Ship's Boy (5 page)

“
What
medicine, son?” the doctor pleaded. “His case is unique!” He turned to a man wearing a splendid uniform with lots of gold braid on it. “I can’t know what he means, sir! This patient is the only person to ever survive being shot by a warp vortex rifle!”

“Purple pills!” James wailed, bouncing up and down in frustration. “The big purple ones! He doesn’t need them very often, but…”

The doctor shook his head, clearly baffled.  

“We’re losing brain wave function, doctor,” the assistant announced.

“Do something, you fool!” the man in the fancy uniform hissed. “His Majesty is
counting
on you!”

The doctor looked heavenwards, as if for inspiration. Then he pulled out an autoinjector and pressed it over milord’s ribcage. It hissed…

…and the assistant’s board transformed itself into a swirl of red. “Doctor!” she said, “I don’t think…”

Suddenly milord’s eyes opened wide and searched out those of his son. “You made it,” he whispered. “Always know that I love you.” Next he turned to me. “David! Come here, please?”

I bounced over, then bent my head down low when he beckoned again.

“For luck,” he explained, reaching out and brushing my ears with his fingertips.” Then he smiled. “Thank you David. Because of you, all is well in the end.”

Then his lordly head crashed back onto the deck with a terrible thud, and he died.

10

It wasn’t quite
that
clear cut, of course. The medical-types kept working milord over for many long minutes, though it was obvious that they no longer believed in the project. Meanwhile James ran over and hugged me as tight as he could, weeping into my right ear all the while. And the captain—for that was who the man in the fancy uniform was—paced back and forth with a foul expression on his face, slapping his thigh with an expensive-looking stick of some kind. Finally the annunciator buzzed. “Bridge to Sir Leslie!”

“Sir Leslie here,” the fancily dressed man replied, eyes closed. “What is it, Number Two?”

“Sir, I’ve worked out an escape vector. But… It’s impossible to evade all combat, sir. We’re going make a near approach to an Imperial cruiser.”

“Damnit!” Sir Leslie complained, slapping his thigh again. “Must I do your job for you, Number Two?”

There was a long pause. “If you so please, sir. But the computer says that no better vector is achievable. Sir.”

The captain scowled and nodded. “Execute, then. I’ll be right up to see what tweaking there is to be done.” Then stepped over to James and I. “My Lord,” he said softly, dropping to one knee and waiting to be recognized.

I blinked. All the sons of a duke were by definition lords, though their own children wouldn’t inherit the title. Milord hadn’t quite been a duke yet; Sir Leslie was jumping the gun. Finally James stiffened a little, patted my back in a sort of “thank-you”, and looked up. When he did so his eyes were clear and firm.  “Whom,” he asked, “have I the pleasure of addressing?”

“Sir Leslie Blaine, Baronet of Equatorial Tamboria,” he replied, his voice practically a purr.

“Ah,” James replied. I tilted my head my head a little; suddenly he didn’t seem like such a child anymore. Perhaps this was because now he was more in his natural element? Then he returned the bow, not bending nearly as low as the captain had. Finally, Sir Leslie stood up. He was practically glowing. “I regret… I mean…”

Pain flashed across James’ features again, but only for an instant. “My father is dead,” he said evenly. “The doctor has done all that he can. I’m grateful to him.”

Sir Leslie looked over to where the sick bay crew was still doing its dutiful best to reanimate a corpse. “Belay that,” he ordered. “His Lordship has doffed his mortal coil.”

James’ face screwed up again, but via sheer willpower he forced his expression back to normal. Then he turned to me. “By tradition,” he explained, “an exceptionally loyal and beloved family retainer removes the dead Lord’s ring. Will you do my father this one last service, David?”

For the first time since I didn’t know when, I bowed deeply and formally. “Of course, sir. I’m honored.” Then I hesitated. “Now?”

He nodded. “Now.”

The ring slid off surprisingly easily. It wasn’t bad at all after removing poor Jenkins from the survival bubble. Because it seemed to be the right thing to do, and because I meant it, I lifted milord’s hand and kissed it afterwards. No one seemed to mind.

James accepted the ring and bowed three times to milord’s corpse. Then he slipped the emblem of nobility into his pocket. “I’ll hold this for my brother,” he declared

“Of course you will,” Sir Leslie declared loudly. “And I’ll keep you safe to get it to him. Just you wait and see!” He smiled and patted James on the back. “Now, we’ll settle you into my cabin and get a nice pallet set up for your footman in the galley—”

Suddenly James’ eyes went hard and he twisted out of Captain Blaine’s grasp. “David Birkenhead is
not
my footman and never will be!” he declared. “He’s a free Rabbit. Father manumitted him, you see! And he’ll
not
be treated as a slave! David saved our lives!”

The captain’s jaw dropped. “I… But…”

“You’ll treat him exactly as you would anyone else closely associated with my family!” James ordered. “Or else you’ll learn that I inherited more from my father than just his surname!”

11

At first, I couldn’t see all that much difference between being a free Rabbit and an enslaved one—instead of a pallet in the kitchen, I got one in the captain’s cabin on the floor alongside James. But after the first couple nights, once James recovered a little from the shock of watching his father die, he and I started trading off night-and-night. It was his idea and he absolutely
insisted
on going through with it. I was surprised at the result. Once the captain found out what was going on a spare bunk appeared out of nowhere.

James and I spent all our time together in the cabin. This wasn’t as bad as it might’ve been because the terminal there had unlimited access to the ship’s computer systems. No one ever figured out that I knew how to access vital systems, so we boys spent most of our time watching the upcoming battle develop. The maneuvering was terribly complex and drawn out because so many possibilities arose out the combination of
Hummingbird
’s superb turn of speed and the numerous hyper-points scattered all about Marcus Prime’s solar system. Even five days into the chase we were still capable of hitting four different translation points directly, plus we could gravity-sling to two others. Only the fact that we’d heard the first officer talk about passing near a cruiser told me that we were going for Point Five—eventually, that was, after misdirecting as many other ships as possible. One of the enemy’s light cruisers had suffered an engineering failure and was crawling for Five at very low speed; I predicted to James that this was the cruiser in question and he refused to bet against me. We probably could’ve gotten away clean, save that Captain Blaine had poured on full emergency power for ten long minutes in order to match courses with the dying
Broad Arrow.
This had warped a core rod, something which couldn’t be repaired short of a shipyard. Still, we were the fastest thing in the sky. Which was just as well, because by then there wasn’t another king’s vessel left in local space.

Finally about the sixth day I got to where I couldn’t stand being cooped anymore; Captain Blaine had quit visiting us after seeing me lying in his bed, so the only person we ever had any contact with was Pedro, the ship’s boy. He was a Rabbit like me—property of the navy—and I guess that if he hadn’t been aboard I’d have starved to death for lack of hay. Pedro took good care of us, but he wasn’t much to talk to. He didn’t seem to understand very much of what was going on outside of his tiny area of responsibility, and he was busy, busy, busy all the time shining boots and polishing brasswork and running back and forth with coffee and tea. Worst of all, however, he seemed terrified of me. “Sir Leslie says I’m not to speak with you any more than absolutely necessary,” he told me at our first meeting. Whatever other faults he might have, Pedro was a very obedient Rabbit indeed. “Especially obedient” was never a virtue that had applied to we Birkenheads, or so family lore claimed. Dad was meticulous about following regulations when lives were at stake, of course, and in that regard I was trying hard to follow in his footsteps. But supposedly our ancestors had been troublesome Rabbits indeed, so much so that had we not also been extra-bright our bloodline would’ve been pinched out. No one had actually
ordered
me to stay in the cabin, so….

It was quite easily done when the time came. Once James was snoring nice and regular from the other bed, I grabbed my Field suit and unlatched the cabin door. A quick look revealed no one coming or going, which was predictable enough given that I’d chosen the third watch for my wandering. Even in warships the third watch was a fraction the size of the others, unless a battle happened to be going on or something. Then I tiptoed my way aft to find a proper suit locker. The suit was my excuse, of course—it needed recharging and replenishing. Besides, it was continually in the way—aboard a vessel as cramped as
Hummingbird
, even the commanding officer lacked enough room to take more than two paces in his cabin.

At first my trip was disorienting—
Broad Arrow
was the only ship I’d ever known well, and her layout was completely different. Even after having studied
Hummingbird’
s configuration on the computer I made a couple wrong turns. But eventually I found the companionway down to the engineering spaces. And I practically had my foot on the top step when a deep bass voice froze me in my tracks. “Ahoy there!” it called out. “And where might
you
be headed at this late hour?”

I gulped and froze, then turned around. Confronting me was a huge man in a space-black marine uniform, immaculate except for his stockinged feet. In one hand he held a nearly-polished boot. “I…” I stuttered. “I…. “ Then I raised the Field suit hopefully. “I need to stow this somewhere,” I finally forced out.

“Oh,” the marine replied. Then he smiled. “Well, then… You caught me in the middle of a bit of housekeeping.” He held up the boot. “How about if you wait for me to finish with this, and then I can show you a spare locker?”

I felt my guts loosen a little. “Thank you,” I answered. “That’d be very nice.”

His smile widened. “My name’s Percy,” he explained. “Never did catch yours.”

“David,” I answered. Then he led me into a small, compact locker room with a long bench down the middle. One of the lockers was open; the plate on the door read “Lance Corporal Percy Middleton”. My new friend sat down beside it and patted the bench companionably. “Take a load off,” he urged. “This won’t take two shakes.”

I smiled silently and sat as Percy spat on his boot and then buffed it over and over again with a soft white rag. “I’m pulling extra duty,” he explained. “All the crap jobs, and formal inspection twice a day besides.” He shook his head and sighed. “You wouldn’t mind brushing that other boot for me, would you? The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can stow your suit.”

I nodded and went to work—I’d never polished boots before, but the process was self-explanatory. Percy smiled and nodded in thanks. “It’s rough, I tell you! Clean the blasters, scrub the toilets, there’s lint on your uniform, Lance Corporal Middleton, that’s five demerits!” He shook his head and sighed. “I should never have re-upped.”

“Where are you from?” I asked, mostly to be polite.

“Marcus Four,” he replied, and my ears rose a little in surprise. “Yes,” he answered with a smile. “I’m under the protection of milord as well.” His face softened. “You actually knew him, did you?”

“A little,” I acknowledged. “At the end.”

Percy nodded. “Was it true what they said? That he was a genuinely great man, I mean?”

“I think so,” I said after mulling it over a little. “And his son may have the makings of one as well. Though of course I’m nobody to judge.”

Percy shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.” Then he slid the freshly polished boot onto his left foot and accepted the one I’d been brushing. “Milord manumitted you, did he?”

I felt the linings of my ears darken. “I don’t think he expected me to live to enjoy it very long.”

“Heh!” he barked. “Quite frankly, I didn’t expect you to either. And I was there.” He looked at me strangely. “You’re space-trained.”

I turned away. “A little. Father was chief engineer on
Broad Arrow
, and I was his apprentice.” 

Percy whistled a long, low note. “Well,” he said at last. “You might want to keep that under your hat, David. At least aboard
this
ship.”

My ears rose again. “Why?”

“Heh!” he laughed. “Because a rated engineering apprentice—even a merchie apprentice—is considered a cadet, see? And, well… I’m supposed to salute you.”

My jaw dropped. Dad had never, ever left the immediate vicinity of the ship while off-world, and now I understood why.

“Not that
I’d
mind saluting you,” Percy continued. “Not after seeing how well you handled yourself in the middle of so many troubles. But the rest of them, you see…”

I nodded sadly. He didn’t have to draw a map. Besides, I didn’t
want
to be saluted. Just left to do an important job in peace.

Percy worked silently for a little while before speaking again. “It’s different, with me being from Marcus Four. I mean… It’s only recently settled. And what a job it was!”

I nodded in agreement. The House of Marcus had colonized eighteen worlds, but Marcus Four was in many ways the most recent despite its low sequence number. This was because three previous efforts had failed, two of them perishing to the last man.

“I grew up…” He sighed and started over. “There was a Rabbit family next door, see? I played with Chadwick almost every day, and, well…” He shook his head. “My neighbors may technically have been milord’s property. But they were also richer than we were.”