Torchship (30 page)

Fives Full
Cargo Hold

Journey Day 155. Solar System. Acceleration: 10 m/s
²

Mitchie leaned against her couch as Bing went down the shift
change checklist. “. . . as logged. You have the con.”

“I have the con,” said Mitchie. “On course and speed for
gate passage in five hours.” She smiled. “See you at dinner.”

“Dinner in Eden,” agreed Bing. She climbed down the ladder,
leaving Mitchie alone on the bridge.

Mitchie laid down in the acceleration couch with the
logbook. All the sightings put them right in the groove. She tucked the book
under her console.

That’s when she noticed the tightly folded note tucked into
the thrust control lever slot. “MICHIGAN” was printed neatly on it. Her life
would be much simpler if she shoved it into the trash bucket.

She unfolded the note. The page was filled with an ink drawing
of a rose blossom, petals almost at full bloom. She traced the edges of the
petals around and became lost in the spiral. She’d last seen roses in a garden
on Bonaventure, none as perfectly shaped as this. She remembered their scent
tickling her nose.

On the bottom edge next to the thorns was written, “I love
you–Guo.”
I give up
. Mitchie took a minute to adjust some switches on
the communications console. Three hours of studying the intercom manual hadn’t
given her what she wanted, but she had found how to make sure no one else could
listen in on an intercom link.

Mitchie pressed the Converter Room button. “Hi.”

“Good morning,” answered Guo.

“Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

“You’re welcome. I just wanted to apologize for upsetting
you.”

“It’s an amazing apology. I never expected to get flowers on
board.”

“I got as close as I could.” He sounded smug.

“Well, technically a cup of algae would be closer to the
traditional flowers.”

“But that’s not very romantic.”

“No, it’s not.” He was silent, probably still gloating over
how his plan had worked. “Did you really think I was a virgin? Doesn’t anyone
gossip on this ship?”

“Um, well,” not a topic Guo wanted to deal with. “Billy’s
the only one who gossips.”

“That should be plenty.”

“He gossips, but he also jumps to conclusions and doesn’t
pay attention to details. So when you got all flustered . . .”

“You leapt to conclusions.”

“Yeah.”

Time to be nice again. “I’ve never kissed a fellow crew
member before.
Elephant’s Tail
was strict about that.”

“Billy shared that story. If it helps I promise to never
drop you out an airlock.”

Mitchie laughed. “That helps a little. It’s more that I’m
conditioned not to do anything with crew.”

“I’ll just have to . . .
desensitize
you.” The lilt
in his voice made her lips tingle.

“I’d like that.” She barely forced the words out through the
tightness in her throat. “I need to get to work. I have to take my first set of
sights. See you at dinner?”

“Absolutely. Hey, you should have some downtime before your
last set of sights for thrust cut-off. Comm me then?”

Dammit, I need to set some limits
. “Sure.”

Journey Day 155. Eden System. Acceleration: 10 m/s
²

Bing celebrated their arrival in Eden’s system with a fancy
dinner. Mitchie’s mouth watered as she saw it. Four months ago she would have
been offended, but right now some actual meat slices and a little jam to spread
on the algae crackers looked delicious.

The first mate said a short grace. The crew all grabbed the
meat off their plates first. Mitchie tried to savor hers but couldn’t keep from
gobbling it down. With the edge off she spread a tiny bit of jam on the
cracker. She popped the whole thing in her mouth and sucked on it before trying
to chew.

The rest were down to their crackers as well. “Why can’t we
get more of those cookie things?” complained Alexi.

“Nutrients,” said Abdul. “The long, cool baking time ruins
the proteins so you’re just getting fat and cellulose.” Billy nodded.

“It’s pretty bad when these are the healthy option,” said
Guo. He held up a cracker while he mustered up the motivation to eat it.

“We need the protein,” said Billy. “There isn’t enough
stored food to get us home. We’re not producing enough carbon dioxide to
support more algae.”

“So if we burn stuff we can eat better?” quipped Mitchie.

Abdul paled. He didn’t recognize the joke. Billy did, but he
was too cranky to appreciate it. “Yeah, until we suffocate because the algae’s
all smoke poisoned.”

Guo decided they needed a safer topic. “I bet the captain is
really missing all those fancy meals he had as a senator.”

Bing laughed. “No. He hated that stuff. Being polite to
idiots always ruined his appetite.” She spread jam on another cracker. “Which
was a shame. He missed out on some great food.”

Guo looked a little puzzled. “Did you get to go to one?”

“More than one. Turned out the old senator was eager to
resign because it was almost time for the Spacers’ annual shindig to celebrate
the anniversary of the first launch from Bonaventure. So Al—Senator
Schwartzenberger had to find a venue and caterers and everything while learning
the job too. I helped him out. Wound up being hostess for the party.”

“That must have been fun.”

“It was by the end of the night.”

“People must have been calling you Mrs. Senator by mistake,”
joked Alexi.

“Oh, it wasn’t a mistake.” Bing blushed slightly under their
astonished stares. “We’d gotten married shortly before then. It didn’t last.
Nothing horrible, we just didn’t fit.”

“Then why are you here?” blurted Mitchie.

“I’d been on the
Jefferson Harbor
for five years,
ending as second mate. When he swung the deal for this ship he asked me to be
first.”

“Why’d you say yes?” asked Billy.

“He’s a terrible husband, but a good captain.” She finished
wiping jam streaks off her plate and cleared her place. Then Bing picked up the
captain’s plate and took it to the bridge.

Mitchie turned to Guo. “You didn’t know?”

“No! I mean, I knew they were close. They’d both been on
Jefferson
Harbor
together before I came on board.”

“It’s against regulations,” said Alexi. “Fraternization is
bad for efficiency and morale.”

Billy snapped, “Stuff your regulations. This ain’t a Fusion
ship. The captain can have any rules he wants and there’s no fraternization
rule on this ship.” Which was true. Mitchie wasn’t sure if she was glad or
sorry.

“I see how successful it’s made this ship,” shot back Alexi.
He put his plate in the sink and left.

Billy turned to Abdul. Mitchie braced for a fraternization
joke but instead he told his apprentice to go take a nap since they had some
work scheduled for mid-shift.

“What’s your plan for the evening?” she asked Guo.

“Back to the converter room. I figure I can read and babysit
the system at the same time.”

“Reading what?”

“Romance of the Three Kingdoms
. I’m trying to improve
my mastery of Classical. I’ve just been reading Modern and the texts lose in
the simplification.”

“You’re reading a romance?”

“It’s
Classical
. Romance meant story then. It’s about
a big war, with wizards. There’s fights, treachery, tricks, all sorts of great stuff.”

She smiled at his enthusiasm. “You’ll have to find me an
English translation when we get back to civilization.”

“I could read it to you. Translating it is a good test of
how well I’m understanding it.”

“I’d . . . really like that. But it’s my turn to do dishes.”

“I’ll help.”

Journey Day 159. Eden System. Acceleration: 0 m/s
²

Alexi’s coordinates found them a comet. It was a
half-million klicks out of position. Not pluming it meant waiting a day while
Fives
Full
drifted up to it slowly enough that the attitude jets could stop them.

Everyone was tense. Bing had brought out some more real food
to get the crew to eat. The dinner table was quiet. Alexi spun the bag of fish
sticks in the air. They were highest protein food Bing could bake in free fall.
The rest worked on their algae crackers. “Anybody want the rest of mine?”

“Hell, yes,” said Billy. He caught Bing’s glare. “If nobody
else wants it.”

“I’d be happy to split it with someone,” said Abdul. The
ex-pilgrim’s neck still had tendons standing out. He’d been losing weight on
passenger rations even before they were halved in Samnia.

“You need it most,” said Bing. At her nod Alexi tossed the
bag to the boy.

“I’m going to sack out early,” said Alexi. He unhooked his
feet from his chair legs and kicked off down the corridor to his cabin.

Once the hatch closed Billy said, “He needs to relax.”

“Won’t happen until we find the containers,” said Guo. “If
we don’t find them we might have to put him on suicide watch.”

“C’mon,” scoffed Billy. “Worst thing that happens is we go
back, have stories to tell, and spend the cash we got from the pilgrims. I saw
what the skipper got for them. Better pay then we get most years. We’ll be back
to normal.”

“You’ll be back to normal. His normal is finding a way to
get that treasure. If it’s not there he’s got nothing. He has to build a brand
new life. And he’s getting old for that.”

Bing snorted. “The captain was older than Alexi when he had
to start over. Just had a pile of debt, two amputations, and a cloud of debris
that used to be a freightliner. If Alexi can’t come up with something it’s his
own damn fault.”

Guo answered, “He knew exactly where he wanted to get back
to. Alexi’s going to have to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up.
That’s tough.”

“We can block all the airlocks,” said Mitchie. “We’ll get
him home.”

“He’s safe enough now, people. Let’s get to bed early.
Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.” Bing gathered up the bag with the captain’s
share of dinner and took it up the bridge. Billy headed for his cabin.

“Want to hear the next chapter of
Three Kingdoms
?”
asked Guo.

“All right,” said Mitchie. She felt her face heating up. “Just
one chapter. We do have a lot of work tomorrow.” They floated to his cabin
together.

***

Captain Schwartzenberger had called the whole crew to the
bridge for the final approach. “There it is, people. Comet SMX.” It didn’t look
like much—another dirty snowball, just like the last one they’d topped the
tanks off at. “We’ll start by getting the mass processor hooked up. If we’re
shoveling snow we can get some water out of it. Then we’ll just spread out and
see what we can find. I want two people on safety watch at all times.” Bing
raised a hand. "Right, officers will take first shift for safety. Abdul.”

“Yessir!” The bridge was so crowded the teenager had stayed
in the hatch.

“Are you comfortable operating the communications console?”
He nodded. “Fine. You’re radio watch. Don’t touch anything else in this room.
Strap yourself in. Everybody else, suit up.”

Mitchie kept the controls until the ship was gently touching
the comet. The captain let her lead the way to the suit locker. Abdul formally
took the con as Schwartzenberger went through the hatch.

It only took a few minutes for the captain to give up on
making Alexi focus on the processor. The Edenite headed across the ice, staking
down his safety line every couple dozen meters. “Now that he’s out of our hair
let’s get this thing working. Then we can all start looking.” It took Billy
brute-forcing the box into position but they finally had it set up.

Schwartzenberger and Bing took up their watch positions on
the hull as the younger crew scattered like puppies let out of the pen. Alexi
was already coming back along his safety line, recoiling it and hooking stakes
onto his belt. The captain yanked on his tether and landed in front of Alexi. “What’s
that on your leg?”

“Nothing.”

“You have some vacctape on your leg. It wasn’t there when we
suited up.”

“I scraped against a crystal. It didn’t penetrate, just
scratched the material. So I taped it to be safe.”

“Uh-huh.” The safety lecture he’d done while suiting had
included sending inside anyone with suit damage. “Well, let’s be a little
safer.” He took out his sealant tube and applied a neat bead along the edge of
the tape. “Now you be careful. We can take our time looking for this.”

“Yes, captain.” Alexi bounded off again, his red safety line
stretching in a different direction from the other crews’ tethers.

The captain kicked off the comet and grabbed a handhold on
the ship’s hull to have a wide view of the comet. His crew had scattered, most
close to going over the horizon. Bing landed next to him and touched helmets. “Relax.
Even if he rips himself open we can get him inside in plenty of time.”

“I’m not worried about a rip. I’m worried about a little
hiss and him ignoring it because he’s so close to finding the loot.”

“How about this. You keep overwatch. I’ll bounce around and
talk to them. If they’re too hypoxic to have a conversation we yank them.”

“All right.” As safety watcher Bing had their sole
maneuvering pack. The propellant was too limited to use for routine
maneuvering. She kicked hard toward Mitchie’s position. She landed a bit short
but pulled herself along the pilot’s safety line.

“What’s up?” asked Mitchie. She’d felt the tugs on the line
and turned around to see Bing approach.

“Oxygen check. How’s your level?”

Mitchie glanced toward the mirror pointed at the gauge on
her earlobe. “Fine. A little high actually.”

“Good. Keep at it.” Mitchie expected Bing to go back along
the safety line, not having her own attached to anything, but the mate
surprised her. Bing uncoiled a few loops and clipped a spikey device to the
end.