planet?–didn’t move or grow significantly larger. Peters shrugged. "Not much of a show. I’m goin’ on up to quarters."

"Me too." Todd fell into step. "You know, that’s another planet, and that’s not the sun out there, at least it’s not our Sun. Why doesn’t it feel more strange?"

Peters spared him a look and grin. "Hell, Todd, it’s a port call. Secure from flank speed an’ launch the gig t’make arrangements, then bend on passage way and watch for a couple hours while the place you’re goin’ gets bigger."

"Hadn’t thought of it like that." Todd shook his head. "But you’re right. Port call. Same, but different."

"Like it always is."

Kennard set up the exercise class as usual. His taste ran heavily to classical music of the last century, and a mixed group was breathing hard to
Black Magic Woman
when a crowd of
zerkre
came out of the elevator. Most of them headed for the retarder consoles, but one came over and made tentative motions, obviously wanting to interrupt but dubious about getting too close to the spinning, writhing, energetic sailor. Kennard finished his move and exchanged words, to little avail, and finally shouted, "Peters! You here? Front and center, if you are."

«Hello, Peters,» said Keezer when Peters approached. «If I had known you were in the group I would have sought you out.»

«Hello, Keezer,» Peters replied, still out of breath. «What do you need?»

«The bay is needed for operations. We will be receiving guests in a few tle.»

«Yes.» Peters nodded and turned to Kennard. "We’re gonna have to cut this short," he told the First Class. "Visitors comin’ in."

Kennard spared a look over his shoulder. The planet was a bright crescent, too big to fit entirely into the view forward, a portion showing at the upper left. The ship rolled at that moment, turning it into an arc that spanned the upper portion of the opening. "OK," the sailor said. He brought out a remote and thumbed it. The music died, and the dancers wound down slowly. "OK, listen up," Kennard told them. "Clear the bay, the Grallt are setting up for flight ops." Somebody repeated that in Grallt. Humans started heading for the enlisted quarters hatch, and their Grallt companions drifted more slowly to port and the elevator access.

Peters surveyed the group. «We will be clear in a few tle,» he told Keezer.

«That will be OK,» the zerkre assured him. Peters quirked an eyebrow at that, but Keezer only nodded and headed aft, swimming across the tide of Grallt bound for their quarters. Kennard and another sailor were securing the impie and taking the speakers down. Peters ignored that and headed for the hatch. He wanted a shower before he went over to the retarders to observe.

He wasn’t quick enough. Bright sparks aft were now familiar and expected, as was the loose group of Grallt waiting to greet newcomers, but something new had been added: one of the Tomcats was angle-parked just forward of the waiting group, a pair of officers–Commander Bolton and his NFO, it looked like–were standing at attention next to it, and Dreelig slouched nearby.

Peters judged the sparks too close to give him time to cross the bay before they trapped, so he joined a group in the alcove aft of the quarters hatch to watch. As far as procedure went, these were about halfway between the haphazard Grallt and the meticulous humans. They were strung out at fairly regular intervals, very nearly in a straight line, but weren’t doing anything fancy, just boring in on approach. Peters approved.

The first of the strange craft crossed the threshold as close to dead center of the opening as anyone could. A faint
thrum
said that the retarders were set properly, and the ship came to a near halt in midbay, then began taxiing over to park beside the Tomcat. It was a little smaller than the plane, a tubby ovoid of some dully gleaming material, with fins rather than wings. All four fins were equal-sized, set at forty-five degree angles, leading edges curving in to end at the widest point of the body. At the nose, three trapezoids of glass or clear plastic were set in a semicircle above a flattened cone painted dull red, seemingly held in place by a circle of half-inch round-headed rivets.

An oval hatch swung open and a ladder extruded itself from the bottom of the opening, swinging down to meet the deck with a clang at about the time the second ship, more or less identical, came to a stop and began taxiing over. Peters had time, now, to note that they didn’t have any landing gear. The rear fins stayed about a handwidth off the deck, and the centerline of the body was more or less level, leaving sixty centimeters or so of, well, air below the belly. Number two popped its hatch and began sticking its ladder out like a tongue, and number three came through the door, still with only subliminal hums from properly set retarders.

At the end there were an even dozen tubby ships lined up in neat echelon along the inboard wall of the bay, nicely aligned with the Tomcat. When the last ladder had hit the deck with a muted clang the occupants began appearing. First through each oval hatch was a tall one with pale skin, wearing a skintight black outfit under a black cloak that came to below the knees. The second was female, even from here, at least by human or Grallt standards; the females were equally tall and equally milk-complected, and had on tight outfits covered by long cloaks with frills, all pure white. They didn’t march in step, but they did form a column of pairs with the ones from the last ship in the lead, ending the maneuver by right-facing toward the welcoming party. Males, in the lead, dipped on one knee, nodded, and opened their cloaks; females stood tall behind them and spread their cloaks with a flourish.

Cloaks?

"Those are wings!" someone hissed.

"Well, I’ll be damned," someone else drawled in a tone of revelation. "I’m willing to bet some of these folks might’ve dropped in on us once or twice, you know?"