“What’d you say to him?” Jeremy wanted to know.
It was daunting, to have a pack of twelve-year-olds hanging on your moves. But some things they needed to see happen in order to know they ought to happen among reasonable adults. “I apologized,” he said.
“What’d he say?” Linda wanted to know.
“He didn’t say anything. But he heard me. People who heard me accuse him heard it. That’s what counts.”
Jeremy had a glum look.
“Chad’s an ass,” Vince said.
“Well, I was another,” Fletcher said. “We can all be asses now and again. Just so we don’t make a career of it.—Cheer up. Think about liberty. Think about cheerful things, like going to the local sights. Like going to a tape shop. Getting some more tapes.”
“My others got stolen,” Jeremy said in a dark tone.
“Well, don’t we have money coming?”
“We might,” Vince said. “They said we were supposed to have some every liberty. And we didn’t get anything at Voyager.”
“Ask JR,” Linda said. “He’s a captain now.”
“I might do that,” Fletcher said.
But Jeremy didn’t rise to the mood. He just ate his supper.
That evening in rec he lost to Linda at vid-games, twice.
Won one, and then Jeremy decided to go back to the cabin and go to sleep.
That was a problem, Fletcher said to himself. That was a real problem. He was beginning to get mad about it.
“Am I supposed to entertain you every second, or what?” he asked Jeremy when he trailed him back. He caught him sitting on his bunk, and stood over him, deliberately looming. “I’ve done my best!”
“I’m not in a good mood, all right?”
“Fine. Fine! First you lose the stick and now I’m supposed to cheer you up about it, and every time I try, you sulk. I don’t know what game we’re playing here, but I could get tired of it just real soon.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Why don’t I what?”
“Go bunk by yourself. I was by myself before. I can be, again. Screw it!”
“Oh, now it’s broken and we don’t want it anymore. You’re being a spoiled brat, Jeremy. You owe me, but you want me to make it all right for you. Well, screw that! I’m staying.”
Jeremy had a teary-eyed look worked up—and looked at him as if he’d grown two heads.
“Why?”
“Because, that’s why! Because! I live here!”
Jeremy didn’t say anything as Fletcher went to his bunk and threw himself down to sit. And stare.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Jeremy muttered.
“Yeah, you mentioned that. Fact is, you didn’t do it, some skuz at Mariner did it. So forget it! I’m trying to forget it, the whole ship is trying to forget it and you won’t let anybody try another topic. You’re being a bore, Jeremy.—Want to play cards?”
“No.”
Fletcher got out the deck anyway. “I figure losing the stick is at least a hundred hours. You better win it back.”
Resignation: “So I owe you a hundred hours.”
“Yeah, and Linda beat you twice tonight, because you gave up. Give up again? Is this the guy I moved in with? Is this the guy who wants to be Helm 1 someday?”
“No.” Jeremy squirmed to the edge of his bunk, in reach of the cards. Fletcher switched bunks, and dealt.
Jeremy beat him. It wasn’t quite contrived, but it was extremely convenient that it turned out that way.
Esperance Station—a prosperous station, in its huge size, its traffic of skimmers and tenders about a fair number of ships at dock.
Among which, count Boreale, which had sent them no message, and Champlain, which had sat at dock for days during their slow approach, and because of which, yesterday during the dog watch of alterday, Esperance Legal Affairs had sent them notification of legal action pending against them.
Champlain was suing them and suing Boreale, claiming harassment and threats.
Handling the approach to Esperance docking as the captain of the watch, JR reviewed the list of ships in dock. There were twenty ships, of which three were Union, two smaller ships and Boreale; five were Unionside merchanters… ships signatory to Union, and registered with Union ports. All were Family ships, still, and four of them, Gray Lady, Chelsea, Ming Tien, and Scottish Rose, had chosen to believe Union’s promise that their status would never change: they were honest merchanters who’d simply found Union offers of lower tariffs and safe ports attractive and who’d believed Union’s promise of continued tolerance of private ownership of their ships. JR personally didn’t believe it; nor did most merchanters in space, but some had believed it, and some merchanters had been working across the Line from before the War and considered Union ports their home ports.
Those four ships were no problem. Neither were the three Union ships. They had no vote. Union would dictate to them.
But the fifth of the Unionside merchanters, Wayfarer, was a ship working for the Alliance while under Union papers: a spy, no less, no more, and they had to be careful not to betray that fact.
There was, of course, Champlain, also a spy, but on Mazian’s side—unless it was by remote chance Union’s; or even, and least likely, Earth’s—that was number eight.
Nine through eighteen were small Alliance traders, limited in scope: Lightrunner, Celestial, Royal, Queen of Sheba, and Cairo; Southern Cross, St. Joseph, Amazonia, Brunswick Belle, and Gazelle. Nineteen and twenty were Andromeda and Santo Domingo, long-haulers, plying the run between Pell and Esperance, and on to Earth. Those two were natural allies, and a piece of luck, at a station where they already had a charge pending from a hostile ship, not to mention a hostile administration.
Those two had likely been carrying luxury goods, having the reach to have been at ports where they could obtain them; and they would be a little glad, perhaps, that they’d sold their cargoes before Finity’s cargo hit the market, as that cargo was doing now, electronically. Madison was in charge of market-tracking.
“Final rotation,” Helm announced calmly. They were on course toward a mathematically precise touch at a moving station rim.
“Proceed,” JR said, committing them to Helm’s judgment. They were going in. Lawyers with papers would be waiting on the dockside. Madelaine had papers prepared as well, countersuing Champlain for legal harassment.
Welcome, JR thought, to the captaincy and its responsibilities. He hadn’t asked the other captains whether to launch a counter-suit. He simply knew they didn’t accept such things tamely, he’d called Madelaine, found that she’d already been composing the papers; and the Old Man hadn’t stepped in.
He didn’t go, this time, to take his place in the rowdy gathering of cousins awaiting the docking touch in the assembly area. Bucklin would be there. Bucklin would be in charge of the assembly area setup before dock and its breakdown after, and Bucklin would be overseeing all the things that he’d overseen.
That meant Bucklin wouldn’t be at his ear with commentary, or the usual jokes, or sympathy, even when Bucklin found free time enough to be up here shadowing command. Bucklin wouldn’t observe him for instruction, not generally. Bucklin would concentrate his observation on Madison, ideally, and learn from the best.