“Ladies!” I barked, in a desperate attempt to get the watch back under control.
“Sar?” Ms. D’Heng asked, looking at me curiously.
She turned to rest her rump on the helm console beside Ms. Jaxton. Her shipsuit was already unzipped to the waist and too much of her torso was exposed for my comfort. She didn’t appear to be wearing a ship tee under her suit.
“That’s quite lovely, I’m sure,” I said, more than a bit flustered by the unexpected turn of events, “but that wasn’t precisely what I had in mind.”
“Oh, you can join us, sar,” Ms. D’Heng said.
“No!” I snapped too quickly.
I took a deep breath while they looked at me with confused expressions that were beginning to make me very, very angry—and not at them. I took a deep breath and started over. “I’m sorry I wasn’t very clear, and it’s obvious that common practice aboard is not what I’m used to. Please zip up and we’ll start over.”
Ms. D’Heng looked confused while Ms. Jaxton gave me a considered frown. Obviously this wasn’t going anywhere they were used to, either. Ms. D’Heng zipped her shipsuit—not all the way—but at least far enough to be just a moderate distraction.
“Thank you,” I told her. “Now. Let me start again.”
I took a deep breath and began outlining what I wanted to accomplish during the watch. It wasn’t a long list, and when I was done, the two of them looked at each other and then at me.
“You’re serious, sar?” Ms. D’Heng asked with what might have been a pout.
“Yes, Ms. D’Heng. I’m getting a little tired of this. I’m going to do something about it, with your help.”
They exchanged another look.
“It doesn’t sound like as much fun as I was thinking about,” Ms. D’Heng said with a twinkle in her eye, “but it’ll certainly be a change of pace.”
With a small giggle, she headed for the ladder. “I’ll be right back, sar. Three ticks.”
“Thank you, Ms. D’Heng,” I told her.
She slipped quietly down the ladder. It was just past midnight and we had almost six stans to make a difference. I intended to use every tick.
Underway bridge watch tends to be really, really boring. During the night watches, crew are encouraged to study for ranking exams or just read. What they’re not allowed to do is sleep. The reality is that as long as you’re anywhere on the bridge, you can pretty much do what you like. Apparently that practice had gotten a little out of hand, and it bothered me a bit that these two spacers were quite so ready to engage in fraternization. It spoke volumes about the other male officers on the ship. I had a pang wondering if I was being sexist in that regard, but I had a hard time imagining Arletta ordering Betts out of his shipsuit on watch, and there was something about Mel and Fredi that made me think that we shared more commonality in outlook than I shared with, say, Mr. Burnside. Obviously D’Heng and Jaxton were used to behavior that I wasn’t.
But then again this was the first ship I’d been on that had bunk bunnies.
I started rolling up my sleeves and Ms. D’Heng returned from the janitor closet with the cleaning supplies we’d need. I set Jaxton, the tallest of the three of us, to work on the ports. The armor-glass was smeared and, in some places, practically obscured by greasy hand, head, and even—in one case—what looked like a butt print. I wondered how that fundamental part of the anatomy could have been elevated high enough to be placed there, but decided that was something I didn’t really want to know. D’Heng and I split the consoles and did a first level wipe down of the screens and horizontal surfaces. I got the broom out of the locker in the back of the bridge and proceeded to sweep the loose dirt from the deck corners into a pile.
“I didn’t even know that locker existed,” Ms. D’Heng said.
I chuckled. “Every ship’s bridge has one. You just need to know it’s there to look for it.”
Jaxton finished the last of the glass about the time D’Heng and I finished the consoles and deck. There was a lot of armor-glass and it took close to four stans to get through it all. We were all three filthy and tired from the effort, but the bridge looked more like the bridge of a real ship and not like some abandoned crap trap. Freed of their loads of static charged dust, the screens and repeaters glowed with new vibrancy. The light glinted off the desk tops and the Deep Dark was revealed in all its majesty through armor-glass that was once again transparent.
We all just stood there in the middle of the bridge admiring our handy work.
“There now, isn’t that better?” I finally asked.
“Well, Mr. Wang, I have to say, you give new meaning to the phrase getting down and dirty,” Ms. Jaxton said in a flat, deadpan voice.
A huge yawn seized Ms. D’Heng but she laughed afterward and said, “I think I liked my idea better, but this is certainly a change.”
I checked the chrono and saw that we still had a couple of stans to run on the watch.
“Okay,” I said. “Ms. D’Heng, if you’d be so kind as to run down to the mess deck and grab us some coffee. Make sure to get it from the urn closest to the galley. I take mine with a bit of milk and two sugars.”
“Aye, sar!” she said and scampered down the ladder.
After she left, Ms. Jaxton resumed her seat at the helm and glanced shyly at me. “I’m—ah—sorry, sar. For before.”
I wasn’t sure which before she was talking about. “Before, Ms. Jaxton?”
“Yes, sar, on the mess deck the other day.”
“Space beneath the keel, Ms. Jaxton. You didn’t know me. I didn’t know you. Chalk it up to lack of experience and move on, shall we?”
“Yes, sar,” she said, sounding a little relieved. “Thank you, sar.”
“One other thing, Ms. Jaxton?”
“Yes, sar?” she asked curiously.
“Call me old fashioned, but I don’t screw with crew. Ever. It’s nothing personal. It’s just the way I work.”
“Yes, sar,” she said.
Ms. D’Heng returned with three steaming cups of coffee and we settled down to sip and admire the Deep Dark.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DIURNIA SYSTEM
2358-JULY-9
Mr. Burnside and Mallory relieved third section right on time at 05:45. Burnside all but stumbled onto the bridge, and I wondered if he were even awake. As he crossed to the station to relieve me, he reeked of sweat and sex. He blinked a bit blearily at me, and he knew I could smell him because he just gave me a sardonic grin and a wink.
“Short night,” he said. “Anything new up here?”
“Ship is on course and on target, No incidents or actions. Standing orders are unchanged. You may relieve the watch, Mr. Burnside.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled.
I stood up and he sat down, somewhat heavily, stretching his legs out with a sigh.
Mallory on the other hand eyed Jaxton as if trying to figure out what was different. She was filthy, of course, from the night of cleaning. Not the normal, low grade grubbiness that the majority of the crew exhibited, but really dirty. The sleeves of her jumpsuit were still pushed up and her face had a smudge of something across the left cheek.
“Rough night?” I heard him ask her with a laugh in his voice.
He flashed a furtive glance in my direction.
Jaxton smiled a lazy satisfied smile.
“I’ve never felt so dirty or so alive in my life,” she cooed with a sigh.
It was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing at the confused look on Mallory’s face.
“Mr. Wang?” he hissed in disbelief.
Jaxton nodded languorously with half lidded eyes.
“Charlotte helped. He showed us things we’d never seen before,” she said before rising to let a very disconcerted Mallory take the helm.
I glanced down at Burnside. They’d been talking too softly for him to hear, apparently, because he never even twitched. His eyes were closed and I wondered, briefly, if he’d already fal
len asleep on watch. I decided that I didn’t want to be on the bridge if he had.
“Have a good watch,” I said.
Without looking at him or Mallory I smiled warmly at Ms. Jaxton and watched Mallory’s eyes narrow suspiciously.
We got to the bottom of the ladder and I asked, “Weren’t you laying it on a bit thick?”
She snickered. “Mallory doesn’t do subtle very well. He’s not as stupid as Apones, but he’s a long way from the sharpest tack in the box.”
“Well, don’t press it too far. You have a reputation to protect.”
“True,” she said, “Maybe now it’ll be more positive.”
“This is a sick ship, isn’t it?” I asked, only half joking.
“You have no idea, Mr. Wang,” she said. “Well, I’ve got time for a quick shower before breakfast so if you’ll excuse me, sar?”
“Of course, Ms. Jaxton, thanks for your help tonight.”
“You’re welcome, sar. You know we’ll probably have to do it again tonight?”
I sighed. “I suspect you’re right, but at least we should be able to clean up the worst of it relatively quickly. We’ve a good foundation to start from.”
“True,” she agreed, and with a little wave that wasn’t quite a salute she headed on down the ladder to crew quarters.
I shuffled down the passage to my stateroom and carefully locked the door behind me. I stripped off my filthy suit and pulled a fresh one out of the closet. The dirty one went into the hamper, and I knocked gently on the door to the head. There was no answer, and I didn’t hear the shower running, so I stepped in and started getting cleaned up for breakfast. There were a few things I wanted to do before I went back on watch at noon, and chief among them were getting a good meal and finding the workout room.
Breakfast was served in the wardroom at 06:30. When I arrived at 06:25, I found Mel and Fredi there with their heads together over coffee.
“Good morning, Ishmael,” Mel said as I entered. “How did you do this?” She held up the coffee cup.
“Do what?” I asked innocently.
“We’ve been complaining about the muck that’s been served here for a stanyer,” Fredi said. “You’re on board a few days and it improves as if by magic?”
I shrugged and crossed to the sideboard to pour myself a cup. “Maybe Mr. Vorhees changed suppliers. Perhaps he got a better blend.”
“Or maybe you got them to scrape down the pot and change their procedure so they actually made good coffee with what they have,” Mel said.
“Maybe, but I have it on good authority that credit for any work should go to Apprentice Messmate Cramer, and any contributions that I may have made were strictly limited to offering suggestions as to how to get the most out of the beans with the least amount of effort.”
I took my seat and folded my hands primly on the table in front of me. Fredi snorted in amusement and Mel only shook her head and smiled.
“What?” I asked. “I’m a boot third mate. What do I know about coffee?” I asked with as much wounded innocence as I could muster.
“Watch your back, Ishmael,” Mel murmured with a sharp look in my direction. “Change is not welcome here, generally. You can probably get away with this but…just…be careful, all right?”
Davies came through the door to the galley, bearing a large platter of scrambled eggs in one hand and another with bacon and potatoes in the other. She smiled and placed them on the table for us to serve ourselves and walked back out of the wardroom without a word.
I gaped after her. She had circles under her eyes and walked very gingerly.
“Close your mouth, Ishmael,” Mel said gently. “And don’t be so surprised. First night underway is always like this the next morning. I suspect half the crew is walking funny today for one reason or another.”
Fredi added, “It’ll calm down in a few days. They know it’s a long trip. They’ll settle in.”
It was one thing to know that some ships had bunk bunnies. It was another thing to actually serve on one. If my introduction from the previous watch had left any doubt in my mind, the breakfast encounter had rubbed my face in it.
Arletta came in then, grabbed a coffee, and slid into her seat beside me. “Good morning, everybody. How was your first watch underway, Ishmael? Any problems?”
I shook my head. “It was pretty quiet after I convinced my watch section that I wasn’t interested in an orgy on the bridge.”
Mel and Fredi looked at me strangely. Arletta was getting to know me well enough that she didn’t blink.
“And you were shocked that Cramer’s walking a little funny this morning?” Fredi asked after a moment.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” Arletta said. “They were being rather loud when I got back from watch.” She shook her head. “You’d think they’d be a little more discrete.”
Fredi surprised me by snickering and Mel just winked at me. It took me a tick to realize that Arletta was pulling my leg. Maybe.
“Well? Shall we eat?” she asked. “I can’t imagine the captain will break with his long standing tradition of skipping breakfast, do you?”
Mel shrugged and helped herself to the eggs, passing the dish along. In a matter of a tick or two, we all had eggs, bacon, and potatoes. A covered basket proved to hold buttered toast, and we passed that around as well. The whole experience struck me as a bit surreal and I didn’t say much over breakfast.
Mel and Fredi left just before 07:00, leaving Arletta and me with the leftovers.
“Welcome to the love boat,” she quipped gently. “Where you don’t need love, just lube.”
“I didn’t really believe it…or maybe just didn’t understand. Even last night on the bridge, when D’Heng started to strip down for a three way with Jaxton, it was unreal.”
“She what?”
“Long story, but the short version is I asked her to come to the bridge so she could help us clean. She thought I wanted something else. She didn’t seem to be too surprised with it all until I asked her to go to the janitor’s closet and get the cleaning gear.”
“You didn’t!” She gave me a wide-eyed stare.
“Why not? It needed cleaning and we needed something to do for six stans.”
“And they went along with it?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t they?”
“Lemme get this straight. You sat and watched your helm and messenger clean the bridge for the whole night?” She was turned halfway around toward me in her chair as she spoke.
“No,” I said. “Of course not. I helped, and we were pretty much done by 03:30. I sent D’Heng down for coffee around 04:00 and we all sat around and admired our work until David relieved the watch at 05:45”
She sighed and turned back to her plate. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“How much trouble can I get in for cleaning the bridge?” I asked.
“That’s not the point, Ishmael,” she said with some exasperation. “You’re changing things and people who try to change things sometimes get their heads handed to them.”
“What? Just for cleaning the bridge? Or by not screwing my watch standers while on duty?” I asked, a bit exasperated myself.
“Both,” she snapped.
She stood and stormed out of the wardroom.
I blew out a long breath and shook my head. I hoped I knew what I was doing, but there seemed to be a lot of people who thought I didn’t. I picked up my dishes and stacked them in the tray before snagging one last piece of bacon and heading back to my stateroom to change for a workout. I hadn’t had a good run in days and the treadmills in the gym were calling my name.
When I got there, Betts was running alongside a tallish woman that I didn’t recognize. There were so many people aboard that I didn’t know. It was strange to think that the crew knew everybody because they saw them all, eventually, either on the mess deck or on duty. The wardroom kept the officers isolated. There were people in my crew that I’d never seen. That set me thinking, again, about wha
t I’d let myself in for.
With the two treadmills in use, I stepped into the workout area and began a tai chi set. I started with some warm ups and stretching, then moved smoothly into a Wu Long Form. I was working slowly and deliberately through the form, focusing on breathing and hand tension. I felt myself relaxing into it as the pressures of the previous few days slipped away. About the time I finished the first set, the woman pulled up and stepped off the treadmill, leaving it empty as she headed for the showers.
I took advantage of it, stepping onto the machine and punching in a brisk pace. I lost myself in the pad-pad-pad of my feet on the fabric. Or tried to.
“Sar? What was that dance you were doing?” Betts asked from the other treadmill, his words coming in short pants between breaths.
“It’s tai chi, Mr. Betts.”
“You do that often, sar?”
“As often as I can.”
His treadmill beeped and slowed so he stepped down from the track, shutting it off as he went.
“That’s my ten klicks,” he said with a grin. “See ya round, sar.”
I watched him head for the showers and went back to my running. It felt good to be moving, and if it wasn’t exactly on a track, at least I was running.
When I’m running, I can think. Tai chi stops thinking. You have to focus too much on the now. Hands, feet, weight, balance, tension or release. It’s just not possible to think while you’re doing tai chi. At least not if you want to do it well. Running, on the other hand, got my brain into full motion. I wondered how much trouble I was going to be in by cleaning the bridge. If I’d thought about it before I did it, I might not have, but it just seemed like the logical thing to do. It had certainly been more pleasant afterward, and the displays did look crisper.
Thinking on it, my action could be construed as a criticism. I wasn’t sure how involved the captain or first mate really was, but I knew that Arletta was trying to keep a low profile to stay out of trouble. Mel seemed concerned for me, too, and Fredi just seemed scared. She was one of Alys Giggone’s officer recruits, so I suspected she’d spent at least some time as crew as well. I tried to imagine what a woman of her obvious experience and skill would be scared about in the wardroom. The captain was a bit of a pain, and the first mate was a dangerous man in his own way, but I had a hard time coping with the notion that he might actually harm—physically, at any rate—a member of the crew—his crew.