Despite all that, in the galley, the Fool, Dobbs, was engaged in the ancient past time of baiting the cook.
Dobbs was collapsed across the service window. Three off-shift crew members were so busy watching the show, they had forgotten the food cooling in front of them.
“Water!” Dobbs squeaked. “Water.” She slid off the counter into a little twitching heap on the floor.
Yerusha shook her head and threaded her way between the tables to the coffee urn that had been built into the wall.
Chandra, a grey-haired, bark-brown woman, appeared at the window with an open-lidded bucket in her wrinkled hands. It sloshed. She held it over Dobbs’ head.
Dobbs took one look up and scuttled backwards like a frightened crab. “Help!” She dodged under the nearest table. “That’s a declaration of war, Cook! I’m telling everyone I saw you put blasting gel in that sauce!”
Chandra clapped her hand to her forehead and staggered backwards. “Oh! I am found out! I am undone! I am ruined!”
“I am upstaged,” remarked Dobbs as she crawled out from under the table.
“Now behave yourself, young woman,” Chandra reached meaningfully for a ladle. “There’s work to be done, and unless you want to do it…”
Dobbs slapped her own forehead and stumbled away in perfect imitation of Chandra’s gesture. A comm assistant, who’s name Yerusha had forgotten, chuckled appreciatively. Then, he caught sight of Yerusha. Yerusha nodded to him and sat down at the next table. He got up immediately and moved over to a table on the far side of the room.
Yerusha swallowed her anger with a long draft of very strong coffee. When she looked up, the Fool was sitting across from her, both feet on the table. The chair would have been tilted back if it hadn’t been bolted to the floor.
“I’d be careful with that stuff.” Dobbs pointed toward Yerusha’s coffee cup. “The curry’s not the only place Cook puts the blasting gel. I don’t want to see Al Shei’s face when she’s got to scrape her new pilot off the ceiling.” Dobbs raised an imaginary umbrella and squinted angrily out from under its rim. “That does it,” she said in a good imitation of Al Shei’s Dubai accent. “That is the last time I hire a cook who says she’s a demolitions expert!”
Despite herself, Yerusha chuckled. The comm assistant gave her a disgruntled glance. Dobbs waved cheerily and gestured expansively for the man to come over and join them. Instead, he got up and left.
“Good sign.” The Fool folded her arms. “He at least recognizes when he’s just contributing to a ridiculous situation.”
“You trying to tell me you’re on my side, Fool?” Yerusha took another drink of coffee, smaller this time. The stuff really was strong.
“I’m on all sides. Sometimes all at once,” she added. “Defying relativity is one of those things they teach you when you’re going for master’s rank.”
Yerusha lowered her cup and looked at the other woman speculatively. “I’ve never shipped out with a Fool before. A friend of mine took the Guild entrance exam once. He didn’t even make the first cut.”
“I would sooner jump head first down a black hole than go through the Fool’s Guild qualification process again,” Dobbs gave her a quick smile. “You can’t imagine, the custard pies, the pratfalls, the water balloons…yuch.” She shuddered.
“And the psychology, the sociology and physical aptitude,” added Yerusha. “It seemed like you were expected to have several advanced degrees to get in.”
“Nah.” Dobbs waved the idea away. “We just do that to keep out anybody who doesn’t really have a sense of humor.” She smiled again. “Actually, one of the best Fools I know comes from a Free Home. Cyril Cohen. He’s two years younger than I am, but he took his master’s rating three years before I did, the upstart.”
“Yeah, upstarts,” said Yerusha into her coffee. She wished her memory wasn’t so accurate. “Some people you have to watch every second.” She took another swallow and stood up. “If I don’t get back to the bridge, Schyler’s going to be hollering down the intercom for me.”
Somehow, Yerusha knew the little Fool was still watching her as she left.
Al Shei rolled her shoulders backwards a couple of times, already hearing Baldassare Sundar tch-tching her about making sure she took more breaks during her shift. Shim’on was stowing his gear in the tool locker. The hatch opened and the relief watch, Ianiai, who looked like he was mothered by a black bear, stepped through. At twenty-four, he was the youngest of the crew and still believed he could do nothing wrong. This was only his second trip out.
All of her engineers were younger than she was. Not quite green, but not quite experienced enough to price themselves out of her range. All of them were capable though. Al Shei had put them through their paces alone and with each other before she had hired any of them.
“Welcome on, Ianiai.” Al Shei pulled a set of films out of the drawer near her station and touched her pen to the first one. The assignment notes she’d been recording in it flowed out onto the film.
“How’s things running, Engine?” Ianiai leaned his rear end against the boards.
“Smooth and quiet.” She switched off her pen and put it back in her pocket. “But you’ll be happy to know you won’t be bored. We need a check on all the valves in the water recycling tanks.” She gave him the film. “Don’t want anything compostable backing up.”
Ianiai took the film and folded it away, waving at her in an imitation of an Arabic salute that Al Shei would never forgive Resit for teaching him. “In the meantime, however,” she climbed to her feet, “you have the joy of manning the big chair.” She bowed and swept her hand out towards it. “Relief.”
“Relief active.” He settled into her chair, took out his pen and began tapping menus and writing orders to slave the other monitors to Station One and display all their output in front of him.
Satisfied, Al Shei gave Shim’on a parting wave and headed for the stairs.
Main Engineering was the only inhabited section in the bulb at the end of the drop shaft. The spiral stairs provided a clear view of the cabling, pumps, juncture boxes, and piping that kept the gases, fluids and power that made up the ship’s life blood flowing steadily. Work was mostly done right from the stairs or the sets of staples that served as foot-and-hand holds from the walls. There were obvious reason that the slang term for ship’s engineer was “shaft monkey.”
Al Shei’s eyes scanned the walls of the shaft. She remembered when all of this had been a bewildering tangle. Now her eyes tracked individual lines and pipes to their junctures. Air, electricity, fuel, everything running like it should. The atmosphere around her practically purred.
She smiled at the thought. Good kitty. She patted the stair railing.
As she climbed, her gaze automatically picked out each of the display boards. Deck Four O2, green. Deck One main electric, green. Deck Three water, green. Deck Two nitrogen, blank.
Al Shei stopped in front of the board and snapped open the cover. She swung it back and pried the light strip out with her thumbnail. She held it up to the light and saw the crystals had gone dark grey.
She put the strip back and closed the cover. She took her pen out and wrote BURNED OUT STRIP on the display’s memory board and added the engineering seal so the message wouldn’t be wiped out accidentally. Ianiai would find it when he did his walk-about.
On the way back to her berth, she stopped in at the galley for a hot-box full of Chandra’s curry and a thermos of tea to take back to her cabin.