Ship's Boy (6 page)

I nodded—Dad and I had been well-off, too.

He studied his boot intently for a moment—it gleamed like a mirror. “You don’t want to let anyone know that you’re a cadet,” he repeated softly. “Even though they’d figure it out on their own if they ever gave it two thoughts. And… I don’t think you ought to visit engineering at all. Ever. They play nasty tricks on Pedro down there.”

I gulped silently. That was where I’d just been heading, to stow my suit with the other Field units. I’d sort of hoped that… “I see.”

Percy nodded glumly, then stood up and clasped my shoulder. “In fact, maybe you ought to just stay in your cabin from now on. It might be better for everyone involved.” Then he sighed and looked at my suit. “We have a spare locker in the back room.  It has a top-off outlet, too. Sergeant Wells never touches it—I think that’d be a good place for your gear.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.” Then I looked up and met his eyes. “Why were you assigned extra duty?” I asked, already half-guessing the answer.

“For disobeying orders,” he answered, turning away. “It seems that I deliberately stepped out of an airlock a few days back, causing an unnecessary delay and thereby endangering the entire vessel.” Then he smiled at me and scratched an ear. “Cost me a month’s extra duty and two stripes. But don’t you worry, David! I don’t regret it for a second. And I’ll have my rank back in no time—you can bet the farm on that!”

12

I took Percy’s advice after that and stayed in the cabin all of the time, even though sometimes the walls pressed in so hard that I thought they were going to smother me. I kept a backup file of my schoolwork in the suit’s computer, so at least I had plenty of math problems to keep me busy. And James read history from the ship’s library—he liked social studies almost as much as I liked math. Dad had never had much use for “timewaster” classes like psychology and history; he told me once that it was a good thing that milord had chosen ship’s engineering as his career, because he’d never taken enough humanities even to earn the lowest-level literacy certification. Finally James out-and-out
made
me read a textbook entitled “Humanity’s Heritage—The English-Speaking Peoples”. It was one of a series and, well… it explained all sorts of stuff I’d never even thought to wonder about, like where my culture’s sense of right and wrong came from and why too much democracy always fails in the end. It also discussed the history and economics of slavery in British-derived cultures, though not nearly in as much depth as I’d have liked. And, it sorta just stopped dealing with the subject at all once we anthro-slaves arrived on the scene. I knew that Dad would’ve killed me if he’d ever known, but after that I spent as much time reading James’s books as I did my own. It was like I’d discovered a raging thirst I never even knew I had.

Captain Blaine eventually visited us again one evening. This time he made a genuine effort to be nice to me. “My Lord,” he explained to James once he’d dealt with the pleasantries. “It’s occurred to me that I’ve been neglecting my duties somewhat.” He smiled slightly. “Though of course I’m in command of a king’s ship currently surrounded by enemies, so I suppose it might be excused.”

We both nodded, even though I’d pointed out to James long since that almost all of the ship’s business that should’ve been dealt with by Sir Leslie originated with First Officer von Selkim instead.

His smile widened. “I’ve only now come to realize that I’m essentially
in loco parentis
to a Lordling. And that this involves a whole new set of responsibilities.” His face hardened. “Are you in the sixth grade, milord?”

James shook his head. “I had tutors. They let me study pretty much whatever I wanted to.”

Captain Blaine blinked. “How… Indulgent.” Then he forced another smile and nodded down at James’s datapad. “May I see what you’re reading now?”

My friend beamed, offering his most childish grin and turning the pad around to face the captain. “Sure!  It’s a story!”

“What about?” he asked, in a very adult-to-child manner.

“It’s called ‘The Aeneid’,” James gushed. “By a guy named Virgil. Dad loved it, so I read it sometimes too.”

Blaine scowled, examining the pad. “That’s gibberish!”

“No it’s not,” James answered, his grin fading. “It’s Latin.”

Blaine’s scowl deepened, then he sighed. “Well… James, I fear that I must ask that you return to a normal school curriculum henceforth—I’ll set up the computer accordingly, and you’ll be tested every week.” His face went hard. “You’re a very important young man, and I’ll have no one claim that I allowed any of your best learning years to go to waste. I’ll be monitoring your progress personally.”

My friend’s jaw dropped for a moment, then he simply nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good!” Blaine declared, his voice hearty for the first time since entering the room. Then he turned to me. “And now you, David.” He smiled insincerely. “I must admit that your situation has caused me even more worry than that of his Lordship’s. I mean, no one anywhere knows how to properly raise a free Rabbit. Or at least not that I know of.”

I nodded and said nothing.

“Well…” he said eventually. “I see that you’re playing with a datapad too. Can you actually read?”

I nodded slowly. “Uh-huh.”

Blaine beamed. “Excellent! Far better than I feared.
Good
bunny!” Then he reached out for the instrument and I handed it over. He stared at it for a long, long, time. “What in the world?” he asked eventually. 

“That’s an equation representing the current state of your engines, approximated to six dimensions,” I explained. “I’m trying to figure out how much power we’ve actually lost due to that warped control rod in the number nine warp generator.” I blushed. “It’s only an approximation, sir. To obtain reliable figures you need to work an n-dimensional formula. And I don’t know enough calculus to do that yet.”

“I see,” the captain replied, his voice flat and hard. He handed the datapad back, then crossed his arms. “Well… What I had in mind was to offer you the chance to learn something more practical for a Rabbit. Something that might actually help you earn your keep as a freedman, in other words.”

I let my ears rise in curiosity. “Sir?”

Blaine sighed. “Pedro is overworked,” he admitted. “I meant to buy another Rabbit, but that cursed factor on Magus Prime…” He shook his head and frowned. Then he turned to James. “It’s good for a Rabbit to work,” he explained. “They
must
work, you see, in order to be truly happy. It’s how they’re designed. If they don’t work they go to seed and die young.” He looked away. “I’ll rate him the same as a human ship’s boy—he
is
free, after all. Wages and everything. And I’ll make a special note in the log that he’s to be discharged when you leave the ship. But.. My Lord, you’ll ruin him if you let him lie about all day in here and…” He pointed at my datapad. “Draw squiggles.”

I turned to James, who was already looking at me with eyebrows raised. “I
am
bored,” I admitted. “Nor afraid to work. He’s right about that part.”

James nodded. “I only wish I could go with you. It sounds like it might be fun, at least sometimes.” Then he turned to Captain Blaine. “He agrees.”

The baronet looked immensely relieved. “Excellent!” he declared. “David will report to the galley at the beginning of the first watch tomorrow for instruction in his new duties.” He looked down at my “squiggles” again, his eyes blank. Then he smiled one last time. “I’m sure you’ll make something of yourself given a chance, David. After all, milord clearly thought well of you.” Then he was gone.

There was a long, long silence in the cabin before James finally spoke again. “What do you know about the ranks of nobility, David?” he finally asked.

“Not much,” I admitted.

“Well…” James continued. “Do you know exactly what a baronet is? Or how somebody gets to be one?”

I shook my head. 

“A baronetcy is a purchased rank. A hereditary title that can be bought and sold. Usually those who buy the silly things are incredibly vain and small-minded. It seems to run in the families, too. For generation after generation.”

“I see,” I replied, understanding beginning to dawn.

“You can also purchase rank in the navy,” James observed. “Though those who buy it are usually assigned to jobs where they can’t do much harm. Like commanding revenue cutters, for example, teamed with highly-experienced and long-suffering first officers who can be trusted to carry them along.” He shook his head. “Dad absolutely
despised
some things about our system, David. Baronetcies and purchased rank among them. He said we needed wholesale reform. And I begin to understand why.”

I nodded wordlessly.

“Well,” he said eventually, snapping off his datapad. “I suppose I’d best get some rest—I’m supposed to tackle the sixth grade tomorrow, after all! And you have to get up early to go learn a trade appropriate to your capabilities.”

I smiled and nodded again. “Yes, sir.”

James sighed and turned out the lights. “David?” he asked a few minutes later.

“Yes, sir?”

“Please quit ‘sir’-ing me. At least in private, that is. After the fun we had with poor Sir Leslie tonight, I expect that we’re going to be best friends for life.”

13

Being a ship’s boy wasn’t too bad, though I’d have hated being forced to make a career of it. Sir Leslie liked me a lot better when I was serving him tea than when I was sleeping in his bed, for example—sometimes he even smiled and fozzled my ears. Pedro was extra-nice too, now that he was allowed to speak to me. While he might not’ve been a very bright Rabbit, he was certainly a good, decent and above all patient one. “Everything’s
so
much better now that you’re working with me,” he declared over and over again while bustling about making sandwiches for the officers on watch. “A free Rabbit, living in the captain’s cabin with no work to do!” He huffed. “Imagine that!”

Pedro always explained everything over and over again; he was still telling me how to properly carry a serving tray, for example, almost a week after I’d mastered the art. And every time I washed dishes, he told me about eleventy-billion times to make sure I kept the silver and steel flatware separate. Being a ship’s boy might be a lot of hard work—I’d grant anyone that. But it wasn’t exactly rocket science.

One of the very nicest things Pedro did for me was keep me well away from engineering and some of the other less-pleasant parts of the ship. My friend Percy the marine had been right to steer me away from there. Pedro handled all the engineering coffee runs himself, and often came back a long time later looking tired and drawn and carrying a tray full of unspeakably filthy china. He never told me about what’d happened, even when I asked. Instead, he just groomed himself and muttered afterwards.

James had it considerably worse than I did—he was required to sit at his console all day long and pretend to actually be challenged by the sixth grade. It must’ve been excruciatingly boring, because the moment I came back every day his face lit up and he immediately tackled me, so that we could wrestle and laugh for a while. Then he made me tell him about everything that happened, sometimes twice. Usually I was pretty honest with him, though I edited some things. Like how the purser already had my name signed on an induction form, for example, so that I could scrawl an “x” alongside it to make it legal. That was bad enough, but the form had also been made out for a five-year enlistment, with no mention of my being allowed to leave the ship at the next opportunity. I might’ve made a big stink out of it, I suppose. But in the end, what good would it have done? So I simply asked to fill out a new form with the “mistake” corrected. He didn’t argue, so I suppose he knew all along. This one I signed with a flourish, smiling up at the legal-document recording camera that was purring away. My penmanship is especially attractive, or so Dad always said.

I might’ve had to work hard and there might’ve been people eager to take advantage of me, but at least I got to know most of the ship and its crew. They were pretty nice, for the most part—Dad always said that most people were, once you got to know them. First Officer von Selkim, for example, turned out to be a very good friend indeed. He always smiled, except sometimes when Captain Blaine was around. Pieter, as he asked me to call him, took his coffee with lots of milk and sugar and drank four or five cups per watch. Best of all, he’d actually met Dad and thought that he was a fine ship’s engineer indeed. Percy had warned me not to let anyone know that I was an apprentice engineer, but one day Pieter out and asked me if I was interested in the subject myself. I told him the whole story, since we were alone just then. He sort of smiled at first and seemed happy for me, then grew more thoughtful. In the end he agreed that it was indeed probably for the best if I kept the matter quiet, but also promised to help me any way he could. From then on whenever he sent for coffee he ordered an extra little cookie for me to eat myself—I liked him a lot.

But it was the marines I liked best of all, I think. Even their sergeant, who on such a small vessel was in charge of the entire contingent, went out of his way to be nice to me. This was a little strange, since according to Percy he hated everyone. The black-uniformed men treated me almost like one of the family, tossing boots at me and telling me all sorts of nasty jokes I’d never heard before. Percy told me once that this was because they’d worked with me under emergency conditions and liked what they’d seen—apparently I’d impressed the sergeant in particular. He kept talking to me about signing up as a batman, which was sort of the marine equivalent of a ship’s boy, and said he’d put in a good word for me if I did. Someday, he hinted, things might change enough that I could hope to become a
real
marine—nothing would make him happier. He liked me so much that he asked Captain Blaine to assign me exclusively to marine duties for two weeks, so that I could learn how to properly launder and stow uniforms, arrange lockers, and of course shine boots. It was probably the best part of the whole voyage, except that I missed seeing Pieter the whole time. James was envious—he was considering becoming a marine himself someday, when he did his required service. And, I decided, if I did finally end up having to become some kind of servant even though I was free, well… I could do worse than the marines myself.