An hour after coming ashore to contemplate a cold, uncomfortable camp, they found themselves sitting down to fresh grilled fish at the captain’s table of the Ferengi, and in celebration of having someone to drink with, he even gave everyone a small, free shot of pre-Daybreak brandy.
After dinner, that night, Jason went up on deck for some air; he could tell that the closet-sized cabin was going to be stuffy, not to mention that I’m in there with two old guys who’ve been eating a couple cans of baked beans a day for more than a week; I don’t think I ever really grasped the expression “old fart” before now.
As he sat in the bow, Whorf Rollings joined him; the two sat together quietly for a while. Finally Whorf said, “You’re from Pueblo? Where they broadcast from? The people that ran WTRC?”
“Yep. I’ve got a wife there with a kid on the way.”
“Suppose a guy was pretty smart and wanted to work hard, but kind of showed up with nothing. Would there be a place for him there?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure there would.”
“Just thinking.” Whorf leaned back and sighed. “Here I am crew on Pop’s big stupid boat that he worked all his life to buy and that we all made fun of.”
“Yeah, what is it about old poops and boats? My family sailed all the freakin’ time. Snob appeal, you know? I mean, we were from Connecticut—oh, God, were we ever from Connecticut—and my dad was just a sales manager for a medium-sized electronics firm, but he wanted me and my brother to be full-bore—and I do mean bore—preppies.”
Whorf was laughing. “Tell me about it. Pop was a dentist. Our older sister Deanna wanted him to call this boat either the Root Canal or the Gold Crown.” They sat silently for a long while; then Whorf asked, “You okay?”
“Just remembering I used to avoid trips to New York because the folks were always reminding me they could take the train down from Connecticut and meet me. And now… well, they’re probably not even alive. And they’ve got a grandchild on the way, and I’d give anything to see them and talk to them.”
“Hunh. In two days I’m going to be in Mom’s kitchen, listening to Pop tell lies about this trip and… well. Some of us don’t know when we’re lucky.”
“If you come on out, ever, it’s lucky to be in Pueblo too. There’s always a spare bed for anyone who will work. And there’s definitely always work. Just don’t come the way I did; there’s got to be an easier path, even if you have to take the boat to Morgan City.”
They chatted idly till the night river chill set in. Jason went below. The tiny cabin was dry and warm from the oil stove, and his two companions were stretched out on their bunks, reading by the overhead oil lamp. Chris said, “We eat breakfast with the second shift, so we’re getting at least ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. Soapy water bucket on the left side of the oil stove, and warm rinse water in the other one, and we left you a clean dry towel.”
As Jason cleaned up, trying, in the narrow space, not to cast shadows on their reading or burn his buttocks on the stove, he thought to ask Larry, “How did you know to do all that bargaining with Captain Rollings to get a good deal?”
“Because his sloop is named Ferengi, his sons have the names they do, and…” He sighed. “One of those things where you had to be there. Went off the air when I was ten.”
Jason was too sleepy, and not curious enough, to pursue the question further. As soon as he was dry, he snuffed the oil lamp, climbed into his bunk, and was barely conscious long enough to relish the feel of clean sheets on bare skin.
DURING THE SAME DAY. CASTLE CASTRO (SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA). 10 AM PST. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2025.
The waste of it all seemed obscene to Bambi; they had used precious electricity in one of the few places that had it reliably to run an even more precious freezer, just to keep her father’s body in condition for this memorial. Then Bambi and Quattro had taken one of the few precious airplanes the United States had to fly here for this memorial, in part so that she could claim her father’s inheritance and declare herself Freeholder of Castle Castro, Earl of San Diego, and Leader of the League of South Coast Castles. And Daddy was right, damn him, there is now every likelihood that Quattro and I will be having the future Duke of California. Or Duchess. Have to tell Quattro that there’s not going to be any stupid rules about boys first in my absolute monarchy.
More waste as she threw the big feast to feed all of Daddy’s vassals and their households (at least there weren’t quite so many of those, since everyone left big forces back at their Castles, with so much recent tribal activity). Even more in the salutes and flourishes, speeches and pomp, as a few thousand people didn’t do any useful work for a couple of days. Daddy, if you had to set up your own little world to run, why couldn’t you have been a Stalinist? We’ d’ve been done in ten minutes and everybody’d be happy with their black bread and potato soup.
Then the long meetings with the vassals, being applauded for changing their conditions of fealty to the same generous ones that Quattro used for the North Coast Castles. Then the endless meetings with stewards in which she told them to keep things running well and she’d be back as often as she could, and that she was sure that anyone who had her father’s confidence would do a fine job. And have the patience of a saint, and be somewhere near perfect, because you were pretty damned hard on help that wasn’t, eh, Daddy? But at least I’m safe assuming these people know their jobs and will do them.
And after that, the long meeting with Carlucci and Bolton in which her old, trusted friends apologized over and over for not preventing what no one could have foreseen, and discussed their efforts to find the holes in Castle Castro’s security and the confederates in her father’s murder. Any other time it would be so soothing to just talk cop talk with these guys; now I have to put all this energy into assuring them I trust them to do the right thing and don’t blame them for what happened, and make myself pay attention because later on I’ll want to remember all this. And not keep thinking Daddy when they say the victim. I wonder how long there is to go?
It was past midnight when Bambi Castro could finally curl up next to her husband, put her face on his chest, and just let herself cry because Daddy was dead, and she was going to miss him forever, and she hadn’t been ready to say good-bye. It was much later than that when she finally fell asleep.
2 DAYS LATER. MANBROOKSTAT HEADQUARTERS (IN THE FORMER BATTERY GARDENS, NEW YORK CITY). 12:20 PM EST. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2025.
“If there’d been any natives here to bargain with,” the Commandant was saying, “I probably could have gotten it for twenty-four dollars, though not in beads. Canned hams, that would’ve been a deal in a second. But almost everyone was dead by the time we got here; we have six thousand people now, but only maybe four hundred were from Brooklyn before Daybreak, five hundred from Staten Island, and less than fifty from Manhattan. And the ones we have didn’t ride it out here in the city. Most of them sheltered over on Long Island or New Jersey someplace, but they were just such compulsive New Yorkers that they came back as soon as the city stopped burning and the Hudson stopped running radioactive. I’m real glad to have them, though—they had to be tough and clever to do what they did, and what would New York be without New Yorkers?”