Chapter Two
‘tween Jumps
There was a cat, brownish orange, grinning at the pilot from the rear view screen.
Theo, who had been working on the Laughing Cat logo in her so-called “free time,” grinned back, pleased with the design and the placement.
“Pilot,” that was Bechimo, speaking from a frothy blue and white cloud. “Is there an artistic reason why the logo needs to adhere to that particular spot on my—on the hull?”
Theo blew her hair out of her eyes.
“There’s a reason,” she said, “but I can’t claim it’s artistic. I’m not an artist.”
Unflatteringly, Bechimo didn’t argue the point, but only said, “But there is a reason. May I know what it is?”
“I don’t see why not. The lines of the cat’s mouth and muzzle mask the emergency egress port.”
“Visually mask it.”
The statement was flat and bland; the cloud indicating that Bechimo was noncommittal.
“Yes.”
“Is that the entire purpose of the image?”
Theo blinked, suddenly reminded of her basic social engineering classes, back when she was a team-learner, on Delgado. Egos—especially with regard to appearance—were fragile things.
Especially male egos.
She shook her head. “’course not. We’re Laughing Cat, Limited, remember? We have to have a trade-sign—a visual. I should’ve gotten to it before now, but I’ve got to get around to it now, ’cause we’re going to be coming into our first port. If we come in without a mark in place, Tower might peg us as freetraders. We don’t want that.”
“Why?”
“Because freetraders are trouble, in a portmaster’s mind,” Theo said. “So they get extra visits from port security, and pay more for services.”
There was a short silence, the screen showing darker blue swirls among the froth. Theo hoped that meant he was thinking, and that he would think for a good, long time—which for Bechimo counted for several minutes at least. She had some more logo work to do, which she wanted to finish up before Clarence came back from his break.
“There is,” Bechimo said, “other space on the hull for the image, where it will not visually obscure the emergency hatch.”
“There is,” Theo agreed. “But we might as well spend the same coin twice, like my father used to say. That means we should take all the benefit available to us. In this case, the logo helps disguise the age of the ship’s design.”
“There is nothing wrong with the design of the ship.”
“Who said there was? I said it was older than most ships we’re going to see at the ports we put into. Is that wrong?”
“No,” Bechimo acknowledged, sullenly, and added, “The lines of this ship are perfectly adequate.”
“I agree. But, we’re trying to keep a low profile, and not call attention to ourselves as being something out of the ordinary,” Theo said, and played her ace. “We’re trying to keep safe.”
That seemed to do it. Theo twisted the controls again, settling on the idea she’d had to feature the ship’s port-side cargo-and-consult port—large enough to admit trundled cargo in minpacks, small enough to be worth opening for walk-on visitors, port officials, and crew in favorable atmospheres, and a spot where both the required images could be seen and appreciated on port, or at dock.
Here the ship’s hull angled out slightly on either side of the sliding pressure doors; at the moments those angles were unadorned, aside from several small matching warning and info signs.
Now, which image should she put on the left, and which on the right? She had the Laughing Cat to hand, so she tried it first on the left, that being the side she was working the pointer with, fiddling with the size.
There! That was good!
Pleased with the left-side position of the Laughing Cat, she opened her second file, selected the image provided by Master Trader yos’Galan, and selected the right side of the entryway on her screen.
Before she clicked the oval into final position she felt rather than saw movement at the board—Screen Six flared white. The face she’d felt was trying to find a way to the surface the last day or two was gone in a stormy shimmer of static.
Worse—the second logo image wouldn’t stick where she was trying to put it.
“I will not wear that!”
Theo stared straight ahead, closed her eyes, and kept her hands poised just above the controls. She said nothing, took several deep breaths, and only reopened her eyes when she felt centered and calm. The logo was still on-screen; she tried the place here control again.
Nothing happened.
Number Six was darkening, from white, to blue, to purple.
“I will not wear that symbol. It is against the Founders’ wishes. It demeans me, it…”
Theo closed her eyes again, briefly—Screen Six was darkening even more.
“My controls seem not to be working, Bechimo,” she said, striving for Father’s coolest tone of disinterest. The tone he used when he was giving you one last chance to figure out what you’d done wrong, and fix it.
Bechimo, not having received the benefit of Jen Sar Kiladi’s housefathering skills, ignored her comment regarding the controls, to state flatly.
“There is no need to apply that to my hull.”
“We have a contract. We, ship and crew, have a contract to fulfill. We need to signal who we are and who we’re contracted with. The traditional way of doing this is the display of trade-logos. I’ve selected appropriate decalcomania. It should be easy enough to apply with this program.”
“Pilot, I cannot allow…”
At the word allow, Theo slapped two switches, and raised her voice.
“Board failure, co-pilot! Back-up one activated.”
The sound of ceramic against metal filtered in from the break-station as Clarence flung his tea into the sink and ran to his seat, scanning the boards, while pulling his webbing tight.
“Self-check on prime initiated—”
Screen Six flashed into a flat blue, bright and untroubled.
“Pilot, there is no error!” Bechimo protested. “All systems are working—in fact all systems are working at optimum!”
“Ship,” she said, cold as the outside hull, “First Board was not answering to the pilot. That is a serious matter. I must, for the safety of the ship, regard that as a system irregularity and go to back-up.”
“Pilot, I told you that I will not wear Tree-and-Dragon colors!”
“Ship, my controls must function. Do you understand me? Repeat the thirty-second self scan one hundred times, and show both board sets the combined results. Any reading approaching anomaly should be noted. I want to see why System One was not functioning. I want to see corrective proposals designed to insure that System One will always function as appropriate. Do it now.”
Clarence let out a long, slow, sigh, shaking his head.
“Second, if you see no results within the appropriate time, go to back-up two. Else, call me when the results show. I’ll be in my cabin. And we’ll have to work out a way for the ship to pay you back for your tea.”
* * *
Theo did not go immediately to her cabin. Rather she strode from the control room toward the ship’s core, to the place she sometimes thought of as the cellar, to the place where the third member of the ship’s complement, the former second in command—Less Pilot, according to Bechimo, whom he had unintentionally waked—her perhaps-now-forever former lover—lay in a healing unit the Liaden Scouts themselves had acknowledged as both an item of contraband and Win Ton’s last hope of survival.
The blast door was something she could appreciate about now; it would be good to be able to shut everything else out and just solve something.
She stopped before entering the chamber the Remastering Unit occupied, a chamber designed for it when Bechimo was first built, hundreds of years before. She herself had been in the ship’s lesser, first aid emergency healing unit not long before, shot and beaten, and within hours on her way, healed, only the memory of the injury remaining. Win Ton…
Win Ton called her Sweet Mystery. Win Ton had helped her break away from the limits of Delgado, helped her become the pilot she was now. Win Ton’s wounds were deep and malignant. Weeks, or maybe months to repair. If even Bechimo could repair him.
She owed him so much!
And he owed her…so much!
If only she could figure out which of them was in whose debt over the whole matter of Bechimo.
Well, there was time—maybe a lot of time—to figure that one out.
Meanwhile, she was first board on a ship under contract to Clan Korval to explore a possible new trade loop. She wasn’t a trader. She wasn’t even senior crew. What she was, was a Jump pilot. A courier pilot. She was young—too young, maybe—for this.
That wasn’t exactly a new thought, but it wasn’t welcome, either. Clarence was many years her senior—Father’s age!—and Bechimo was older than her, Clarence, Father, and Win Ton, all added up together.
She needed experience, is what.
She took a deep breath.
And experience is what you’re going to get, she said to herself.
One way or another.