Chapter The First: Collecting Crew
In which Pendragon loses an argument and wins a crew.
"Ammalot!" he cried in joy, hefting his considerable bulk upright. The rented room's desk, which had been crafted for a person slighter in stature, wobbled perilously, but one meaty paw stilled its antics as he leaned forward.
The old friend in question, a most serendipitous surprise for that particular morning, smiled toothily before shaking Captain Pendragon Quartz's hand. "Mind if I have a seat, mate?" he asked jovially, eying the one rickety chair the room had left to offer.
"Of course, of course! Just in time--they're bringing me my breakfast, and we can make it a double," the captain muttered, shuffling papers out of the way and grinning happily. A few rays of translucent, early morning sunshine poured in through the high window on the eastern wall, illuminating a flurry of dust motes stirred by the two men's movement.
"Men" was a term used loosely, of course, in a busy intergalactic spaceport like Valtharska. Captain Pendragon Quartz was a towering, stocky creature with leathery, nut-brown skin and a carefully groomed ponytail of shiny brown hair. His extra pair of eyes drew more attention than even his blunt, crocodilian teeth. Even this early in the morning, he was already clothed in a clean, conservative, well-tailored navy blue suit with brass buttons.
Professor Ammalot was distinctly more humanoid, but his students always swore he had an extra set of eyes as well--in the back of his head. He gazed at his old friend with disturbingly large blue eyes, nothing but iris and pupil, and furrowed feathery white eyebrows as he noticed the dust. "Did you eat the maid, you vicious monster?"
Pendragon snorted. "That very misconception is probably the reason she's kept away from my room," he said dolefully. "Ah, well, an absence of maids means an abundance of bugs. I love a place that offers midnight snacks without you even ring for room service. But I'm sure my grotesque diet didn't bring you here, Ammalot--to what do I owe this immense pleasure? Coming to crew on the Solaris Reverie?"
Captain Quartz's visitor smiled, but there was something stiff and apprehensive about it that Pendragon caught right away. All four of his eyes narrowed as he waited expectantly for awful news.
"I've a favor to ask you, Penny," the man said carefully.
Getting referred to as "Penny" was always a bad sign, the captain thought sourly. "Oh you do? I suppose I should have known it was a bit early for a social call."
"Now, don't be insulted," Ammalot laughed, leaning forward. "Look, it's actually that I have some recommendations for crew, so it ought to be a favor to you as well. They're students of mine, and they will be graduating next year. The other faculty and I had hoped to get them some experience on a real spacing vessel this summer."
"Ammalot, I'm not a babysitter," Pendragon said uncomfortably. "I wish you the best of luck, but I have a real cargo I have to move!"
"Pen," the white-haired man said, adjusting his glasses, "Forgive me my bluntness, but how are you going to move it without a crew at all? You've had fliers up for three weeks now, friend, and if you have had a reply, the portmaster has not made it public record yet."
Pendragon sighed. "I have had a few," he said defensively. "It's true though; I wish I hadn't brought it here for repairs, because while Valtharska has a lot of sailors, most of them are either obviously pirate (I've turned away a few of those) or disinterested in such a specialized vessel or risky course. Really, though, I can't see a group of rugscuttlers as the solution! Being responsible for a passel of mewling students through an asteroid belt no less--I think you could do better at least for them, Ammalot."
The captain's old friend smiled. He was not afraid that Pendragon would say no--those students of his would be on the ship tomorrow. Pendragon was an obstinate creature, unless you knew which buttons to push. To Ammalot's giant, sky-blue eyes, the buttons were clearly marked.
"Believe me, Penny, I tried," he countered. "No one will take them on account of their inability to stay for more than one short trip, and the fact that some of the other sailors might treat them horribly."
"What the devil are you talking about?" Pendragon asked, lifting the ridges that served as eyebrows in surprise.
"Well, they have to be back soon to start studying for the fall. They have a solid year of exams ahead of them. The most I could spare them for would be one short trip, no farther than say, Zanerid or...possibly Thera--"
"You know I'm going to Thera, you insufferable sneak," Pendragon grumped. "Don't try and trick me with apparent coincidences. Even if it is only two weeks, the Solaris Reverie is not a playground!"
"--And of course," Ammalot went on, as if Pendragon had said nothing, "I wouldn't dream of trying to weasel subpar or even normal students onto a real trade mission; you ought to know that. For one thing, they all have experience--not interplanetary, but they were selected last year to crew a ship circling Valtharska a few times."
Pendragon cocked his head. "And that's experience?"
"Enough experience to know how to basically run things, but without the bad habits that a lot of seasoned spacers have picked up. For instance, I see a lot of deckhands get into the habit of scrolling the fansails from side to side without using the angulators at all, but my students have never even touched fansails, and everything you tell them will be exactly how they do it. These girls are like blocks of untouched clay, waiting to be molded."
"Girls?" Pendragon asked, lifting his eyebrows yet higher.
"That is another reason the other captains were worried about their mistreatment. Valtharska, in an effort to keep the population down, has taken to giving scholarships to girls from likely backgrounds. These are all poor young women that worked their way up to the academic prestige they enjoy now--because if their grades had ever slipped, the scholarship would have been revoked. In most instances, despite their lack of experience, they actually know more than the seasoned spacers. This is the bit about jealousy--two captains I talked to refused on grounds that it might cause dissent among the crew to have learned folk, and er, females at that, in the forecastle."
"I can see that," Pendragon said gruffly.
"You have no other crew," Ammalot reminded him, "So there is no one to get angry or commit ungodly acts. Pendragon, do you have any idea what hard workers these young ladies are? Look at this place. Most of them only have one parent, if that. Some of them were already acting as mother to an entourage of children vaguely related to them that were not even their own. This is their chance to avoid a life of drudgery and poverty, and already a handful of captains have denied them that chance based on their sex and their excess of knowledge! These women are going places; they will no doubt captain their own ships one day, mark my words."
At the mention of drudgery and poverty, Pendragon cringed, but he could hardly say yes. It would be suicide.
"It is not safe; one of the very reasons I have no crew yet. Most of them are unwilling to risk their necks when they could be on a fat galleon sailing through clear space. If a seasoned sailor would avoid that situation, how can you send young girls into it?!"
"It is not as if they will be navigating! That is still your job, Penny, and I trust you more than a bunch of sailors who don't know you from your uncle. They will simply be at their stations, doing what you tell them, and right when you say it."
Pendragon dragged his hands down his face. "Ammalot, I wish I could say yes--they sound like wonderful young people. How many are there?"
"There are only five," Ammalot said carefully.
"Five tittering girls and me!" Pendragon crowed. "The Solaris Reverie is no great galleon, but she cannot be crewed by less than ten, Ammalot, and that's a fact. Even that would be stretching it. I need a mate, a really good gunner or three, a helmsman or even two for juggling shifts with, a navigator, a crack mechanic, at least two men for the rigging and it would be better at four, a bosun, not to mention a cook--how many've I got now?"
"At the bare minimum, I count nine--adding yourself I suppose you are right."
"I simply cannot get out of port with myself and five inexperienced--" he looked at his friend's face and rolled his eyes, "--All right, slightly experienced students! What if we come across a meteor shower?"
"None predicted!"
"Or need to fight off pirates?"
"That's why Argus is coming."
A moment of dead silence filled the room, and the noises of the city waking up below filtered in through the open window.
"Did you say...Argus? Argus Drake?" Pendragon spluttered.
"The one and the same." Ammalot leaned back, smiling smugly.
"How did you--when--WHY?" demanded the four-eyed alien, pulling off his hat and rubbing his temples. The professor had never been on a ship with him, and that was the only place he knew Argus from. His brain was throbbing with the effort of trying to match the two together in any plausible way.
The white-haired professor laughed until tears rolled down his aged cheeks. He wiped them off gingerly with his finger tips, peering at his wet fingers through his spectacles as if they were a microscope. "He came to give a talk at the closing of a semester--we had a few seasoned spacers do so. You would have been one of them if I could have reached you, but you were still lightyears away. He happened to mention you and when I found out you two were friends, I arranged it."
Pendragon snorted. "You almost win on account of my longing to see that silly ogre again. However, it is simply impossible. Even were you to furnish us with an extra five girls so we had a whopping count of ten, I love my ship. Sending it through an asteroid field beset with pirates and who knows what else, even with Argus, is more than I am willing to undertake. How about I just duck out of this merchant's contract and we will take them for a spin around Valtharska itself?"
Ammalot shook his head. "Pendragon, you have to let go. Live a little! Argus is willing to give it a shot. Sending them into orbit around Valtharska is just as dangerous--with the way all the damn foreigners fly--and besides, they've already done that. They might as well stay home if they are not going to be learning anything."
Pendragon sighed.
"And I hate to bring this up, but you owe me."
The sigh was followed by a wince. "I know, I know. Look, send them in today to apply like the rest of the crew, and I will hire them if they make a good impression, the same as anyone else. If I can hire enough crew before we leave, I can give it a go--but just this one trip, for two weeks, and I mean that."
"Done! Thank you, old chap. You won't regret it--they are only youths, but they are intelligent, hard-working youths that know how to follow orders. Besides, this is yet another adventure you and Argus can tell people when you are old and full of machinery, sitting in a tavern on the wharf."
"Argus can be full of more machinery, perhaps, but I plan on staying whole," Pendragon snorted. "And here's my breakfast--will you stay?"
"I'll have something Terran, half-portions," Ammalot said to the woman who had brought Pendragon's meal.
She apparently had peeked at the diet listed for his species and was not as afraid of him as the maid; she brought the tray right up to his desk and, nodding at Ammalot, hurried back down the stairs.
By the time Ammalot had finished his toast and they had both had a second cup of coffee, the professor had to be off to his charges, and Pendragon felt slightly better about the whole ordeal.
After all, if it would get him off of Valtharska and back in space even for two weeks, it was probably worth it. Pendragon had been living in this same dusty room for four months, overseeing repairs to his precious Solaris Reverie and trying to avoid the locals. The relentless, aggressive commerce and constant barrage of new faces they would never see again had suffused them with apathy and immediate distrust. Not only was he running out of funds, but Valtharska was not a friendly place, anymore than it was clean. He would go out again just before lunch, he decided, and put up more flyers. They might have to delay the launch by a day or two, which made him grit his teeth just thinking about how close they were cutting the times, but dammit, he would find the men to do this.
And the way Ammalot had painted the juvenile crew, they were nothing short of genius prodigies in their respective fields of study. He might even learn something from them, he thought optimistically. After all, each of them had specialized in some facet of space sailing, and probably knew enough in their head to make up for what their hands still needed to practice.
* * *
Only mere minutes after Ammalot's departure, the first knock sounded at the door. Startled, Pendragon looked up, squinting as if he could see through the wood. This was much too soon to be any of the professor's charges, who were probably still eating breakfast at the Academy.
"Yes, it's open," he called.
When the door swung in, he was not met with a pig-tailed human female, but something rather different.
The slim figure with stooped shoulders at first seemed to be fairly tall, until one's eyes travelled down to find his boots augmented his height by at least three inches. These were curious affairs, coming up to his knees and carpeted with pockets, loops, and ties that held all manner of tools and even, Pendragon noted, weaponry. Growing out of these unorthodox toolbelts like a dusty grey flower was a scrawny lad in need of a haircut. Lank black hair in what must have once been a bowlcut hung in front of his odd pointed ears; these were pushed back against his head in subservience or possibly nervousness.
He was distinctly humanoid, without fur or whiskers or the like, but there was something feline in the exotic set of his wide, narrow eyes and the peculiar shape of his nose and how it gently sloped to his cheeks. The curious alien was garbed in a worn but serviceable green coat over a shirt that had probably been white before it came to Valtharska (or maybe before it came to him), and baggy brown trousers fastened at the knee. One pant leg was missing its button, and had been tied with twine.
Pendragon's unfavorable first impression was melted somewhat when he saw the lad quickly pull his battered, triangular hat off of his head, holding it over his breast respectfully and waiting solemnly, apparently for permission to approach.
The captain gestured impatiently, and the youth obeyed, coming right up to the desk and giving a quick salute before waiting, once again--this time for permission to speak. As filthy as he was, the boy had manners.
"Can I help you, lad?" Pendragon asked politely.
The youth's voice was high but husky, and thickly accented in the manner of a sailor. "I hope so, cap'n, sir. I'm here 'bout an ad what I saw for a merchant ship, the Solaris Reverie, cap'n, sir?"
The four-eyed alien leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the desk in front of him. This one was, if anything, younger than the students Ammalot had promised him. He suppressed a groan, but completed courtesies. "Have a seat then, lad. We could probably use a cabin boy, if I've not mistaken your age."
The feline creature blushed profusely as he took the chair recently vacated by Professor Ammalot. "I am young, at that, cap'n, sir. Only, I rather hope my experience's more impressive'n that, cap'n, sir," he said, reddening yet more. The hat suffered under the nervous, kneading grip of his slender fingers.
"Oh? Then please, tell me what you can do," Pendragon said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. The kid was staring at him as if he were about to be eaten. Not an uncommon reaction, but poor Captain Quartz was always surprised by it. Especially from a boy with so many notches in his ears--he looked like he had dealt with worse things than a well-dressed merchant captain drinking tea.
"I been skiffin' since I were ten, and I been a sailor on three independent vessels--adds up to jus' over two years. I was a ship's carpenter some four years afore that, buildin' an' fixin' 'em. I'm a right good carpenter, if I say so m'self, an' can lend a hand t'most anythin' on decks. I'm right good at buildin' cupboards as no one else'll find--somethin' of a hobby o' mine some cap'ns find useful. I ain't picky 'bout wages, berth, or food--'Slong as you don't make me pray for it, cap'n, sir," said the feline, nearly all in one breath.
"Slow down, son--contrary to popular belief, I don't bite," Pendragon offered, smiling. "Do you have any letters of recommendation?"
Shin-sin-fa cringed. "Not with me, but I reckon as I could get some. Only not afore tomorrow, cap'n, sir," he added woefully, his eyebrows raising in apprehension.
Pendragon shrugged. That sounded like they would not be real anyway. There was a rough air about this youth, despite his overtly feminine features, and the captain had his doubts about his applicant's honesty.
"Where are you from?"
"Hanfudon," the boy intoned, thumbing out the window. The planet's tri-syllable name became one word in his hurry to spit it out. "The Imperial half of it, cap'n, sir." Ahh, that explained the boy's thick sailor accent--when he learned Common, he had probably picked it up directly from the ships he was sailing.
"What makes you think I should hire you?" Pendragon asked frankly, leaning back in his seat.
The boy looked taken aback, and swallowed before beginning hesitantly. "I don't know it's my place t'be, y'know, toutin' m'self an' all." He blushed again and his large, pointed ears swung down sharply before he looked up, meeting the captain's eyes. "I'm damn loyal, cap'n, sir. I do what I'm tole, I don't never start fights--"
"Don't start fights?" Pendragon asked shrewdly, having caught some fraction of hesitation before the word.
The lad shut his eyes quickly in an exaggerated wince and then looked up again plaintively. "I get picked on a bit sometimes, sir, on account o' lookin' so--well, a few've thought I was makin' eyes at 'em, cap'n, sir. I weren't," he added hurriedly.
Pendragon tried not to laugh. How perfect is this, he thought. An applicant with no romantic interest in the female crew is just one less problem for me to deal with. Not to mention the boy seemed rather proud of his professed loyalty, and he looked as if he had held his own in a fight more than once. That would be invaluable were they attacked by pirates, and the Theran asteroid belt was full of them. Pendragon also found, to his surprise, an intangible integrity about the boy's manners. The captain had not seen someone so self-abasingly polite (without even a hint of bitterness or insincerity!) in many a year, and the sheer oddity as well as flattery of that forceful respect was winning him over.
Pendragon knew he could not afford to be choosy, and while he might not have taken on a shady character like this under normal circumstances, it was only for two weeks. If the boy was lazy or misbehaved, he could always kick him off as soon as this mission was finished.
Still, he might as well get more information out of the kid before he let him know he was hired.
"What's your name?" Pendragon asked kindly. "And how old are you, exactly?"
"Shin-sin-fa, cap'n, sir. Sixteen, cap'n, sir," the boy responded, blushing yet again. Pendragon was surprised that the kid's smooth, light grey skin wasn't permanently stained pink in an arc across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Or that his tongue hadn't already tied itself in a knot from all the "cap'n, sirs" he had been flinging around.
"What kind of voyages have you been on?"
"How d'you mean, cap'n, sir?" Shin-sin-fa asked anxiously.
"What type of space have you travelled through, obstacles encountered, the length of the trip, that sort of thing."
"Ahh, right, cap'n, sir. I done a lot o' travel through straight space, t' start with, an' through some meteor showers. Been through more'n one attack," he said, wincing before continuing, "An' spent a lot o' time shufflin' cargo through th'asteroid belt 'tween here an' Thera, cap'n, sir."
Unlike Ammalot, it was nearly impossible that the boy could have known where Pendragon was going, unless he had been talking to sailors who had turned down the job--but those lot would already be gone by now, off on other vessels. He raised his eyeridges in surprise. "You've been through the belt?" he asked incredulously.
"Oh, aye. Spent most o' last two years in it, cap'n, sir."
"You're not afraid to go back through it, then?"
Shin-sin-fa laughed, a short, nervous affair that stopped when he realized it might be impolite. He sat up straighter. "O' course not, sir. I actually kind o' like it, cap'n, sir. It's pretty in there."
"What good fortune; we happen to be heading for Thera," Pendragon mused. Well, there was no doubt in his mind but for one last question, and if the boy answered that well, the arrangement could be tried.
"Mr. Shin-sin-fa, my vessel is a licensed merchant ship running a legal cargo. Can you swear to me you are an honest man and your intentions are as lawful as my own?"
The feline nodded without hesitation. "I swear so, cap'n, sir," he uttered, with his right palm in the air.
Pendragon nodded. "If a position as a 'general hand' will suffice, lad, consider yourself hired." He held out a leathery, tanned hand to shake on it, and the boy eagerly accepted. Both of them were secretly pleased that they had the same strength in their grip and let go at the same time. The captain went on, "A deal then, Mr. Shin-sin-fa. We will convene on the ship's deck at this time tomorrow morning--well, more like eight, I should say--when we will hopefully be leaving port. We are still lacking in crew, but I hope to remedy that today."
Nodding again, with a small smile, the lad saluted. "Thanks, cap'n, sir," he said gratefully. "Are there any objections to settlin' in our berths sometime beforehand?"
Pendragon nodded appreciatively. The lad was obviously an old hand at this--new spacers tended to assume their berth would be comfortable without any modifications out of their own pocket money, but there were always some displeased with the fluffiness of their pillow or the brightness of the reading lamp. "By all means, lad. You'll have your choice, as no one else has laid a claim. The Solaris Reverie, at dock 14."
"Thank you, cap'n, sir. I'll see you at eight then, cap'n, sir?"
"Yes, Mr. Shin-sin-fa. Eight o'clock sharp," Pendragon reiterated. He paused for a moment before remembering this overly polite boy was going to wait around until he was chucked out. "You may go and attend to whatever you need to before you leave," he nudged. Shin-sin-fa took the hint, getting to his feet and making a short bow before making his way toward the door.
Suddenly, the lad stopped, and turned around again, looking confused.
"Yes, lad?" Pendragon asked.
"I wondered, cap'n, sir--your last name...?"
Pendragon snorted derisively. "Unfortunately, that terrible beast you are thinking of was my uncle, rest his black soul, and the shared name has brought me nothing but trouble. I assure you, I'm nothing like him. And before you ask: no, I knew nothing of his treasure map, or anything of that sort. The only thing we have in common is our name." The captain scratched his chin thoughtfully. "And, of course, a certain stubborn tendency."
The boy's features broke into another smile, and he nodded as he stepped out into the hall. "Right, thanks again. Good day, cap'n, sir."
At that moment, the sounds of a pack of girls began to echo down the corridor, and the boy ducked back into the room, giving Pendragon an apologetic smile and shrug as he presumedly waited for the girls to pass.
Instead, they walked right by him and into the captain's room.
"Is this it?"
"Aye, says five on it."
"Hello!"
"Hi!"
"I'm Anya!"
"I'm Fahna!"
I can't believe Ammalot had the audacity to send the lot of them at once, Pendragon thought sourly.
Their words chorused together and became jumbled once more. One of the girls conscientiously shut the door, which blocked the scrawny young sailor in. He seemed hesitant, and finally, with an almost squeamish look on his face, flattened himself against the wall to get to the door without touching any of the chattering, smiling applicants. It was a moment before any of the girls noticed the lad, as they were busily trying to introduce themselves and each other all at once. One with a red handkerchief tied over her layered brown hair finally guided her pony-tailed companion out of the way, muttering, "He's trying to get out, Fahna." The feline alien slipped out the door. Halfway into the corridor, Shin-sin-fa re-hatted himself and gave a short wave at the inundated captain before disappearing down around the corner, leaving Pendragon with his odd visitors.
"Ammalot!" he cried in joy, hefting his considerable bulk upright. The rented room's desk, which had been crafted for a person slighter in stature, wobbled perilously, but one meaty paw stilled its antics as he leaned forward.
The old friend in question, a most serendipitous surprise for that particular morning, smiled toothily before shaking Captain Pendragon Quartz's hand. "Mind if I have a seat, mate?" he asked jovially, eying the one rickety chair the room had left to offer.
"Of course, of course! Just in time--they're bringing me my breakfast, and we can make it a double," the captain muttered, shuffling papers out of the way and grinning happily. A few rays of translucent, early morning sunshine poured in through the high window on the eastern wall, illuminating a flurry of dust motes stirred by the two men's movement.
"Men" was a term used loosely, of course, in a busy intergalactic spaceport like Valtharska. Captain Pendragon Quartz was a towering, stocky creature with leathery, nut-brown skin and a carefully groomed ponytail of shiny brown hair. His extra pair of eyes drew more attention than even his blunt, crocodilian teeth. Even this early in the morning, he was already clothed in a clean, conservative, well-tailored navy blue suit with brass buttons.
Professor Ammalot was distinctly more humanoid, but his students always swore he had an extra set of eyes as well--in the back of his head. He gazed at his old friend with disturbingly large blue eyes, nothing but iris and pupil, and furrowed feathery white eyebrows as he noticed the dust. "Did you eat the maid, you vicious monster?"
Pendragon snorted. "That very misconception is probably the reason she's kept away from my room," he said dolefully. "Ah, well, an absence of maids means an abundance of bugs. I love a place that offers midnight snacks without you even ring for room service. But I'm sure my grotesque diet didn't bring you here, Ammalot--to what do I owe this immense pleasure? Coming to crew on the Solaris Reverie?"
Captain Quartz's visitor smiled, but there was something stiff and apprehensive about it that Pendragon caught right away. All four of his eyes narrowed as he waited expectantly for awful news.
"I've a favor to ask you, Penny," the man said carefully.
Getting referred to as "Penny" was always a bad sign, the captain thought sourly. "Oh you do? I suppose I should have known it was a bit early for a social call."
"Now, don't be insulted," Ammalot laughed, leaning forward. "Look, it's actually that I have some recommendations for crew, so it ought to be a favor to you as well. They're students of mine, and they will be graduating next year. The other faculty and I had hoped to get them some experience on a real spacing vessel this summer."
"Ammalot, I'm not a babysitter," Pendragon said uncomfortably. "I wish you the best of luck, but I have a real cargo I have to move!"
"Pen," the white-haired man said, adjusting his glasses, "Forgive me my bluntness, but how are you going to move it without a crew at all? You've had fliers up for three weeks now, friend, and if you have had a reply, the portmaster has not made it public record yet."
Pendragon sighed. "I have had a few," he said defensively. "It's true though; I wish I hadn't brought it here for repairs, because while Valtharska has a lot of sailors, most of them are either obviously pirate (I've turned away a few of those) or disinterested in such a specialized vessel or risky course. Really, though, I can't see a group of rugscuttlers as the solution! Being responsible for a passel of mewling students through an asteroid belt no less--I think you could do better at least for them, Ammalot."
The captain's old friend smiled. He was not afraid that Pendragon would say no--those students of his would be on the ship tomorrow. Pendragon was an obstinate creature, unless you knew which buttons to push. To Ammalot's giant, sky-blue eyes, the buttons were clearly marked.
"Believe me, Penny, I tried," he countered. "No one will take them on account of their inability to stay for more than one short trip, and the fact that some of the other sailors might treat them horribly."
"What the devil are you talking about?" Pendragon asked, lifting the ridges that served as eyebrows in surprise.
"Well, they have to be back soon to start studying for the fall. They have a solid year of exams ahead of them. The most I could spare them for would be one short trip, no farther than say, Zanerid or...possibly Thera--"
"You know I'm going to Thera, you insufferable sneak," Pendragon grumped. "Don't try and trick me with apparent coincidences. Even if it is only two weeks, the Solaris Reverie is not a playground!"
"--And of course," Ammalot went on, as if Pendragon had said nothing, "I wouldn't dream of trying to weasel subpar or even normal students onto a real trade mission; you ought to know that. For one thing, they all have experience--not interplanetary, but they were selected last year to crew a ship circling Valtharska a few times."
Pendragon cocked his head. "And that's experience?"
"Enough experience to know how to basically run things, but without the bad habits that a lot of seasoned spacers have picked up. For instance, I see a lot of deckhands get into the habit of scrolling the fansails from side to side without using the angulators at all, but my students have never even touched fansails, and everything you tell them will be exactly how they do it. These girls are like blocks of untouched clay, waiting to be molded."
"Girls?" Pendragon asked, lifting his eyebrows yet higher.
"That is another reason the other captains were worried about their mistreatment. Valtharska, in an effort to keep the population down, has taken to giving scholarships to girls from likely backgrounds. These are all poor young women that worked their way up to the academic prestige they enjoy now--because if their grades had ever slipped, the scholarship would have been revoked. In most instances, despite their lack of experience, they actually know more than the seasoned spacers. This is the bit about jealousy--two captains I talked to refused on grounds that it might cause dissent among the crew to have learned folk, and er, females at that, in the forecastle."
"I can see that," Pendragon said gruffly.
"You have no other crew," Ammalot reminded him, "So there is no one to get angry or commit ungodly acts. Pendragon, do you have any idea what hard workers these young ladies are? Look at this place. Most of them only have one parent, if that. Some of them were already acting as mother to an entourage of children vaguely related to them that were not even their own. This is their chance to avoid a life of drudgery and poverty, and already a handful of captains have denied them that chance based on their sex and their excess of knowledge! These women are going places; they will no doubt captain their own ships one day, mark my words."
At the mention of drudgery and poverty, Pendragon cringed, but he could hardly say yes. It would be suicide.
"It is not safe; one of the very reasons I have no crew yet. Most of them are unwilling to risk their necks when they could be on a fat galleon sailing through clear space. If a seasoned sailor would avoid that situation, how can you send young girls into it?!"
"It is not as if they will be navigating! That is still your job, Penny, and I trust you more than a bunch of sailors who don't know you from your uncle. They will simply be at their stations, doing what you tell them, and right when you say it."
Pendragon dragged his hands down his face. "Ammalot, I wish I could say yes--they sound like wonderful young people. How many are there?"
"There are only five," Ammalot said carefully.
"Five tittering girls and me!" Pendragon crowed. "The Solaris Reverie is no great galleon, but she cannot be crewed by less than ten, Ammalot, and that's a fact. Even that would be stretching it. I need a mate, a really good gunner or three, a helmsman or even two for juggling shifts with, a navigator, a crack mechanic, at least two men for the rigging and it would be better at four, a bosun, not to mention a cook--how many've I got now?"
"At the bare minimum, I count nine--adding yourself I suppose you are right."
"I simply cannot get out of port with myself and five inexperienced--" he looked at his friend's face and rolled his eyes, "--All right, slightly experienced students! What if we come across a meteor shower?"
"None predicted!"
"Or need to fight off pirates?"
"That's why Argus is coming."
A moment of dead silence filled the room, and the noises of the city waking up below filtered in through the open window.
"Did you say...Argus? Argus Drake?" Pendragon spluttered.
"The one and the same." Ammalot leaned back, smiling smugly.
"How did you--when--WHY?" demanded the four-eyed alien, pulling off his hat and rubbing his temples. The professor had never been on a ship with him, and that was the only place he knew Argus from. His brain was throbbing with the effort of trying to match the two together in any plausible way.
The white-haired professor laughed until tears rolled down his aged cheeks. He wiped them off gingerly with his finger tips, peering at his wet fingers through his spectacles as if they were a microscope. "He came to give a talk at the closing of a semester--we had a few seasoned spacers do so. You would have been one of them if I could have reached you, but you were still lightyears away. He happened to mention you and when I found out you two were friends, I arranged it."
Pendragon snorted. "You almost win on account of my longing to see that silly ogre again. However, it is simply impossible. Even were you to furnish us with an extra five girls so we had a whopping count of ten, I love my ship. Sending it through an asteroid field beset with pirates and who knows what else, even with Argus, is more than I am willing to undertake. How about I just duck out of this merchant's contract and we will take them for a spin around Valtharska itself?"
Ammalot shook his head. "Pendragon, you have to let go. Live a little! Argus is willing to give it a shot. Sending them into orbit around Valtharska is just as dangerous--with the way all the damn foreigners fly--and besides, they've already done that. They might as well stay home if they are not going to be learning anything."
Pendragon sighed.
"And I hate to bring this up, but you owe me."
The sigh was followed by a wince. "I know, I know. Look, send them in today to apply like the rest of the crew, and I will hire them if they make a good impression, the same as anyone else. If I can hire enough crew before we leave, I can give it a go--but just this one trip, for two weeks, and I mean that."
"Done! Thank you, old chap. You won't regret it--they are only youths, but they are intelligent, hard-working youths that know how to follow orders. Besides, this is yet another adventure you and Argus can tell people when you are old and full of machinery, sitting in a tavern on the wharf."
"Argus can be full of more machinery, perhaps, but I plan on staying whole," Pendragon snorted. "And here's my breakfast--will you stay?"
"I'll have something Terran, half-portions," Ammalot said to the woman who had brought Pendragon's meal.
She apparently had peeked at the diet listed for his species and was not as afraid of him as the maid; she brought the tray right up to his desk and, nodding at Ammalot, hurried back down the stairs.
By the time Ammalot had finished his toast and they had both had a second cup of coffee, the professor had to be off to his charges, and Pendragon felt slightly better about the whole ordeal.
After all, if it would get him off of Valtharska and back in space even for two weeks, it was probably worth it. Pendragon had been living in this same dusty room for four months, overseeing repairs to his precious Solaris Reverie and trying to avoid the locals. The relentless, aggressive commerce and constant barrage of new faces they would never see again had suffused them with apathy and immediate distrust. Not only was he running out of funds, but Valtharska was not a friendly place, anymore than it was clean. He would go out again just before lunch, he decided, and put up more flyers. They might have to delay the launch by a day or two, which made him grit his teeth just thinking about how close they were cutting the times, but dammit, he would find the men to do this.
And the way Ammalot had painted the juvenile crew, they were nothing short of genius prodigies in their respective fields of study. He might even learn something from them, he thought optimistically. After all, each of them had specialized in some facet of space sailing, and probably knew enough in their head to make up for what their hands still needed to practice.
* * *
Only mere minutes after Ammalot's departure, the first knock sounded at the door. Startled, Pendragon looked up, squinting as if he could see through the wood. This was much too soon to be any of the professor's charges, who were probably still eating breakfast at the Academy.
"Yes, it's open," he called.
When the door swung in, he was not met with a pig-tailed human female, but something rather different.
The slim figure with stooped shoulders at first seemed to be fairly tall, until one's eyes travelled down to find his boots augmented his height by at least three inches. These were curious affairs, coming up to his knees and carpeted with pockets, loops, and ties that held all manner of tools and even, Pendragon noted, weaponry. Growing out of these unorthodox toolbelts like a dusty grey flower was a scrawny lad in need of a haircut. Lank black hair in what must have once been a bowlcut hung in front of his odd pointed ears; these were pushed back against his head in subservience or possibly nervousness.
He was distinctly humanoid, without fur or whiskers or the like, but there was something feline in the exotic set of his wide, narrow eyes and the peculiar shape of his nose and how it gently sloped to his cheeks. The curious alien was garbed in a worn but serviceable green coat over a shirt that had probably been white before it came to Valtharska (or maybe before it came to him), and baggy brown trousers fastened at the knee. One pant leg was missing its button, and had been tied with twine.
Pendragon's unfavorable first impression was melted somewhat when he saw the lad quickly pull his battered, triangular hat off of his head, holding it over his breast respectfully and waiting solemnly, apparently for permission to approach.
The captain gestured impatiently, and the youth obeyed, coming right up to the desk and giving a quick salute before waiting, once again--this time for permission to speak. As filthy as he was, the boy had manners.
"Can I help you, lad?" Pendragon asked politely.
The youth's voice was high but husky, and thickly accented in the manner of a sailor. "I hope so, cap'n, sir. I'm here 'bout an ad what I saw for a merchant ship, the Solaris Reverie, cap'n, sir?"
The four-eyed alien leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the desk in front of him. This one was, if anything, younger than the students Ammalot had promised him. He suppressed a groan, but completed courtesies. "Have a seat then, lad. We could probably use a cabin boy, if I've not mistaken your age."
The feline creature blushed profusely as he took the chair recently vacated by Professor Ammalot. "I am young, at that, cap'n, sir. Only, I rather hope my experience's more impressive'n that, cap'n, sir," he said, reddening yet more. The hat suffered under the nervous, kneading grip of his slender fingers.
"Oh? Then please, tell me what you can do," Pendragon said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. The kid was staring at him as if he were about to be eaten. Not an uncommon reaction, but poor Captain Quartz was always surprised by it. Especially from a boy with so many notches in his ears--he looked like he had dealt with worse things than a well-dressed merchant captain drinking tea.
"I been skiffin' since I were ten, and I been a sailor on three independent vessels--adds up to jus' over two years. I was a ship's carpenter some four years afore that, buildin' an' fixin' 'em. I'm a right good carpenter, if I say so m'self, an' can lend a hand t'most anythin' on decks. I'm right good at buildin' cupboards as no one else'll find--somethin' of a hobby o' mine some cap'ns find useful. I ain't picky 'bout wages, berth, or food--'Slong as you don't make me pray for it, cap'n, sir," said the feline, nearly all in one breath.
"Slow down, son--contrary to popular belief, I don't bite," Pendragon offered, smiling. "Do you have any letters of recommendation?"
Shin-sin-fa cringed. "Not with me, but I reckon as I could get some. Only not afore tomorrow, cap'n, sir," he added woefully, his eyebrows raising in apprehension.
Pendragon shrugged. That sounded like they would not be real anyway. There was a rough air about this youth, despite his overtly feminine features, and the captain had his doubts about his applicant's honesty.
"Where are you from?"
"Hanfudon," the boy intoned, thumbing out the window. The planet's tri-syllable name became one word in his hurry to spit it out. "The Imperial half of it, cap'n, sir." Ahh, that explained the boy's thick sailor accent--when he learned Common, he had probably picked it up directly from the ships he was sailing.
"What makes you think I should hire you?" Pendragon asked frankly, leaning back in his seat.
The boy looked taken aback, and swallowed before beginning hesitantly. "I don't know it's my place t'be, y'know, toutin' m'self an' all." He blushed again and his large, pointed ears swung down sharply before he looked up, meeting the captain's eyes. "I'm damn loyal, cap'n, sir. I do what I'm tole, I don't never start fights--"
"Don't start fights?" Pendragon asked shrewdly, having caught some fraction of hesitation before the word.
The lad shut his eyes quickly in an exaggerated wince and then looked up again plaintively. "I get picked on a bit sometimes, sir, on account o' lookin' so--well, a few've thought I was makin' eyes at 'em, cap'n, sir. I weren't," he added hurriedly.
Pendragon tried not to laugh. How perfect is this, he thought. An applicant with no romantic interest in the female crew is just one less problem for me to deal with. Not to mention the boy seemed rather proud of his professed loyalty, and he looked as if he had held his own in a fight more than once. That would be invaluable were they attacked by pirates, and the Theran asteroid belt was full of them. Pendragon also found, to his surprise, an intangible integrity about the boy's manners. The captain had not seen someone so self-abasingly polite (without even a hint of bitterness or insincerity!) in many a year, and the sheer oddity as well as flattery of that forceful respect was winning him over.
Pendragon knew he could not afford to be choosy, and while he might not have taken on a shady character like this under normal circumstances, it was only for two weeks. If the boy was lazy or misbehaved, he could always kick him off as soon as this mission was finished.
Still, he might as well get more information out of the kid before he let him know he was hired.
"What's your name?" Pendragon asked kindly. "And how old are you, exactly?"
"Shin-sin-fa, cap'n, sir. Sixteen, cap'n, sir," the boy responded, blushing yet again. Pendragon was surprised that the kid's smooth, light grey skin wasn't permanently stained pink in an arc across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Or that his tongue hadn't already tied itself in a knot from all the "cap'n, sirs" he had been flinging around.
"What kind of voyages have you been on?"
"How d'you mean, cap'n, sir?" Shin-sin-fa asked anxiously.
"What type of space have you travelled through, obstacles encountered, the length of the trip, that sort of thing."
"Ahh, right, cap'n, sir. I done a lot o' travel through straight space, t' start with, an' through some meteor showers. Been through more'n one attack," he said, wincing before continuing, "An' spent a lot o' time shufflin' cargo through th'asteroid belt 'tween here an' Thera, cap'n, sir."
Unlike Ammalot, it was nearly impossible that the boy could have known where Pendragon was going, unless he had been talking to sailors who had turned down the job--but those lot would already be gone by now, off on other vessels. He raised his eyeridges in surprise. "You've been through the belt?" he asked incredulously.
"Oh, aye. Spent most o' last two years in it, cap'n, sir."
"You're not afraid to go back through it, then?"
Shin-sin-fa laughed, a short, nervous affair that stopped when he realized it might be impolite. He sat up straighter. "O' course not, sir. I actually kind o' like it, cap'n, sir. It's pretty in there."
"What good fortune; we happen to be heading for Thera," Pendragon mused. Well, there was no doubt in his mind but for one last question, and if the boy answered that well, the arrangement could be tried.
"Mr. Shin-sin-fa, my vessel is a licensed merchant ship running a legal cargo. Can you swear to me you are an honest man and your intentions are as lawful as my own?"
The feline nodded without hesitation. "I swear so, cap'n, sir," he uttered, with his right palm in the air.
Pendragon nodded. "If a position as a 'general hand' will suffice, lad, consider yourself hired." He held out a leathery, tanned hand to shake on it, and the boy eagerly accepted. Both of them were secretly pleased that they had the same strength in their grip and let go at the same time. The captain went on, "A deal then, Mr. Shin-sin-fa. We will convene on the ship's deck at this time tomorrow morning--well, more like eight, I should say--when we will hopefully be leaving port. We are still lacking in crew, but I hope to remedy that today."
Nodding again, with a small smile, the lad saluted. "Thanks, cap'n, sir," he said gratefully. "Are there any objections to settlin' in our berths sometime beforehand?"
Pendragon nodded appreciatively. The lad was obviously an old hand at this--new spacers tended to assume their berth would be comfortable without any modifications out of their own pocket money, but there were always some displeased with the fluffiness of their pillow or the brightness of the reading lamp. "By all means, lad. You'll have your choice, as no one else has laid a claim. The Solaris Reverie, at dock 14."
"Thank you, cap'n, sir. I'll see you at eight then, cap'n, sir?"
"Yes, Mr. Shin-sin-fa. Eight o'clock sharp," Pendragon reiterated. He paused for a moment before remembering this overly polite boy was going to wait around until he was chucked out. "You may go and attend to whatever you need to before you leave," he nudged. Shin-sin-fa took the hint, getting to his feet and making a short bow before making his way toward the door.
Suddenly, the lad stopped, and turned around again, looking confused.
"Yes, lad?" Pendragon asked.
"I wondered, cap'n, sir--your last name...?"
Pendragon snorted derisively. "Unfortunately, that terrible beast you are thinking of was my uncle, rest his black soul, and the shared name has brought me nothing but trouble. I assure you, I'm nothing like him. And before you ask: no, I knew nothing of his treasure map, or anything of that sort. The only thing we have in common is our name." The captain scratched his chin thoughtfully. "And, of course, a certain stubborn tendency."
The boy's features broke into another smile, and he nodded as he stepped out into the hall. "Right, thanks again. Good day, cap'n, sir."
At that moment, the sounds of a pack of girls began to echo down the corridor, and the boy ducked back into the room, giving Pendragon an apologetic smile and shrug as he presumedly waited for the girls to pass.
Instead, they walked right by him and into the captain's room.
"Is this it?"
"Aye, says five on it."
"Hello!"
"Hi!"
"I'm Anya!"
"I'm Fahna!"
I can't believe Ammalot had the audacity to send the lot of them at once, Pendragon thought sourly.
Their words chorused together and became jumbled once more. One of the girls conscientiously shut the door, which blocked the scrawny young sailor in. He seemed hesitant, and finally, with an almost squeamish look on his face, flattened himself against the wall to get to the door without touching any of the chattering, smiling applicants. It was a moment before any of the girls noticed the lad, as they were busily trying to introduce themselves and each other all at once. One with a red handkerchief tied over her layered brown hair finally guided her pony-tailed companion out of the way, muttering, "He's trying to get out, Fahna." The feline alien slipped out the door. Halfway into the corridor, Shin-sin-fa re-hatted himself and gave a short wave at the inundated captain before disappearing down around the corner, leaving Pendragon with his odd visitors.