Double Share (6 page)

As I finished buttoning into my shirt once more, she reviewed the records and said, “Congratulations, Mr. Wang. There’s nothing in this workup that indicates any problem. I’ll forward a copy to DST and you’re good to go.”

I thanked her and headed out. That was it. I had a moment of jubilation in the passage outside medical, but trepidation seized me almost immediately. Who were these people I’d be serving with? How would I like them? Would they like me?

I squelched the feeling. They’d even warned us about it at the academy. I knew I’d cope, so I put it out of my mind and went looking for some lunch.

Jen was serving again at
The Miller Moth
down on the Oh-two Deck and I shared my good news with her.

“The
Tinker
?” she asked in confirmation. “You’re going onto the
Tinker
as third mate?”

“Yeah,” I told her around bites of a juicy burger slathered with fried onions.

She frowned in concentration but offered me congratulations on my berth. “I’m sure you’ll make a fine third mate,” she said but didn’t seem very enthusiastic.

“Is there something wrong with the
Tinker
?” I asked.

She shrugged and started polishing the bar. “Not that I
know
of, no,” she said with a peculiar emphasis on the “know” part.

“But?” I prompted.

“But ya hear things,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a happy ship, if you know what I mean.”

“Um, no. I’m not sure I do.”

She looked uncomfortable, chewing on her lower lip as if trying to make up her mind.

I gave her a moment or two to respond.

“The
Tinker
has gone through a lot of crew.” She looked up at me. “A lot,” she repeated with emphasis. “I don’t know how many for sure, but you’re the second third mate in less than a stanyer.”

I let that sink in for a bit while I considered it. Perhaps they were moving up and out.

“Does it strike you as odd that they imported you weeks ago for a berth that just opened up?” she asked.

“Well, I think it’s customary to give some notice,” I said. “Perhaps the current third is finishing out his contract?”

She looked dubious but shrugged in acceptance. “Possible, but that’s a short contract, less than a stanyer. How long is yours for?”

I considered that. “Two stanyers, but it’s a standard contract, and I can get out of it without a major penalty under some pretty normal conditions relating to health, performance, and such.”

She nodded, a wry smile turning up the left side of her mouth. “Most of the termination clauses are in the company’s favor, though, right?”

She had me there.

“Well, yeah, but even in my limited experience, it seems standard for the company to hold the better cards.”

“True,” she admitted in return. “Do you have a ‘probation’ clause?”

I sighed. “Yes, if we don’t like each other in the next three months, the contract can be terminated by either side.”

“Well, maybe that’s it. They’re just having trouble finding thirds that fit in.”

She didn’t sound convinced, but it was rather a dead-end conversation, and it was making me a bit uncomfortable, truth be told.

“How long you worked here?” I asked, steering the conversation onto a new course.

“Oh,”—she stopped wiping the bar and looked up at the overhead, thinking—“it’ll be three stanyers in a month.”

“You like it?”

She grinned and nodded. “Yeah, I do. Oh, I know it’s a bit of a cliché but it’s also rather exotic. I mean, I could wait tables planetside, but up here, we get people from all over the Western Annex dropping in.”

“Mostly ship people, isn’t it?” I asked.

She shrugged a little and said, “Well, yeah. This is the Oh-two Deck after all. Not many tourists come down here.”

“So, why don’t you work up above?” I asked glancing in the direction of the restaurants higher up on the orbital.

“Well, I used to. I like the clientele down here better. Working people seem to have more respect for working people.”

I chuckled a little at that. “Good to know.”

I drained my glass, thumbed the tab, and stood up from the bar.

“I’ll let ya know what I find out,” I said with a smile. “I report aboard tomorrow.”

She held out her hand over the bar. “Good luck, Ishmael,” she said warmly. “Hope I see you around soon.”

I shook her hand and if I held it a little longer than might have been necessary while she smiled at me, well, she didn’t pull back quickly either. A hail from the other end of the bar broke the moment and she shot me a shy smile as she turned to deal with her customers and I left
The Miller Moth
for my room.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN
D
IURNIA
O
RBITAL
2358-
J
ULY-6

Morning found me on the docks. My grav trunk trundled along behind me, and the receipt for my hotel stay had been stowed in my folio. The familiar bite of cold dock air mixed with the smell of stressed electronics and hydraulic fluid. I was looking for dock nine—the slot my tablet told me held the
William Tinker
, my new home in the Deep Dark.

I passed dock seven. The telltale said,
Jo Alice Long
. It wasn’t going to be the
Lois
. I knew that. I’d been on a lot of ships since the
Lois
. They were all different. My summer cruises had given me the opportunity to work on four different vessels and each had seemed okay. Of course, none had ever been more than a temporary billet. There was no real reason to put down roots, to form bonds and connections.

Dock eight stood empty and I saw nine around the curve of the dock’s broad passage. I paused and wiped my hands on my pants and took a couple of deep breaths. I used the reflection on the empty lock’s view panel to make sure my cap was straight and checked my uniform for unbuttoned buttons and correct gig line on shirt, slacks, and buckle.

“Third mate,” I told myself. “You’re not the captain and what you don’t know about being third mate would fill a seventy-five ton container. You’re here to learn, to grow, and to hold up your end. You can do this.”

The academy prep was actually reputed to be quite good. I knew I didn’t know a lot, but I also knew that third mates were the bottom rung. I expected to get stuck with the same kind of jobs that my old training officer, Leland Von Ickles, did so well. As I gathered my nerve and marched along the dock, I held a picture of him in my mind.

Still, it was with a considerable level of trepidation that I walked up to the gangway and pressed the call button. I looked up at the dock monitor, so the watch stander could get a good look at my face and not just the top of my cap.

After a tick, the speaker beside the lock crackled. “Yeah? Can I help you?” a man’s voice asked.

“Third Mate Ishmael Wang, reporting for duty,” I said, a little off-balance.

Normal brow procedure would have been to walk out and greet the caller. They couldn’t have been surprised. It’s not like they wouldn’t have known I was coming.

The pause stretched out. I wasn’t sure the watch stander had even heard me. I kept my face carefully neutral. I didn’t want to start out on the wrong foot with the crew, and I certainly didn’t know the ship’s conventions. For all I knew, he was following standard procedure. It struck me as rude, but I was the stranger on the dock and needed to keep that in mind.

My hand wrapped around the dolphin shaped whelkie in my jacket pocket, and my thumb stroked the smooth, oiled wood. I found it calming. I’d been carrying the small bit of wood and shell for stanyers, ever since getting it as a gift at St. Cloud. I viewed it as a kind of talisman, a good luck charm. Besides, it felt good in my hand and was pretty. I wasn’t sure whether I believed it was imbued with magical powers by a South Coast shaman or not. I just found it soothing to have around.

After nearly three ticks, the small personnel lock began cycling and I stepped back to give it a bit of room. An able spacer in a greasy looking shipsuit with an oily stain across the left arm stood at the head of the brow with his hand on the mechanism. “You the new third?” he asked bluntly and without preamble.

Or salute.

“Yes,” I said, eyeing the man and wondering what kind of ship I’d signed up for.

He leaned out and looked up and down the docks—almost suspiciously. It was as if he were looking for any confederates who might jump out and hijack the airlock once it was fully open. Satisfied that I wasn’t the leading edge of a takeover force—or whatever it was that he was looking for—he stepped back and nodded his head to invite me aboard.

I stepped into the lock, making sure my grav trunk made it over the threshold, and got my first smell of the ship. To be sure, every ship has its own unique bouquet. My nose wasn’t terribly sensitive, and several months working in the damp green dankness of environmental had broken me of any squeamishness. In my summer cruise experiences, I found that each ship’s aroma had a specific kind of smell. Some were chemical, as if the crew liked the smell of disinfectants and cleaning solutions. Some were organic—a mixture of cooking, people, and free esters. Some were mechanical and some were electronic. I’d smelled them all and found none of them to be really offensive.

Until I smelled the
Tinker
.

It was a meaty kind of scent that I thought the scrubbers should have handled.

The spacer secured the lock. He still hadn’t introduced himself although I read his name tag, “Betts” from his shipsuit. He turned to the watch station and settled back down on the stool behind the counter, frowning at the readouts there and ignoring me.

I was about to ask him to notify the officer of the day, when a woman’s voice rang out from the passage.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Wang,” she said while looming out of the dimness.

She was a solidly built woman with the typical spacer-cropped hair cut, wearing a shipsuit with DST’s star and oval on the left breast and a name—Novea—embroidered above it.

Smiling, she came over and held out a hand. “You’re our new third?”

Her hand was smooth, firm, and strong. She didn’t try any of the “power move” handshakes on me, but there was little doubt in my mind that this woman could open a jar of pickles without any help or second thoughts. I filed that information away in case I needed a jar of pickles opened. She smiled at me, and I realized that we were probably within two centimeters of the same height. She had a nice smile and clear, brown eyes.

“Yes,” I said. “Fresh from the academy, straight to your wardroom.”

She smirked and gave a little chuckle. “Sense of humor. Good. That’ll come in handy. Arletta Novea, second mate, astrogation.”

She let go of my hand then, and I think we were both a bit surprised that she’d still held it.

“Let’s get you settled in,” she said. “The skipper will wanna meet you as soon as he comes back.”

We went through the ritual of establishing my mass lading and crew record. As third mate, I had much more mass allotted than I’d had as a quarter share crewman, but every kilogram needed to be accounted for. I was well under my two hundred kilogram limit.

She led me up to Officers’ Country and showed me to a small stateroom. It was almost identical to the one I’d had on the
Ellis
coming in. I was glad to see that I would have the room to myself. On some of the older ships in particular, the junior officers were expected to double up. I was glad not to be relishing my sanctuary.

“Don’t look so relieved,” Ms. Novea said quietly. “You only think this is a sanctuary.”

She caught me flat-footed with that. My snappy rejoinder consisted of, “Wha-?”

She smiled pleasantly. “It was pretty obvious.”

I just looked at her and some of the sinking feeling in my stomach must have showed on my face.

She snorted but maintained her smile. “The head is through there, and you do have to share that with me. So, pay attention and knock first, please.” She shot me a pointed look.

“Of course.”

“You say that now, but let’s not have any accidents after we’ve been underway awhile? Okay?”

I held up my hands palm out. “You got it! I’m not that kinda guy,” I said, keeping my tone light while trying not to wonder—again—what kind of ship I’d gotten on.

“Wang? You’re a guy. You’re all that kind,” she muttered, then changed the subject abruptly. “Got your tablet?”

I slipped it from the holster and fired it up. She walked me through the sync up with ShipNet and used her second mate credentials to enable the officer level access to my record on the ’Net.

When it was done she said again, “Welcome aboard. It’s all over but meeting everybody. I’m the OOD and we’re standing twelve-and-twelve in port. David will be relieving me at noon. I suspect he’ll want to get you into the rotation as soon as possible so be ready for him to assign you to his section immediately. You’ll probably do two watches with him and then stand them on your own for our last day in port. We’re due to leave for Breakall on the eighth—assuming they have a container ready for us.”