***
Morning routine was typical for port duty. Sean Grishan, the duty watch stander, managed to find me in my new bunk. Everybody aboard knew of the crew changes in the works, of course. The details were still up in the air, but we all knew the ship would leave St. Cloud with a new hand. As I showered and got ready for work, I wondered if there had been the same air of quiet anticipation just before I had joined the ship in Neris. I pushed that thought away and beat feet for the galley.
By the time I got there, Cookie had already started setting the bread, and I kicked into prep mode. Starting with coffee, I moved to biscuits and finished at the omelet station. I pulled out some of the dried mushrooms we had gotten on Margary and put them in a little warm water to loosen them up. Then I diced some onion and grated a bit of cheese. All the ingredients went into small bowls that Cookie or I could draw from when we started making the omelets.
“So, young Ishmael,” Cookie spoke at last, “today may be our last time working together. How does it feel?”
“Strange. This has been my home for the last six months and now I kinda feel like I’m moving out.”
“You have accomplished much here, and you will accomplish more I am certain.” He finished rolling up the loaves and covered them with clean towels to proof. Most of them would be sandwich bread by the time the day was out. Cookie surprised me then by taking a plate and going to the customer side of the omelet station. “I wonder, Ishmael, if I might trouble you for an omelet,” he said with a smile. “Could I have one with mushrooms, cheese, and perhaps some ham?”
I gaped for a moment in surprise. “My pleasure, Cookie. You like your omelets a bit loose, right?”
“Just so, Ishmael. Just so.”
Before long the morning watch came in and I took care of them while Cookie enjoyed his meal on the mess deck.
Pip showed up near the end of breakfast. “Good morning! It seemed strange to find your bunk empty.”
“No stranger than waking up in engineering was for me, I bet. You want an omelet?”
“No thanks. I just came down for coffee and a pastry. I told Biddy I’d help her set up the booth this morning. We’ve already covered our fees for this trip, so I’ll probably take some more of the stones up and set them out while I’m there. This afternoon I’m going to go looking for that statue guy and the yarn people you talked with yesterday.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it planned out pretty well. What did you learn about the dyes?”
“Well not surprisingly, Dunsany has a lot of textiles. They process a lot of the wool from here, and they grow cotton and flax locally. They have some local dyes—mostly plant based—and I was right about the red, purple, and black dyes. They do buy them from here and they’re pretty highly valued. I don’t know how much production is available. If we could get a container load, we could probably sell it.”
“You’re thinking about Mr. Maxwell’s empty container?” I asked him.
“Yeah, but I don’t have a line on commercial quantities, so I don’t know. What we can get easily here in container loads is wool, rice, and frozen fish, but the margins are really small on those items. I’ve already recommended that we go ahead and load one container with raw wool. We’re already taking three containers as part of a scheduled shipment and adding one on spec isn’t really very expensive.”
“Well, for our stuff, I’ll contribute the extra ten kilos I’m getting for moving up to half share, and you’ve got all our joint funds still, so whatever you find at the flea market is fine by me. I’m not going to get back up there before we get underway.”
“Okay,” Pip agreed, “between us, we’ve got a lot of open mass so I’ll probably try to fill it.” He slipped into his free-flowing analysis mode. “I’m leaning toward the yarn. I talked to Sean last night after you left and he says this is prime material and clued me in on some things to look for. But if we buy forty kilos that will be a lot of yarn, and I’m not sure we can sell it in Dunsany. How about we commit to twenty kilos for now and I’ll see if I can find anything to diversify the load with?”
“Sounds good. I trust your judgment. I’m trying not to be spoiled by the successes we’ve had so far. We’re bound to throw a deal here sooner or later.”
Pip gave a self-deprecating laugh. “That’s probably truer than I’d like to admit to myself.”
I pointed at the chronometer. “If you’re meeting Biddy, you better move it.”
It was still early when I finished the breakfast cleanup, and Cookie shooed me out of the galley, so I headed back to the gym. I did not usually run early in the day, but with so much uncertainty, I thought I better get it in while I still could. I overheard one of the deck gang saying that the captain had already gone down to the planet, so we could expect a new hand any time.
After my run and a shower, it was still early. I rambled on down to environmental to check in. Francis had the port duty watch, and he grinned when he saw me. “You reporting for duty?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Still waiting.”
“Nerve-wracking, isn’t it?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Unbelievably!”
“Oh, I believe it. I think almost everybody has been through it at least once. In a way, shipboard promotions are worse than transfers. With a transfer, you pack your gear and you’re gone.”
“Someday you’ll have to show me how that works.”
“How what works?” he asked.
“Transfers. For instance, how did Gregor get a new berth without going down to the Union Hall?”
Francis looked concerned. “You’re not planning to leave already, are you?”
“No, no. It’s just one of those mysteries that I’ve always wondered about. Why does the captain have to go down to the Union Hall to hire a new hand but Gregor gets a new berth on another ship almost before we dock?”
“When you get a tick, bring up the communications options on your tablet.”
I groaned and had a flash of déjà vu. All through my first weeks aboard, Pip kept springing little surprises like this on me. I had been aboard for weeks before I discovered the ship had a gym. My tablet had a good schematic of the ship, but I had never thought to check for recreational areas. It was one of those situations where, if you did not know it existed, you never thought to look. I could not remember the number of times I had tripped on that mistake and was chagrined to think I had just done so again.
I pulled the tablet out of its holster and pulled up the communications options. At first I did not see what Francis was talking about, and then I saw the StationNet option at the bottom of the list. I had noticed it there, of course, whenever we’d been in port, but I had never pulled it up. Pip had even talked about using it to hunt for trade goods. I opened it now and saw the local options including a duplicate of the Union Hall data. All the ships in port, and those due in the next few weeks, scrolled across my tablet. I knew from experience that I could dig into that data and find an amazing array of information on each of the vessels.
Francis came around to glance over my shoulder. “Bring up that opening for spec three in ship handling.” He pointed out an item on the list. I did and the full listing popped open on my tablet just as if I were sitting at one of the Union Hall data ports. “See that little icon?” He pointed out a tiny picture of sparks. “That’s the comm link. Select it.” When I did, the application for the post showed up on my screen already filled out with my own personnel jacket data. The words: Insufficient Qualifications scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “If you were rated, you’d see a link that would let you apply for the post right there.”
“And I don’t have to go down to the hall? We just meet on station?”
“Or aboard ship. It would be easy enough. The Moore was docked just three locks down from the Lois.”
I glanced down when he said was and realized that the listing for AMoor on the display was marked: Departed. It gave me an odd feeling. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”
Francis patted me on the shoulder. “You’re gonna be fine, Ish. Everybody’s nervous when they change jobs. At least you know what you’re getting into.” He spread his hands to indicate the environmental space around us. “You’ve already scraped sludge and pulled algae matrix. Those are the worst jobs we have. The rest is mostly just tedious.”
“Okay, but I’ll be glad when this transition period is over.”
“Hey, by this time next month, you’ll wonder why you ever took this job,” he teased me with a soft punch to the shoulder.
I headed back to the galley to set up for lunch.
Apparently, Cookie had been up to his armpits in pastry dough because I found him pulling darberry and granapple pies from the ovens. Two kettles of soup—potato-mushroom and a spicy smelling beefalo stew—were ready for the buffet. “Expecting a big crowd for lunch, Cookie?” I asked him.
“Ah, Ishmael, between it being last day in port and the possibility of seeing the new hand, we should have a record turnout for port-side lunch and dinner as well, no doubt.”
I set that thought aside and got on with the lunch drill. I started a fresh urn of coffee and scrubbed down the next in rotation to get it ready. After that I laid out the meats and cheeses for sandwiches and filled a basket with hot biscuits just as the chrono counted down the final ticks to lunch. I started taking food out to the buffet just as the crew began assembling. Cookie, as usual, had been correct, and I lost myself in the familiar rhythm of lunch duty.
The routine was disrupted when my tablet bipped with a message from Mr. Maxwell. “Attendant Sarah Krugg arriving shuttle lock 12A 13:00. Please escort her aboard.”
I showed the message to Cookie who looked at the chrono. “You have just enough time to put on a fresh shipsuit and meet our new hand, Ishmael. Leave the rest of the luncheon to me. Go make a good impression and make her feel welcome.”
It was probably my imagination, but I could feel the crew’s eyes on me as I left the galley and headed for berthing to get changed. I wondered what drove a girl—this Sarah Krugg—to take a job on the mess deck of a freighter. Then I remembered my own experience as quarter share and wondered if she even had known what job she applied for. I jumped into a fresh shipsuit and looked up the location of the shuttle docks on the station schematic before heading for the main lock. Bev had the duty and just winked at me as I checked out.
“Be nice, Ish,” she said. “He’ll be scared.”
“She,” I corrected.
“Oh?” she said in that prompting tone that I really hoped to master myself some day.
“Sarah Krugg. I’m assuming that’s a girl,” I said with a grin.
Bev smirked at me. “You’re not just another pretty face, are ya?”
I left the lock laughing.
The shuttle docks were on the other side of the station, but it only took a few ticks to get around to them. As I positioned myself outside the lock at 12A, I had a flashback of when I stepped off the shuttle to find Pip waiting for me back on Neris. I looked around and realized that I was standing in about the same spot as he had been. It felt weird to have the boot on the other foot, as it were.
I did not wait long before I heard the docking clamps latch and the lock started to cycle. I wiped my palms nervously on the sides of my shipsuit and watched as about a dozen people exited the lock and peeled off in both directions down the passage. When the throng cleared a bit, I picked out the green and gold of Federated Freight and saw Sarah Krugg for the first time.