Chapter 5 – Waiting...
"It's bullshit is what it is. So much trouble for the firedrop. It's not worth it."
Roy Jacobsen growled from his top cot in the crew quarters occupied by the Skookum's harvesters. He was not the first to growl since Captain Darringer ordered the Klondike to run on the most minimal of power settings while they drifted around Glazkov IV and waited for the delivery of another anomaly to pull their ship back home. Air filters did not recycle the air so frequently. The ventilation systems seldom ran during the day. Thus the crew quarters occupied by the Skookum's crew grew humid and warm. The confines felt more crowded than ever. And so the men and women sweated, and grumbled, in their cots with little patience to listen to the complaints of their crew mates that they themselves had voiced before.
David Jones rapped on on the iron post framing his cot unit. The resulting ding drew the attention he wanted. "Maybe you should put your money where your big mouth is, Roy, and sign your paycheck over to me. I'm not going to listen to you bitch when I know what you've already purchased before any of those credits have transferred over to your account."
"Go to hell, Dave. Go to hell." Roy mumbled back.
Sal nervously scratched at his hair. The gesture was a nervous habit, but one Sal could now blame on the chemicals his crew mates had used to dye his hair the bright red that now denoted him among those who stepped upon Glazkov IV and harvested firedrop with their own hands. The dye irritated his scalp and smelled terrible, a scent Sal feared was little appreciated by his harvester companions forced to sleep in bunks close to his own.
But Sal was happy that his red hair helped to shroud his anxiety that would have easily been displayed to his crew mates had he been scratching at an un-dyed scalp. The captain desired to conserve the energies of his crew as much as he hoped to conserve the energy of his ship. The captain cut everyone's duties to the bare minimum. Though the measure conserved food stores, it left the men and women of the Klondike to stew in their frustrations. Roy showed resolve by not answering David with fisticuffs. Crew violence and mutinies, though rare, were not unheard of in the stars. Sal had no idea how he might fight in zero gravity.
"We'll be lucky to get much of a paycheck after the captain transferred the firedrop we harvested over to the freighter Sutter II," fellow harvester Luke Evans sighed. "That was a bitter pill. We dropped to AU803. We lost Sissy. And then we had to help transfer all that firedrop over to another ship's hold."
Roy nodded in his cot. "The captain saved what profit he could by doing so. We'll have to split our share with the Sutter II now, but at least we'll get something. The captain didn't know how long we would have to wait before the boys at Star Nav delivered a new anomaly to pull us back home. All that firedrop would've gone awful dim by now."
"And the tent vendors don't pay anything for firedrop that doesn't glow," David agreed. "Bad luck all around on this hop."
In the confines of a steel star freighter floating around a sparking gas giant of a planet, Sal judged the free market as unforgiving and cruel as the deadly vacuum of space surrounding them.
"It's almost too much to believe," Sal whispered in his cot. "All the dangers out here in the stars, and something as insubstantial as glowing firedrop dares us to challenge cold space."
A silence filled the crew quarters. A low hum of power emanated from the Klondike's walls.
"Of course it took something like the firedrop to drag us into the heavens," Ish's soft voice, with the accents of his old earth heritage, drifted through the crew quarters. "What else but vanity would drive man into the stars? We believe our history is dead. We think that we removed ourselves from the past when we learned how to hop between the stars. We've not evolved at all, no matter the technical marvel of the shell that separates us from the death of crushing bone and boiling blood that waits for us in such emptiness."
Ish's dark eyes glimmered in the crew quarters. "Remember our histories. Empires and armies have been built on hardly anything more substantial than the tastes of exotic spices hauled upon the dangerous trade road. There have been times when sugar, or coffee, or pepper has held more value than even gold. Now we chase the firedrop. What does it matter that the glowing blossom has no taste? We chase it all the same. We hop through the stars so that a table setting might simply glimmer."
Ish's words silenced those in the crew's quarters. Eventually, men and women drifted out of their cots to pass time gambling credits in card games. Sal was in no mood for games. Instead, he lay further back into his cot and considered what Ish had said. Only the ships and scenery changed through such long time. One moment, men unravelled a single sail and shoved off from shore to brave a rolling ocean to chase incense and spice somewhere beyond the horizon. The years blink, and those simple boats transform into star freighters orbiting Glazkov IV. Sal wondered if it was good or ill that mankind changed so little through the centuries.
The speakers mounted in the crew's quarters crackled, and Captain Darringer's voice jolted Sal out of his meditation.
"The clock is now ticking to delivery of return anomaly. All systems returning to optimal. Navigation please assemble in observation."
None of Sal's harvester crew mates responded to the captain's voice. They were veterans, old hats in the protocol involved in hopping between the stars. Yet, regardless of his now red-dyed hair, Sal admitted that much of him remained a rookie. Much of the business of star travel still fascinated him. So while his companions did not sacrifice any of their attention from their gambling and their card games, Sal rolled out of his cot and floated down one of the many narrow halls of the Klondike towards the observation deck. His third hop to Glazkov had proven to be a long one filled with equal parts frustration, tragedy and splendor. The ups and downs made Sal tired, and it made him miss home. And so Sal floated as quickly as he was able to catch a glimpse of the planets and stars floating in their proper places back home.
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