In Ashes Born (A Seeker's Tale From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) (6 page)

I sat there for several ticks. All the memories of that ship washed through my head. The sights and smells of death. The horror of what had happened rose in my chest. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” I said. I barely heard my own words over the rushing in my ears.

Pip nodded. “You’re right. I don’t. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to unclench my hands from the arms of the chair.

Pip leaned forward again, his elbows on his knees. He reached forward and placed his beer bottle on the table between us. He seemed to be studying the table top as if for some flaw. “What I can imagine is that you’d never let anything like that happen again. For a lot of people it’s a bad luck ship. A death trap. You were there and saw it. You know what caused it and you know how to fix it. You saw it yourself. First hand. It’s just a ship. A ship with a tragic past, but one that you might be able to turn around. One that you might be able to make into something noble again.”

He looked over at me. His eyes dared me, but the rest of his face stayed flatly neutral.

I stared at him and recognized the fear that lay beneath my memories. He hadn’t called me afraid in so many words but he knew just which buttons to push to get me to see it. The thought of setting foot on that ship again made my skin crawl. I had to wipe my palms on the thighs of my uniform.

Yet there was something in his suggestion. Something that appealed to my insecurity in a horrible, scary way. My bank account held enough credits that I never had to work another day in my life. I could do anything I wanted. Find a rock and live out my days on it. Get a yacht and sail around. I could retreat from the universe and stop worrying about power dynamics and personnel management and trade routes.

I might live long enough to forget those sapphire eyes.

I didn’t want to do that. Any of it.

Part of me wanted to go somewhere that I couldn’t get anybody else killed, but the life of a dilettante held no appeal. I knew that—whatever else had happened—my future lay in the Deep Dark. People died in space all the time. Probably every day, and most of them because somebody cut a corner or made a mistake without sufficient backup. The
Chernyakova
was a monument to that short-sightedness.

I looked over at Pip.

“You could sell vacuum to an orbital, couldn’t you.”

He grinned. “You’ll do it? Be captain?”

“I need to think about it.”

“What’s to think about?”

“Whether or not I’m fit to command.”

He threw up his hands and flopped back in his seat. “I never met anybody more fit,” he said. “Even now, with your head up your backside and acting more like Hamlet’s father than Hamlet, you’re more fit to command than half the captains in the fleet.”

I should have said something like “What do you mean?” or “Head up my backside?” but what came out was “Since when did you read Shakespeare?”

Pip scuffed his feet on the floor and refused to meet my eyes. “I had some time on my hands and stumbled on some old books. Sue me.”

“Guy’s been dead for centuries.”

He glared at me. “Your point?”

I laughed, my entire train of thought so completely derailed I completely forgot whatever I had meant to say. I just kept chuckling. Nobody had quoted Shakespeare to me since my mother died, and now it had happened twice in the last week. The wonder of it struck me funny. That one of them came from Pip made it even funnier. After the horror and seriousness of the conversation we’d been having, you could have put a whoopee cushion under one of us and it wouldn’t have been as funny to me.

Eventually Pip started laughing, too.

It took some time for us to rein in the giggles. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t that funny.

“Lemme think about it,” I said after we’d gotten to the chuckle-and-sniff stage.

“All right. Ponder,” he said. “I still don’t know what you’re going to ponder. You can’t stay ashore any more than I can, fat bank account or not. You’ll need a new berth eventually, and at least with me you won’t be bored.”

He almost got me laughing again but I stifled it.

Somebody knocked on the cottage door before I could answer.

Pip stood and crossed to open it.

A woman wearing a spacer crop haircut and a set of utility khakis stood there, hand ready to knock again. “Phillip!” she said.

“Katharine! My gods and garters, woman. It’s so good to see you!” He gathered her up and they hugged. He stepped back and held her at arm’s length. “When did you get in?”

“Yesterday. I’ve just been lazing around the campus, but heard you’d come in on the afternoon shuttle.”

Pip ushered her into the cottage, and I stood to meet her.

“Cargo First Katharine Munroe, meet Captain Ishmael Wang.” He waved a hand in my direction. “He was just leaving.”

Her eyes goggled a bit as she stared for a moment too long before blinking and looking aside. “Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean to stare.” She glanced at me and then at Pip. “You’re the Ishmael Wang from Diurnia?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess. I came in from Diurnia.”

“I’m honored to meet you, Captain.” She tamped down whatever fangirl impulse had seized her and held out her hand.

I shook her hand and offered a smile. “Call me Ishmael,” I said.

“Are you here for the conference?” she asked. “I didn’t see your name on the attendee list.”

“No. I’m just here for the food.”

She blinked and glanced at Pip who snorted.

“At any rate, I’ve got some thinking to do and I’m not very sociable when I think,” I said. I headed for the door.

Pip said, “You can attend if you want. I know who to bribe to get you a badge.”

I stopped at the door frame and shook my head. “Thanks, but all I know about economic modeling is buy low, sell high.”

Ms. Monroe snorted. “You’ll fit right in with some of these dinosaurs.” Her eyes went wide and she all but slapped a hand across her mouth.

Pip laughed at that. “She’s right, but do what you need to. We can talk later.”

“I can’t believe I said that out loud,” she muttered.

I chuckled and pulled the door closed behind me. I stood on the stoop for a moment and let my eyes adjust to the late afternoon light. Pip had given me a lot to think about. I needed to find some space to foster that thinking.

Behind the door I heard Katharine Monroe say, “You know Ishmael Wang and you didn’t tell me?”

Pip’s laughter followed me down the path.

Chapter Six
Port Newmar:
2374, May 29

I wouldn’t have thought the simple, almost gentle movements of tai chi could have taken such a toll on my body. The third day with
Sifu
Newmar reminded me that I’d neglected my practice far too long. I felt it when I bowed to the empty floor, right along the back of my thighs. I felt it in my calves as I started the warmups, pushing and pulling an imaginary ball. I felt it in the back of my neck and across my shoulders every time I did anything with my arms.

I was so focused on the burn that I didn’t notice her enter until she spoke. “Have you trimmed down your baggage yet, Ishmael?”

Her voice didn’t startle me. It was too soft for that. I was too deep into the movements to let it jump me. “Not yet,
Sifu
.”

“Hm.”

I stopped my warmup and looked at her. She had her head cocked to the left and her eyes squinted at me.

“Well, you’re making good progress anyway,” she said. “Let’s do Yang Short Form today. Your Snake Creeps Down needs work.” With a bow to the floor, she took her place and dominated my attention for the next stan.

Eventually she said, “Enough. Tea.” She waved a hand in a rolling gesture. “Cooldown for you.”

I grinned and took a stance, letting the soft morning air wash away the heat in my muscles as I flexed slowly and evenly. I had to focus on my forearms to relax my hands. I let myself feel the moisture in the air, smell the green of summer and the faint salt from the ocean. Shipboard air never feels like real air. It never smells quite right; it isn’t alive and moving. While it never stays still, it never touches your skin the way real atmosphere can.

I heard the whistle of the teapot and slowed my cooldown even more.

The sweat stuck the back of my tunic to my skin. A small trickle of moisture traced down the side of my face, cooling as it evaporated.

“Tea is ready.”

I finished my cycle and released the pose, holding the chi for a few moments before releasing a breath and turning to the kitchen. The flowery scent of a jasmine blend reached me when I paused to bow to the floor.

“You really are doing much better, Ishmael.”

“Thank you. I’ve missed this.”

“Your muscles are sore.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. Thighs and calves mostly. Some across my neck.”

“You’re carrying a lot of tension in your shoulders.” She crossed to the cup rack and paused, one hand raised to select the day’s cups. She lifted a shallow tea bowl from one slot and an antique porcelain cup with a gold rim and a brightly painted scene of birds and willow branches from another. She placed the bowl in front of me and poured a portion of the jasmine into it.

“How do you know which cup to choose?” I asked.

Her smile was so delicate it barely showed as she poured tea into the nearly translucent porcelain. “I don’t. A cup is a cup. It holds tea.” She placed the pot on the warming stone and looked into my eyes as she lifted her cup. “Why? Do you see significance in my choices?”

“You never pick the same cups twice in a row.”

“No two days are exactly alike. I celebrate them each for what they are.”

“You always pick a cup that seems appropriate for your students, even though I’m not sure what that means.” I touched the rim of the tea bowl in front of me with one finger and decided to wait for a few moments before trying to lift it.

“Can you explain a bit more?”

“The first morning, you gave me the simple clay cup. No handle. No adornment. You kept the brightly colored one with a wide mouth.”

“What do you divine from these selections?”

I shook my head. “I don’t. I feel like there’s a pattern, a commentary or message or something. I just can’t put a finger on it.” I shrugged. “That’s why I asked.”

She sipped her tea and nodded.

“Do you see a comment about value? Yesterday, you used the small Yixing clay cup while I used the much larger Chientan porcelain. Today, I’ve given you a clay bowl while I drink from an antique Wedgewood.”

I shook my head and chewed my lip for a moment before speaking. “That’s not your style,
Sifu
. I’ve never heard or seen you make any judgments. The lowest cadet to the highest captain. The commonest of weeds to the brightest of blossoms. You seem to approach each the same way, appreciating each for what it is.”

“My goodness. You’ve become quite the philosopher.” Her eyes fairly danced with the merriment held behind her lips.

I laughed for her. “I sound pretentious.”

She shook her head. “You speak your mind. I’m flattered that you think me so filled with hidden depths that even simple acts like choosing a teacup are freighted with meaning.” She pursed her lips as if trying not to laugh and hid her mouth behind the bone china.

My tea had cooled enough to lift the bowl, and I used both hands to keep it steady. The flowery tea served as foil for the smell of wood and polish and sweat. Even the faint tang of the hot iron tea kettle blended with it. The sip washed across my tongue and filled my mouth with summer.

“Thank you,
Sifu
.”

“For what?”

“For the tea. For being here.”

“We all need an island of calm in the sea of life.”

I smiled. “Even you?”

“Even me. The plants are my island. The practice takes me into myself but the gardening reminds me that there’s a world outside.”

“I would never have considered them in that light.”

“Too much like work?” she asked, the smile playing around her lips again.

I laughed and shrugged. “Yes. I’m spoiled by my air-conditioned comfort and clean surroundings. The bugs and dirt seem foreign.”

“Dirt is life. The bugs help more than they harm.”

“Then why do you spray them?”

“I don’t do that very much. Only when the balance is disturbed. My goal is to restore balance, not kill bugs.”

I looked at the tea bowl on the table in front of me, balanced artfully on a base that seemed too small but proved to be remarkably stable in practice. I glanced at her cup with the flaring rim and the too-narrow base. My gaze swept the rack of teacups, picking out the shapes and colors there, finding the ones I’d used and those she’d taken for herself.

“I think I’m not done pruning yet,
Sifu
.”

“Maybe not, but something has shifted your balance. I noticed it when I entered.”

“How do you know what to prune?” I asked.

“Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you just see what’s not working and start trimming. A bit at a time and eventually you find the balance is restored.”

“What if you don’t see what’s not working?”

She paused to tip her teacup up and drain it. “You should visit the lilac plantings on the east side of Building H. You might find inspiration there.” She moved to the sideboard, rinsed out the Wedgwood, and set it in the drainer. “We’ve time for another few sets before I need to meet the groundskeepers.”