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  “Ah, gentlemen,” he greeted us. “You’ve finished with the captain, then?”

  We both nodded. “You’re stuck with me, Cookie,” Pip told him with a grin. “But Ishmael here is going off to play with sludge as soon as the captain finds a replacement.”

  “I suspected that would be the outcome. Congratulations on your pending promotion, Ishmael. I knew you’d move up quickly. In the meantime, we need to get some meats and cheeses laid out…”

  “I’m on it, Cookie.” I glanced at the chrono. We were a bit later than normal, but nothing we could not handle.

  “I’ll make up a fresh urn of coffee,” Pip volunteered. “If we have any left, that is. The captain said the trades gave us a rather large surplus in the stores account.”

  Cookie grinned broadly at that. “Yes, I managed to hold onto a few buckets, but the prices were actually up a bit from when we first docked. There are some more items I’d like to talk with you about, but it can wait until after lunch,” he said, glancing at the chronometer himself.

  We each went to our assigned tasks, meshing into the familiar pre-lunch pattern. Lunch was up and ready five ticks before noon and the rich smell of Cookie’s mushroom soup filled the mess deck. Lunch was a big success and the soup elicited more than a few compliments. After the initial rush of setup and service, I stood in the galley suddenly struck by the realization that I would no longer be part of the mess crew. Six months before, I had come aboard with no idea what I was supposed to do and little knowledge about why I should be doing it. Now, I was more than just a little sad that I would be leaving my first real job aboard.

  Cookie must have sensed my thoughts because he came over and patted me on the shoulder. “You’ve done well here, young Ishmael,” he said with a warm smile. “If nothing else, you’ve managed to teach Pip how to make coffee.” We both laughed at that. Before I came aboard the Lois the coffee left much to be desired and straightening it out had been my first real accomplishment on board.

  While we talked, Diane Ardele from the environmental section rushed onto the mess deck. She hurried over to us and asked, “Did you hear Gregor’s gone?”

  “I heard he was going,” I told her. “Has he left already?”

  “Yeah, just a few ticks ago. He packed his duffel and checked out. Brill’s been meeting with Mr. Kelley for the last twenty ticks about a replacement.”

  Cookie and I shared a glance and Diane caught it. “What?” she demanded. “You guys know something. Come on, out with it.”

  “Well…” I started, “rumor is you’re getting some greenie half share engineman with absolutely no experience to replace him.”

  “Dammit! We’re running close to short handed down there as it is. Why can’t we get somebody who knows a scrubber from a filter?”

  Cookie chuckled and bustled off. “I must get the pies out of the oven.”

  I understood her frustration and hoped she was not going to have the same opinion when she found out exactly which greenie half share engineman was being transferred into her section.

  Just then, Brilliantine “Brill” Smith, the environmental section lead, came in. She smiled and waved. After filling a lunch tray, she stopped to speak with us before taking a seat.

  Diane pounced when she came over. “You won’t believe it but I just heard we’re getting some greenie engineman to replace Gregor!”

  I bit my lip and Brill stifled a laugh. “News travels fast,” she said. “Gregor hasn’t been gone half a stan and already we have rumors about his replacement.”

  “What did Mr. Kelley have to say?” Diane pressed. “Is it true? Do you know who it is?”

  “Yeah.” Brill hung her head in dismay. “I’m afraid it is true. They’ve already offered Gregor’s berth to a replacement and he’s accepted, but I understand he has at least a little experience.”

  Diane brightened a little with that. “Oh, really? What’s his background?”

  Brill paused, allowing me to answer. “Well, I’ve worked a little with sludge, and I’m pretty familiar with changing out algae matrices.”

  Diane glanced back and forth between us. Brill grinned broadly.

  “It’s him?” Diane exclaimed.

  “Yup. I tried to get somebody better, but we had to take what we could find on such short notice.”

  Diane’s face ran through a range of emotions from anger, then confusion, and finally to pleased as the reality of the situation sunk in. “It’s really you?” she asked again and slugged me in the arm. “You sludge monkey! You set me up for that.”

  “I hope you’re not too disappointed that you’re getting a greenie. I’ll tell ya, when the captain hit me with it this morning, I was about as surprised as you are right now.”

  We settled in at a mess table so Brill could eat her soup before it got cold. “I actually talked to Mr. Kelley this morning right after Gregor told me,” she said. “I thought we’d have a bit more time, but the Moore is getting underway first thing tomorrow and they wanted Gregor aboard immediately.”

  “We’re not too far behind that,” Diane pointed out. “How is this all going to work?”

  “I’m not entirely sure and just doing what I’m told. They’re working on a replacement for me and I’m supposed to stick here until they find one. Mr. Maxwell seemed to think that wasn’t going to be too difficult.”

  Brill paused from her soup and said, “St. Cloud is a good place for picking up quarter shares because working on mommy’s sheep ranch or daddy’s fishing boat isn’t all that much fun. Like all company planets, there is not a lot of options down there.”

  “Amen to that,” I added. I started on a company planet and knew only too well how limited the prospects could be. If not for the Lois’s arrival at Neris, I would have been deported at my own expense after my mother died. “So, what has to happen to make this as smooth a transition as possible?”

  Brill finished her soup and sighed in satisfaction. “Cookie makes the best soups in the galaxy.” Focusing on the question at hand, she replied, “We need to get you transferred over to engineering berthing to free up the deck bunk space for the greenie.”

  It took me a moment to realize that by greenie she did not mean me. After being the junior member of the crew for six months, I looked forward to relinquishing that particular title. “What’s involved?” I asked.

  Diane answered, “Oh, that’s nothing. Just go over to engineering berthing and claim an empty bunk and locker. Then move your stuff in. Strip the linens off your old bunk and reset the palm lock on your locker when you’re done with it.”

  Brill concurred, “That’s about it. We’ll update the ship’s records when you officially transfer to the section.” She stood up and cleared her dishes. “Speaking of which, I need to get back and finish the paperwork.”

  “Thanks, Brill,” I told her.

  She just smiled and gave a little wave before heading off in the direction of environmental.

  “Ish?” Diane said softly. “I…um…I’m sorry for the nasty comment earlier.”

  “What nasty comment?” I asked.

  “About getting somebody who doesn’t know anything.”

  “Oh, that. Are you still upset now that you know who the greenie really is?”

  She shook her head. “No! I’m delighted. I was just afraid we’d get somebody who wouldn’t fit in.”

  “Are you sure?” I pressed. “I know I don’t have anything close to Gregor’s experience.”

  “Don’t count on that. You already have a better feel for it than Gregor ever will.”

  “Maybe, but—the bottom line is that the department is losing a spec three and getting an ordinary engineman. You’re gonna have to babysit me for a while.”

  “Of course, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. None of us ever thought about using sludge for anything but terraforming material. I think you’re gonna liven things up down there in Foggy Bottom.”

  “Foggy Bottom?” I chuckled.

  “Yeah. I
t’s what Francis calls the section. It’s so humid all the time and so deep in the ship. It’s practically a swamp already. All we need are some frogs.”

  “Lemme work on my ribbit,” I told her and we both laughed.

  “Mr. Wang?” Cookie called from the galley door. “I could use your help…”

  With a small wave, I left Diane with the lunch she had neglected while we talked over the changes ahead of us. Cookie needed help dishing up granapple cobbler and ice cream for dessert. Lunch wound down in good order after that, and by 13:00, Cookie and I started the after-lunch cleaning.

  Pip came back to help with lunch cleanup and filled me in on the status of our trades. “The belts and buckles we brought all sold at good prices. Even the spare buckles did well because there are so many leather goods here.”

  “Excellent! What about the stones?” My voice echoed from inside the big kettle that I was cleaning.

  “I think we’ve moved close to three hundred of them at anywhere from two to three creds a piece. Your idea of buying that spool of leather thong material and threading them to make necklaces was pure genius!”

  I remembered that first morning when we set up as the McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative, the booth across from us was selling raw leathers in various shapes. The guy had spools of narrow leather thong and I bought fifty meters for five creds. Pip and I acquired several kilos of smoothly polished semi-precious stones on Margary, our previous port of call. Each one was pendant sized and bored with a small hole widthwise through the top. The leather thongs fit perfectly. We originally hoped to get a cred a piece, but we ended up selling them for two and three times that depending on the stone. “Will we have any left to take on to Dunsany Roads?” I asked.

  Pip smirked. “We aren’t selling any today and a lot will depend on whether either of us gets liberty tomorrow.”

  I grimaced. “Oh, yeah. Forgot.”

  “It’s not that big of a problem. They’ll sell just as well, if not better, at Dunsany,” Pip said.

  “Any idea what we’ve made so far?”

  He pulled out his tablet and started figuring. “Between the belts, the buckles, and the three hundred stones we’ve cleared about seventeen hundred creds. Not as good as Margary, but nothing to sneeze at.”

  I nearly dropped the bowl I was rinsing out. “You mean we have almost five kilocreds from private trading just from Margary and here?”

  He nodded. “Not a bad start, eh?”

  Our salary and share allotment only amounted to about three hundred and fifty creds for the same period so we were making about eight times our salary in this part-time venture between ports. The amount staggered me.

  “How’s the co-op doing?” I asked as I finished up with the dishes and moved to get a broom while I worked to control my excitement.

  “Francis has it covered today, and Biddy is watching the booth tomorrow. We probably won’t get a good settlement on the final numbers until after pull out, but as of last night, nine of the seventeen people who took part have sold out of their stuff. Gregor’s squabble happened as we were packing up to leave so that didn’t affect any sales really. We only needed to make sixty-four creds to cover the booth cost for the whole trip and we had over a hundred creds as of last night with some big consignments going up today. I think each of the managers will end up with at least fifty creds and the co-op will make about two hundred, depending on how today is going and what happens tomorrow.”

  I just shook my head and kept sweeping. “I never expected in my wildest dreams that this would work out so well. Back on Margary when I said, ‘Let’s rent a booth.’ It never occurred to me that we’d be at this point so fast.”

  “No kidding,” Pip heartily agreed.

  “How are the stores trading going? We all set for Dunsany Roads?”

  “Yeah, we had that pretty well ironed out before we docked. The ship trades are all taken care of in advance and that includes the cargo containers as well as ships stores. We’re not in port long enough to be able to mess around with deals on the ground after we arrive. Except for little things here and there like Cookie was mentioning.”

  A sudden thought crossed my mind. “I’m gonna miss watching Cookie come up with all those dishes using the lamb.”

  Pip laughed. “Maybe, but if I know him, you’ll be able to smell it cooking all the way down in environmental.”

  Remembering the way his spicy beefalo filled the ship with a rich, savory aroma, I was pretty sure Pip was right about that.

  “The only trade items not settled yet are the ones for Mr. Maxwell’s empty container and our own private trading stock.” Pip scowled at the thought.

  The empty container was a little game that the First Mate had been playing with Pip since we left Gugara. He had asked Pip to give his best recommendations for what to put in a hypothetical empty container based on a trade analysis of the pair of ports involved. Of course, what started out as a hypothetical empty container soon became six hundred metric tons of cargo that had contributed more than two hundred kilocreds to the ship’s profit pool.

  “Can’t find enough to leverage here to fill a container?” I asked.

  “There’s plenty of cargo, but there’s no market in Dunsany Roads. St. Cloud and Dunsany are just too similar. And Dunsany is a hub with three other systems within jump range besides St. Cloud.”

  “Well, where does St. Cloud sell its fish and rice?”

  “Oh, there’s a good market for it on Margary, but we’re going the wrong way for that.” He sighed and shook his head.

  “Same with the lamb and wool?”

  “Yeah. Basically. Dunsany has the manufacturing base to process the grains and wool, but the margins are pretty small on that kind of stuff. Coming back out this way from Dunsany has the same problem.”

  “Where are we going after Dunsany?”

  “We’ve filed for Betrus, but we’re overdue for a last tick redirection. We typically get pulled off our published course about every five systems.”

  “How many have we hit since the last time?” I finished with the sweeping and secured my cleaning gear in the locker while Pip thought about it.

  “Eight. Averages are funny, and we could go a long time without being pulled off to a new course. But it’s something to consider.”

  “So the alternate systems—what do you call them?”

  “Level one alternatives,” Pip answered.

  “Yeah. So, the level one alternatives out of St. Cloud are what?”

  “Bink and Ablemarle. Bink is a heavy gravity world specializing in metals and machining. Ablemarle specializes in systems and software. A lot of the astronics that go into the ships coming out of the Manchester yards at Margary come from Ablemarle.”

  After one last swipe of the work surfaces, I put away the last of the cleaning gear and headed out to make coffee. Now that I probably was not going to be doing it any more, I did not mind so much. Pip followed me out to the mess deck.

  “Did you see anything you fancied for us to invest in when you were up at the flea?” he asked.

  “Nope. But I didn’t get a good look around because I was helping Rhon with the booth all day.”

  “Same here.”

  “Seemed like there were a lot of knitted goods and some very nice woven things. The local weavers do excellent work. I bet I saw eight or ten of them just on my way to the head and back. I wonder how many it would take to fill the empty container,” I mused as I measured ground coffee into the waiting basket.

  “A lot, but you know what we’ve completely missed?”

  “What? Something besides lunch?”

  “No, I ate while you were flirting with Diane. We’ve both got more mass allotments.”

  “Well, not yet,” I objected. “Not until we get the promotions and such settled.”

  “That’ll happen before we leave here. I’d bet the captain has a new attendant by morning.”

  I pulled out my tablet and looked up the numbers. Half share rated crewm
embers received an additional ten kilos so my mass allotment was going up to thirty. Pip was going up to fifty. “Wow, between the two of us, our mass allotments will be doubled!”

  Pip nodded. “Makes ya wanna go shopping, doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 3

  ST. CLOUD ORBITAL

  2352-FEBRUARY-19

  According to our duty roster, Pip had the afternoon watch, leaving me free to go ashore. Personally, I was torn between going out to try to find some trade goods and staying around to see what developed. I left Pip and Cookie with their heads together over stores trading and headed down to deck berthing to pack what little I had to move. I did not think that would take much time and then I would be free to go up to the flea market to see how the co-op was doing.

  Going in to strip my bunk and clean out my locker felt strange. I knew I was just moving across the passageway but it still seemed as if I was leaving home. It took only a couple of ticks to clear off my linens, pack my duffel bag, and reset the palm-lock on the locker. I checked around one last time to make sure I had not left anything tucked down beside the mattress or under the pillow and that was it. Done. One good thing about living out of a locker, when you’ve cleaned it out, you’re done.

  The thought inevitably dredged up memories of my mother’s death. I remembered packing up all the stuff in our flat and shipping it off to storage on Siren. I became very sentimental over leaving that flat and wondered if I would always have that sense of loss whenever I moved.

  It’s just a locker, I tried to tell myself, but it was really more than that. There was Big Bad Bev who slept in the bunk under mine, and Tabitha Rondita’s gentle snoring on the other side of the partition. I would miss having Pip across the way. I knew I was not really leaving them. We were still all on the same ship. Still, it pulled at me a weird kind of way.

  I got a hold of myself and headed over to engineering berthing. It was such a long way. I stepped out of deck berthing, walked the eight steps to engineering, and into the mirror image of the room I had just left. Midday is always quiet in berthing and made even more so because we were docked. It felt funny to walk into the empty berthing area, like I was sneaking in. With no one to talk to, it made me feel even more like an intruder. The place even smelled slightly different, a tang of something mechanical that I could not put my finger on.