Chapter 5
Nita fidgeted uneasily in her freshly installed hammock. Space was the most precious thing on the ship, and as such there were few places where she might find a corner to call her own. She’d settled on hanging her hammock in the room they called the gig room, the room through which she’d entered the ship. Despite the piled boxes of their less valuable merchandise, it had the most free space. Within minutes of setting down to rest she regretted her decision. Though the dinghy was winched tightly to the bottom of the ship and the other hatch was shut, they didn’t create an airtight seal. As such, she was treated to the whistling of wind all night long. The constant motion of the ship had a habit of swinging her hammock so violently that at times she was worried she would fall out. They’d provided a blanket, and a second one to roll up as a pillow, but for someone so used to tropical climes it was still a bit chilly even in her heavy work gear. By far the worst part of those first few hours of rest, though, was the time it gave her to think.
There was no aspect of this journey that sat well with her. It was uncomfortable, but that much she could stand. The air had a strange smell to it, either from the fuel they burned in the boiler, the gas they filled the envelope with, or the particularly lax approach to hygiene shared by certain members of the crew. Rather than the shower she’d unwittingly come to rely upon to relieve the stresses of her day, the best this ship could offer was a bucket of clean water, a cake of soap, and a sea sponge, all tucked into a small room at the stern of the ship. The added presence of a washboard suggested that the room doubled as laundry facilities. In the opposite corner was the bathroom, or “head” as they called it, though even that seemed to be too extravagant a name for what turned out to be a bench mounted over a hole in the bottom of the ship. Using it was an unpleasantly breezy experience that made her feel sorry for any fishermen or sailors who might be below. It also served to remind her of the one fact she could never come to terms with; she was hundreds of feet in the air in a none-too-sturdy vessel.
Such thoughts had been churning in her head for three or four hours, making sleep all but impossible, when a tapping sound drew her attention. In the doorway was Wink, or rather on the doorway. He was crawling up with ease, tapping with his middle finger and cupping his ears toward the sound. Nita tried to put him out of her mind and get back to sleep, but something seemed odd. The tapping had slowed and stopped. She turned, but as soon as she moved, Wink started tapping again with renewed vigor. Twice more she looked away and twice more the tapping trailed off. She pulled the goggles from her bag, buffed the lenses a bit, and pretended to drift to sleep once more. When the tapping began to slow, she tipped them enough to see Wink in the reflection. He was staring at her.
At that point, it became clear she would get no more sleep today.
As it turned out, it was just as well. Not a minute after her brain finally gave up on being rested, the flared tube beside the door echoed with a bellow that she could just barely hear through the walls as well. It was Butch, shouting in whatever language she spoke. Though she couldn’t understand the announcement, she assumed a trip to the galley was called for. She dislodged herself from the hammock and stumbled her way to the nearest ladder. At the top, she encountered Lil.
“There you are, Greenhorn. I was just coming down to fetch you. Supper’s on the table. Or lunch. Or breakfast, I reckon. Just depends how long you been awake. You sleep okay?”
“Terrible.”
“I did too, my first few days. Nowadays I can’t hardly sleep without my hammock rocking in the breeze. Being a greenhorn is rough. I guess that’s part of why most of you don’t last more than a day.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“What, a greenhorn? Because that’s what you are! A newbie, a tenderfoot. Wet behind the ears and all that,” she explained. “Better get used to being called that. Round here, everybody’s a greenhorn ’til the Cap’n decides otherwise. Life on a ship ain’t all bad, though. Once you learn to look it in the eye without feeding the ducks, the view’s a thing to see. Plus, on this ship you get to eat what Butch makes, and that stuff’s fit to make your tongue kick a hole through your teeth to get at the spoon.”
Nita grinned. There was something disarmingly charming about the way these people spoke. In Caldera, the desire to create ran so deep that people of distinction spoke with an almost literary formality. Thanks to the status of her parents, she dealt with such people every day. The clumsy but colorful manner of speech employed by people like Lil and Coop, whether purposefully or not, had an undeniable life and poetry to it. To ears trained from birth to seek out uniqueness and creativity in all of its forms, it was a joy. It was like finding a whole new set of colors to paint pictures with.
Lil led the way onto the galley, where all but the captain were already present and seated. At one table lounged Gunner. At another perched Coop. The third was empty.
“That there’s the captain’s table. You don’t sit there unless you’re invited. Anywhere else is up for grabs.”
“Where is the captain?”
“He’s getting the ship set to guide herself for a while. Once he’s set a course, he can’t leave her for more than a few minutes at a time before the wind sets us off in the wrong direction again, but a good look at the wind gauge and some careful figuring can usually get him time enough to come down and have a meal. Of course, that’s assuming he hasn’t got that feeling he gets when he decides he can’t leave the deck, which is as often as not. He’s a mite skittish about not having at least a lookout up there.”
“Me bein’ a mite skittish is what’s kept this bucket in the sky instead of in the drink, let’s not forget. And it’s hazy out there. Low clouds. Let’s make this quick so I can put someone out there on lookout,” Captain Mack said, marching in through the doorway.
Nita took a seat at Lil and Coop’s table. A shallow notch cut into the table formed just the right size to fit the bottom of a bowl, and another was sized for the bottom of a mug. When the captain was seated, Butch emerged from the kitchen with a pile of tin bowls, mugs, and spoons stacked precariously in one arm. She fitted them into the table in front of each of the crewmembers, never once so much as allowing the pile to teeter despite the motion of the ship. She then fetched a heavy pot and spooned out their dinner.
After Lil had bragged about it, Nita had to admit she was curious and a little excited to see what sort of exotic food these strange people ate, but what she got was a far cry from the irresistible feast the younger Cooper had described. It was a stew, or, at the very least, that was the closest word in her culinary lexicon that might describe it. What poured out of Butch’s ladle was a wet mound of ingredients that had been boiled far beyond the point of recognition. The mixture probably included some vegetables, and possibly some meat, but each had given up and dissolved into a mush with the texture of mud and the color of paper pulp.
“I’m sorry but, um… what do you call this dish?”
“That’s a bowl,” Coop said.
“She means the food in the bowl, dopey. That there’s slumgullion. Don’t let the looks fool you. That’s about as close to heaven as your tongue is gonna get.”
Nita gave the bowl another doubtful look as her mug was filled with what smelled like ale. Never one to appear ungrateful, and with little recourse for anything better, she dipped her spoon into the runny mush and gave it a taste.
“It’s… it’s actually quite good!”
“You’d best get some of that shock and wonder out of your voice before Butch’s feelings get hurt,” Coop said.
“My apologies,” she said, bowing her head. “It really is delicious.”
“Like I said, one of the good bits of working on this here ship,” Lil said.
“Let’s just get down to business,” the captain said. “As you all know, Ms. Graus here has a relative who is in a bad way. Needs some medicine that Glinda says the fuggers will have. She’s offering the biggest payment we’re ever likely to see in exchange for gett
ing her some, so we’re going to be spending a few extra days in port at Keystone while we try to get some out of those tightfisted beanpoles.”
“Suits me. I got a pretty lady back that way who’s probably staying up nights waiting for me to spend more’n a few hours in town.”
“Sure you do…” Lil jabbed.
“If we’re going to make it where we need to go, we’re going to need to find a way for Ms. Graus here to pull her weight. So…”
“Do we really need to go through this again?” Gunner snapped suddenly.
“Gunner…” the captain said sternly.
“Let’s just pitch her over the side now. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to do it when the time comes.”
“What?!” Nita cried, jumping to her feet.
“Settle down, Nita,” Lil said, putting a hand on Nita’s arm.
“Settle down?! He just threatened to throw me overboard!”
Her hand clamped down harder, and the other revealed a cocked pistol. “Wasn’t a suggestion, Nita.”
Across the table, Coop pulled a pistol of his own, as did the captain. Gunner unholstered two things which might have been pistols as well, though they seemed to have more optics and barrels than could ever reasonably be called for.
“Have a seat, Nita. I’ll explain what this is about. Gunner, on deck for lookout, and we’ll discuss this little outburst later.”
An angry sneer on his face, Gunner eased the hammers down on his weapons and stalked out the door. Nita looked to Lil and Coop. They still had their weapons steady, and most worrisome of all, their faces remained as chipper and friendly as ever. As there were few other options, she lowered herself to her seat.
“Are you going to kill me?” Nita asked.
“Not necessarily,” Lil said. “All depends on how good of a job you do.”
“Am I a prisoner?”
“Of course not. You’re a greenhorn,” Coop said.
“Ms. Graus, what you need to understand is this. You grew up in Caldera. I can’t speak for your upbringing, save to say it had to be a darn sight better than ours. Things out here… well, they’re rough. We run ourselves on a shoestring, and not just because it’s all we can afford, because it’s all we can get. A bad bit of weather puts us more than a day behind, and we start going hungry. A piece of equipment fails, and we can’t be sure we’ll make it at all. What we have on board is enough fuel and supplies to get five humans and Wink to the next port without much room to wiggle. And what we have right now is one human too many. I can get us through, all of us through, on what we’ve got, but only just. And only if everything goes right that can go right, and nothing at all goes wrong. That means if you show yourself to be a liability in even the smallest way, you aren’t just a nuisance, you’re a threat to our lives and our livelihoods. I can’t allow that, not on my ship.”
“How many times have you taken someone on board like this?”
“Oh, what is it now… seven? Including Nita here?” Coop said.
“No, no. It’s nine, right? There was that couple who wanted to go from Westrim to Circa, and we got blown off course,” Lil said.
“Right, right. Nine then.”
“And how many have made it?”
“Well, there’s still just the five of us on the crew,” Lil said. “Plus Wink. So it’s safe to say that none of them turned out to be worth their salt as airmen.”
“But I think… well, I guess it was… nine take away…” Coop struggled with the math for a moment. “Cap’n, help me out here.”
“The last two people are the only ones we had to take care of personally. One got himself killed, and the rest got back to shore, at the very least. Gunner had to do the deed for the ones that were more harm than good. He didn’t take it well.”
“But you did kill two people.”
“We ain’t killed nobody. Them folks just didn’t turn out to be handy enough to keep themselves alive,” Coop said.
“You people are monsters!”
“We’re survivors. Sometimes being a monster is what it takes,” Captain Mack said.
“Why didn’t you tell me that if you decided I wasn’t worth the risk you’d just kill me?”
“Well, because then you wouldn’t have given us the money and come aboard,” Lil said. “Even I know that.”
“Ms. Graus. No one wants anything to happen to you, but the crew is my family. You’ll do anything to help your mother, and I admire that, but I’ll do anything to protect my crew just the same. Any way you see fit to feel about us is pretty well justified, ma’am, but here’s the truth. If we were murderers, you’d already be dead. If we were thieves, you and your friends would be picked clean and cursing our names back down where we met you. We are all as good as this world will let us be. I mean to keep my side of the deal for you. I’ll see those fuggers and I’ll try to get you your medicine. But now you know the risk we’re all taking to bring you aboard and the length we’re willing to go to live to regret it.” He holstered his weapon. “Now get some food in you, and we’ll get back to discussing matters.”
Lil released Nita’s arm but kept her weapon handy. Coop did the same. Neither one of them had even once let their cheery expressions dim.
“Eat up. That stuff’s not half as good when it’s cold,” Coop said.
Nita’s heart raced, and her mind was flooded with conflicting demands to flee or fight, but she tried to wrestle the panic under control and reason with herself. She knew there would be dangers, and what they said was true. They could have easily killed her already if that was their plan. What could she do now? Wrestle the weapon away? Demand to be taken where she needed to go? She needed them now, but considering the full basis for trusting her hosts hinged upon the fact that they hadn’t decided to kill her yet, the relationship wasn’t likely to be a strong one. So she took her seat and shakily spooned up more of the stew.
“We’re planning a straight shot to Keystone. The trip’s just shy of fifty hours, if we keep this speed. Once there we’ll unload our goods, resupply, and I’ll see if I can get you a face-to-face chat with our supplier down in the fug.”
“So we’ll only be in the air for two days?” Nita said. “Surely anyone can avoid being a liability for just two days.”
“Like I said, Ms. Graus. You’re not going home for a month.”
“But you could leave me in Keystone until it is time to take me home.”
The captain gave a grim chuckle and took a sip of his ale. “You don’t know Keystone. Leaving you there isn’t much better than heaving you overboard. As I was saying. We ain’t never got ourselves any medicine, not real stuff like that. Most folks have to go down there in the fug to get anything from their doctors, but with Ms. Graus, that might be different.”
“Why’s that, Cap’n?”
“She’s Calderan. Two things fuggers like. Making money and finding new ways to make money. They’re going to want to talk to her, to see if the time’s finally come and the Calderans are ready to start opening trade with the fug folk like everyone else is. If anything’ll get them to pry open the vault and let us get some of the good stuff, it’s that. Hell, if we’re lucky, we’ll convince them to sell us enough to spread around a bit. Maybe get some worthwhile stock in the local hospitals, so we don’t have to send so many people down there.”
“That’d be nice. It costs an arm and a leg to get them folk to part with anything important,” Nita mused.
“Let’s not get our hopes too high. Anyways, if we get lucky and the fuggers offer to sell us your medicine, Ms. Graus, then naturally you’ll have to agree to pay whatever they ask. I hope you’ve got enough in that bag to afford a pretty dear price on top of the box of trith and the jewelry you agreed to pay us to take you there.”
“I’ve got plenty,” she said.
“Glad to hear it. Then that’s our chance to get what she wants. If the fuggers aren’t so obliging, or the price is too high, then I’m afraid that’s as far as we can take it. They aren?
??t the sort to change their mind, and we haven’t got the pull with them to chance getting on their bad side.”
“What happens to me then?” Nita said.
“We keep you on the crew until our next trip to Caldera and send you on your way, less the money it took to feed you and such.”
“Assuming I don’t turn out to be too much of a burden along the way,” Nita said.
“Naturally,” Lil said.
“That all sound acceptable, Ms. Graus?”
She released a shaky breath. “I suppose I don’t have much of a choice.”
“In this world, most folk don’t. Good that you’re figuring that out so quick. It puts you two steps ahead. Saves you the time of hoping for better. Now enjoy your meal. Once you’re through, we’re going to have to see what it is you can do.”
Nita nodded and tried to oblige, but finding out one’s fellow diners wouldn’t think twice about killing you has a strange way of putting a damper on one’s appetite. Instead she nursed her meal and reminded herself that this was for her mother, and there was no other way.