THREE
Squithy woke knowing, in the way that being in touch with a norbear let you know things, that the meeting had been a disappointment. Real quick after that thought, there came a faint quiver, also typical of norbear communication, and she realized that she had misunderstood the message.
Some things had been decided, but everything hadn’t been decided. So there would be another meeting. Well, that was all right, sometimes deciding things took time, she knew that better’n almost anybody. She got the impression that the norbears themselves were still undecided. There was another idea inside that one that she wasn’t sure about, but when she thought specifically about the norbears having another meeting, she didn’t get the you-misunderstood quiver, so mostly she must’ve got it right.
A glance at the clock established that she was awake ahead of schedule, which mostly she always was. She didn’t need so much sleep. Ma had said that was because she didn’t have as much to recharge as—
Squithy straightened up in her bunk, and stopped that thought. It was hard; she thought about counting to make it easier, but, no. She didn’t count anymore. And she didn’t have to think about what Ma had said about her that was wrong.
Ma had been wrong, she thought deliberately, and felt some one of the norbears—she thought it was Oki suddenly right there with her, rumbling a little like they did for each other, sometimes. It was a comfortable thing, there inside her head, and it made her less scared about what she’d just thought, which was true, she told herself forcefully, and felt the rumble get deeper, like Oki agreed with her.
She sat there for a minute, while the rumbling quietened off into nothing. She felt something like a pat on the wrist, only it was inside her head, and she smiled, and thought of herself patting Oki’s paw, then got up to get dressed.
It was early, but Susrim was in the galley, working the breakfast shift like mad, and dressed like he was going portside. He was shivering, like he was cold, or maybe really excited about getting off the ship. Squithy smelled vya, which was against rules to wear on-ship, but it was faint, and she was sensitive, so it was prolly a sealed wipe in his pocket, and that was all right.
“Popovers,” Susrim was muttering when she walked in. He pulled the pre-mades out of the coldbox, moving real quick, and cutting through her standing-space so close she had to go back a step.
“Will there be a working breakfast?” she asked, remembering that not everything had got decided last shift. There were vague norbearish nibblings in the back of her head—some of them were having early breakfast, too.
Susrim turned his head to glare at her, then looked at the chronometer, which meant he was mad because she was there. But she was always early for breakfast, and always had been—well, almost always. She took a deep breath, and deliberately refused to think of the times she hadn’t been early, and why, because that was even worse than counting.
“No business of yours or mine if there is, is it?” Susrim said now, and his voice was shaking, too. “Not senior crew, either of us.”
The oven pinged. Susrim snatched out a tray of hot handwiches, and clattered it to the counter. Squithy blinked. The handwiches were pre-mades, like the popovers. She moved to the board, intending to catch up with the supply check, which Susrim was always light about, and using two pre-mades in one breakfast, that wasn’t to meal regs. If they’d run out of—
Susrim banged the oven shut, snatched up one of the handwiches, swearing when it was too hot against his fingers, and dumping the rest with no care at all into a keeper. He bit into the handwich he’d taken, and bits fell on the floor, but he didn’t even look down.
“My leave started about the time I got up,” he said, not looking at her. “Since you’re up and busy, you might as well finish what needs done.” He crammed the rest of the handwich into his mouth. “I’m signing my cards, and I’m out. Got my figurator, too!”
Squithy bit her lip so she wouldn’t say that it wasn’t his figurator; it was the ship’s second figurator, but that would’ve only made him madder, and he might stay to fight, and what she wanted right now, she thought very clearly, feeling a touch of norbear approval as she formed the thought—what she really wanted right now was for Susrim to take his excitement and his chancy mood out of the kitchen and off of the ship.
“I can finish making breakfast,” she said, quiet and calm. “You go on.”
“Right you are!” He slapped the screen up and pressed his finger to it. “Got an eight hour meet-up through Port-catch, shoulda been there ten minutes ago. Don’t forget Tranh’s damn’ vegetables, hear me?”
“Yes, Susrim,” she said, still quiet. One of the norbears—she thought it was Ebling—did the patting-wrist thought, and she smiled a little.
Susrim opened the keeper, grabbed another handwich and was gone, almost running to the hatch.
Squithy walked over to the screen. Susrim had signed himself morning chef, so he’d get her points, not that it would’ve mattered if he’d given her the half-shift with her not having a line. It just would’ve been…better if he’d told the truth.
She tapped the screen, calling up ship systems, making sure Susrim had sealed the hatch behind him, then she turned back to the kitchen.
The oven pinged, and she crossed to it, taking out the popovers and putting them in the keeper next to the handwiches in the buffet. That done, she started the ’toot dripping into the hotpot, and mixed up some ’mite. Klay liked to have some ’mite now and then during the day, so it was all right to make a whole hotpot full. Rusko drank ’toot the same way, and sometimes Tranh wanted an extra cup.
Falmer never drank ’mite, though Squithy liked it. Not as much as Klay, she thought, but enough to have a mug during the day, most days.
Her eye fell on the fallen bit of handwich and she cleaned that up, put the trays in the washer, and went into the coldbox to assemble the pieces of Tranh’s medical drink. That was veggies and special antioxidants all mixed together with juice. It was supposed to be made fresh right before drinking, but it didn’t hurt to measure it all together ahead of time and keep it on freeze so it could get put in the splitterator and whizzed altogether when Tranh was ready for it. Mixed together, it was a pretty green color that Squithy admired profusely, while Susrim would shake his head and mutter, “Damn grass for breakfast,” like he was the one had to drink it.
Ingredients assembled, she paused with her hands on her hips, wondering what else she should do. Susrim having put up handwiches and popovers, it didn’t seem like she should be making any batter for waffles.
Maybe just some of the fruits Falmer had brought back from the port market, she thought, instead of waffles or a sweet.
She moved across the galley to the fresh safe.
The ’toot and the ’mite were both done, steaming gently in the hotpots, and she had just finished putting the fruits in a bowl in the center of the table, where everybody could reach it, and it looked nice.
Squithy frowned. If there was going to be a working meal in the galley, then her and Falmer would need trays. She turned to the cabinet, and had just taken them down, when she heard a step in the hall, and felt a purr of norbear happiness alongside her own.
Klay stepped into the galley, looking fine and fresh, with a smile on his face, for her, she thought, and the norbear keeping her company thought so, too.
“Hey, Squith,” he said, his smile fading a little and he looked around. “Susrim here?”
“He was late for a meet-up,” she said, feeling her own smile wide on her face. “I was up early, and he gave finish-up to me.”
“Nice of him,” Klay said, sounding dry, like he did when he said the opposite of what he thought.
“’Mite’s ready,” she offered, and that fetched his smile back.
“That’s good. I’m wondering, with Susrim gone and us both early, maybe we could have that talk now?”
Her stomach clenched, and she almost said she was too busy right now, but that wasn’t true, and Klay had remembered his promise to talk with her, so she took a breath and nodded.
“That would be good.”
“Yeah,” Klay said, and then didn’t say anything more, like he didn’t know where to start, or how.
Squithy bit her lip, and did not count, and Klay leaned forward kind of slow and careful and took her hand in his.
“All right, now, see I’m new at this, and so are you. But what I was starting to say, about us working our way into something special with each other—well, I don’t think that’s only because we can both hear the norbears. I think the norbears made it easier for us to be together.”
“Yes, they did,” said Squithy. “Without the norbears, I was counting, and drifty, and not worth my air.”
Klay jerked, his fingers tightening on hers.
“Who said that to you?”
“Ma,” she answered, and saw his face relax, because Ma wasn’t going to be saying anything at all, anymore.
“Well, she was wrong. Even when you were counting, you saw things, and you figured things out. I’d’ve died on Thakaran if you hadn’t been there to help. So, I think this special thing, it would have happened, regardless of norbears.”
So Klay thought Ma’d been wrong, too; that made her feel even warmer than she already was. Squithy wasn’t so sure about the rest of it, but she didn’t argue. Klay was going in a direction, and she should let him finish what he had to say.
“I’m wondering if you’d like to go out walking with me on the port while we’re here. Ought to be able to align our shifts for a couple hours, and make it happen. If you’d like it, I’ll talk to Tranh.”
“I’d like it,” she said, breathless with wanting it. “Dulsey and me were going to go walking again. I’m not sure Tranh’ll give me permission for all that.”
“Only way to find out is to ask him,” Klay said, sounding cheerful. “Want me to ask?”
“Yes!” she said firmly, and smiled, holding his hand tight, and thinking—
Thinking that she needed to eat, and there wasn’t enough. Seeing faces turned toward her—furry faces, and big sad eyes. The norbears, all of them hungry at once.
Klay said something under his breath. Squithy turned toward the hallway that led to the norbears’ pod, pulling Klay along by their linked hands.
All nine norbears were bunched together near a dwindling pile of greens. When Squithy and Klay got there, Mitsy was at the pile, being very careful with choosing this leaf, and that group of grasses, and that other leaf. Paws full, Mitsy turned toward the ones who were waiting and offered each a portion until they were all served. They cuddled close in and ate.
When the eating was done, they combed their whiskers and their fronts with careful paws, and settled back. After a minute, Holdhand got up and approached the dwindling pile of greens.
Squithy frowned, but the sounds she was hearing, and the pictures she was seeing in her head didn’t mean anything to her. There was a feeling of solemn determination, as if they were working on a difficult task together.
“They’re still thinking,” Klay said. “Not decided yet. Or maybe they decided and now they’re thinking twice. I’m not getting any—”
And suddenly, as if the norbears had admitted them to their deliberations, they were getting something. Norbear faces, looking subtly different than they did when she looked at them with her eyes. Then there was her face, also different, with a kind of glow that she didn’t see in the mirror, and Klay’s face, glowing, too. Rusko’s face and Falmer’s were distant—neutral, thought Squithy—Tranh’s face was dim, Susrim’s was dark, and Dulsey’s was one moment bright, one moment dim, distant in a way none of Dulcimer’s crew was.
“They’re measuring what’s best, change or safety,” Klay whispered. “Tough choice. Always a tough choice.”
Holdhand brought over the chosen greens and began to distribute them among the group. Squithy felt a nudge inside her head, and looked up to see Oki standing next to a very small pile.
“They’re almost out of thieves clover,” she said to Klay. “I’ll get it.”
She ducked into the storeroom, grabbed a small bale, and took it to the norbears. Oki patted her arm as she put the bale down, and she felt what she called the thank-you feeling inside her head as she stepped back to Klay’s side.
“I think they’re feeding each other up, Klay, to make sure they’re well fed before changes happen. And you can see who seems to be getting the most attention—I’d say Mitsy and Ditsy are treating Ebling and Oki special somehow. And they’re all crowding around pretty hard. Holdhand’s being real serious too!”
The new bale to hand, the norbears grew more careful of their choices, it seemed to Squithy, and taking more and more time to lean against each other, to groom faces carefully…and then Oki stood at Squithy’s feet, yawning, all of them yawning, leaning on each other, looking at Squithy as they yawned…
“They want to sleep on it,” she said, watching the heavy eating fade into bare nibbles. “They fed themselves up and look at ’em all pile together. They need to sleep on this, maybe dream on it together!”
Klay silently nodded his agreement, not seeing her glance, standing away from the norbears and from her, entranced. Watching them curl in next to each other, cuddling, grooming. It’d be fine, real fine to feed Squithy a good meal, and then the two of them curl up together…
“Klay!”
He blinked back to himself, not certain if he’d been thinking his own thoughts or channeling sleeping norbear suggestions.
“Sorry,” he said, as Squithy tugged his hand, pulling him back to the hall.
“This is their time,” she said. “They got themselves stuffed with food and need to dream it off! Best we treat them like crew on this, isn’t it? Like they can have their off time to decide things?”
Klay nodded. He tossed a salute to the curled-in norbears, getting sleepy murbles in return, then Squithy took his hand, and pulled him away.
The galley was full of people when they got back. Rusko was exploring the keepers on the buffet, and Tranh was sitting at the table, watching Falmer, who had just added the ingredients for his special drink into the splitterator, and hit the button, mixing it all with a loud zziizzz-zzzizz—zzizz!
Squithy swallowed and dropped Klay’s hand—tried to drop Klay’s hand, but he held on tight, so they came into the galley together. Falmer saw them first, as she turned to pour Tranh’s drink into a mug. Her eyebrows rose, but she didn’t say anything, which was good because Rusko was exclaiming loudly over the breakfast choices.
“No waffles for us, Tranh,” he said, “but our choice of popovers or handwiches. Or maybe one of each!”
“Thank you,” Tranh said to Falmer when she set the drink by his hand, and to Rusko, “Handwiches and popovers?” He looked at Falmer.
“Did you make breakfast today?”
Falmer shook her head. “It was all set up when I got here, and nobody in sight. The ingredients for your drink were all together in one bag in the front of the freeze, like Squithy usually does it…”
Klay moved forward, bringing Squithy with him, still holding her hand.
“Morning,” he said easily, nodding to the room in general.
“Morning,” Rusko said, as Falmer moved to the hotpot and drew herself a mug of ’toot.
“Morning,” Tranh said, sipping his drink. He put the mug down. “You make breakfast, Squith?”
“Card’s signed by Susrim,” Rusko said from the screen. “Chef, breakfast shift.”
Tranh lifted his mug and swallowed some more of his drink.
“That right? Where’s Susrim, then?”
Squithy took a hard breath, felt Klay’s fingers briefly tighten around hers.
“He’s on leave,” she said. “I was up early, and he’d already done the handwiches, and put the popovers in. Said he was late for a meet-up, and so long as I was up, I could do finish-up. He signed out and left.”
She looked around the galley.
“I took the popovers out when they were done, put Tranh’s mix together, like Falmer said, and started the ’toot and the ’mite. Figured with two pre-mades we didn’t need waffles, though I can make waffles, Uncle Rusko, if you want some.”
“Thank you, Squithy, but there’s no need. I agree with your reasoning; we have plenty, and doesn’t the fruit look good! Your idea?”
“Well, I mean, Falmer bought them at the port-market yesterday. I just thought it might be nice, a piece of fruit, since there wouldn’t be waffles.”
“Excellent. Tranh, can I give you a popover and a handwich?”
“Thanks,” Tranh said, finishing his drink and pushing the mug to one side. He looked at her hard, and if it had been Da, she might’ve started counting, but it was Tranh, and Tranh, she reminded herself, was not Da.
“So, Squith, looks to me like you made half of breakfast. How come you didn’t claim it on the schedule?”
“Susrim’d already signed for the shift,” she said.
“That’s right, he had—thanks,” he said to Rusko, as a plate landed in front of him. He kept his eyes on Squithy.
“I guess Susrim got ahead of himself, is all. I’ll fix it for him—half-shift for you, half for him.”
She took a quiet breath, not wanting any part of Susrim’s moods, and when he found out he’d been “shorted” a whole half-shift—
“Right,” said Tranh, picking up his handwich. “I tell you what, Squith, if you see Susrim get ahead of himself like that again, you let me know, and I’ll have a talk with him.”
The breath this time was deeper, and she gripped Klay’s hand hard.
“Tranh,” she began, but he waved his hand.
“You don’t worry about Susrim getting mad at you. I asked you to do it, and I’ll make that clear when we talk, right?”
Klay squeezed her fingers.
“All right,” she said. “Thank you, Tranh.”
He nodded, looked at the handwich, and put it back on the plate.
“While we’re talking about talks, why don’t you come see me in my office before lunch? I been looking over the pay-lines, and come to see that you and the ship need to get caught up. Be best if you come sit with me so we can go over it together.”
Squithy glanced sideways at Klay, who wasn’t really grinning, though his eyes were dancing. Dulsey must’ve had that word with Tranh, she thought, and smiled herself as she turned back to the captain.
“Yes, Tranh. Thank you.”
“Part of trying to make the ship reg’lar, like we all said we wanted. Get yourself some breakfast, now, you and Klay—Falmer, you, too—and sit down.”
Squithy hesitated. “I thought there was going to be a working meal. I got out trays for Falmer and me—”
“We can have that meeting later,” Tranh said. “Right now, let’s just share the meal together, and get caught up.” He looked around.
“Falmer, can you come back to the office with me after breakfast? Got a couple things for you, too.”
“Sure,” she said, and moved to the buffet.
“The norbears all had a good meal together just now,” Squithy said, not just to Tranh. “It seemed to make them happy.”
“Now we know where Tranh got the idea,” Rusko said, and Tranh looked up fast, like maybe he was going to snap—but grinned instead.
“Sure I did,” he said.
“Gimme ten, then come by,” Tranh told Falmer when the meal was done. It hadn’t been a meeting at all. Rusko had asked Falmer about the port market, and she’d brightened right up like Falmer hardly ever did, and talked about what had been on offer, and how she wished she could get studied more on food prep, so she’d know better what to do with the freshies when they had them.
Then Uncle Rusko thanked Squithy for bringing the treat back for her crewmates, and asked about the rest of her “port tour.” She was happy to tell him about the various outfitters, and the H Level shop and how the ship’s logo had gotten pressed into Klay’s wallet—and hers—and about the plan to tour A Level, and—
“This was good,” Tranh said, when everybody’d finished their meal, and gotten up from the table. “Oughta do this more often, I think. Not a meeting, but a catch-up.”
“If it works for the norbears,” Rusko said, drawing himself a take-away mug of ’toot, “it oughta work for us.”
He nodded and followed Tranh out of the galley.
“Well—” Klay started, but Falmer turned to him, not smiling.
“Klay, you got a sec? I need advice ’bout what to tell Tranh.”
Klay frowned. “Tell Tranh?” he repeated.
“About Susrim,” she said rapidly. “Tranh’s gonna ask, and do I tell it?”
“Tell what?” asked Klay sensibly. Squithy bit her lip, and Falmer looked just as unhappy as she’d been happy, talking about the market.
“Susrim’s not cleaning the greens tubes as reg’lar as he ought to—when I took the turn last I needed to double-scrub. Not sure but what he’s been accepting stuff that’s under par a percent or few. He said I worry too much about what’s none of my business.”
She took a breath and glanced at Squithy.
“I’m sorry, Squith, but he says it’s not fair that his shifts got changed around because of you doing other stuff. We all of us know that’s not the why—all the shifts got changed because everything else changed! New pilot, new trader, new captain…two dead…it all changed and Susrim wants it back like it was, like there was never a shoot-up and Ma and Da—”
Falmer gasped, blinking—just this side of crying, Squithy thought. That scared her because crying pushed her into counting sometimes…and she didn’t want to be doing that, not ever again— She felt something warm on her hand, and looked down, not really surprised to see Klay’s hand there on top of hers.
She looked up and smiled, and then Falmer was back with them, talking with some more energy.
“Point is, his shifts aren’t getting covered right, and he wants me to make it up, but only by me doing the work, and him getting the hours. Some work’s not getting done at all—I’m talking basics, here, ’cause he says it’s not his schedule, on account of he’s chef.”
Falmer threw her hands in the air.
“There’s details, but that’s the outline.”
“You haven’t talked to Tranh about any of this?” Klay asked.
She shook her head. “Kept thinking I’d find Susrim reasonable one day, and get it worked out, but he’s stuck on counting his grievances. Keeps saying that he oughta be senior crew, and going on about the cargo-shares Da promised him, which I never heard about, and it wasn’t much like Da to promise out shares to nobody, never mind senior crew. Only body senior to Da was Ma, and then not always.”
Falmer got up and went over to the hotpot to draw more ’toot, and turned back, holding the mug in both hands in front of her chest.
“If I tell Tranh all this—”
“Absolutely, you tell Tranh,” Klay said, sounding serious and maybe a little stern. “He’s the captain, and it’s the captain’s job to care for the ship. That means making sure needed work is done, and the crew’s running tight with each other.”
Falmer bit her lip. Klay shook his head.
“No if, Falmer.” He paused and added, less stern. “You said you wanted my advice.”
“Yeah, I did. I do. But, see—Susrim’s got the idea fixed that he’s being punished—I don’t understand it, myself. Thought he shoulda been made pilot ’stead of bringing you onboard—and he don’t got the certs, which we all know, him included. Anyhow, he’s blaming everybody for everything they got that he doesn’t—you and Squithy for the norbears, Squith for stepping up a level, Tranh and Rusko for having each other, me for not doing his work and—hey! What’re you two doing?”
Startled, Squithy looked to the aisle coming from the transport area…where Ditsy and Mitsy stood, shoulder to shoulder, and looking at them.
Klay rose. “Good thing the boy’s not here, he don’t like you to come down this way.”
There was, perhaps, a murble. Maybe two.
Squithy felt a gentle touch inside her head, half between a complaint and a request. Falmer was in it, and so was Susrim, but with a touch of what might have been the tobor standing behind him, then an image of the rest of the norbears resting, wanting something, the door to their room, an image of Klay…
Squithy felt her eyes go wide, even as Klay shook his head.
“That’s too much, don’t you think?” he said to Mitsy and Ditsy.
Falmer looked at Squithy.
“What’s happening?”
“They’re making an important decision and they want Klay to sleep across their door, so they aren’t disturbed. Also, we’re all noisy in the head right now, and it would be good if we could give them room to think.”
Falmer took a couple deep breaths. “Susrim says they gotta get off the ship. He says they get in our heads.”
“Yeah,” Klay said without looking around, “Susrim says a lot. Talks big. Says he’d just space them, and maybe he would, but we can’t.”
He gave Mitsy and Ditsy another hard stare, and Squithy felt—but it was gone, and the norbears were gone, too, back down the hall.
“Right,” Klay said, turning back to them. “So, Falmer, it’s getting time for you to talk to Tranh. My advice, tell him all of it. Squith—I guess we’ll talk later. Right now, I’ve got some piloting lessons to catch up on. I’ll take my tablet and sit up against their door for a while. Pilot lessons oughta be quiet enough, and they’ll know I’m there.”
Squithy nodded. “I’ve got clean up here. Falmer, Do you want me to scrub the tubes?”
Falmer shook her head.
“No, leave ’em. If I’m gonna tell Tranh all of it, he’ll maybe want to see.”
She took a deep breath, and pulled herself up tall.
“Time,” she said, and walked out of the galley, heading for Tranh’s office.
Klay sighed, and came back to the table, holding out his hand.
“Hey,” he said.
Squithy put her hand in his.
“Thank you, Klay.”
He frowned.
“What for?”
“For helping me be brave.”
He snorted. “Says the woman stood between guns and norbears. We’ll talk some more, right, Squith?”
“Right,” she said.
He squeezed her fingers, and then let go, down the hall to get his lessons and guard the norbears.
Sighing, Squithy began to clear the table.