Research would have to be done later though. She needed a full bio on Marcus Tully, and another on Jemina Yerusha. The file downloaded into the ship’s book was next to useless. Like Schyler and Al Shei, Yerusha was holding something back. It might be something totally unrelated to whatever was marring the mood of senior crew, but it was there all the same.
Dobbs chuckled and shook her head ruefully. What’s this ship run on? Hydrogen and boron or secrets and mysteries?
She’d spent a chunk of the previous evening in the galley with the Sundars. Like Fools and Chief Engineers, a ship’s galley crew never really went off shift. Harry Dalziel, the steward, was the one on official active duty. He split his time between the kitchen and the laundry. At the same time, Baldassare poured over films detailing the menus and cross-referencing them with the inventory the ship carried versus the inventory he need to acquire at the next stop. Chandra had brought their AI box in from the sick bay and perched it on the corner of the central counter so she could update the crew health records from the notes she’d made during the day.
“Actually, most of Al Shei’s crews are as straightforward as you could want to serve with,” said Baldassare. “She and Schyler don’t have much use for the brooding type who takes to the stars to forget.”
“Or to dodge the greens,” added Chandra. “Recent circumstances notwithstanding.”
“Ah, Grandmother Chandra, I see through you.” Dobbs waggled her finger at Chandra. “You’re talking about Yerusha, but are too polite to name names.”
Chandra snorted. “Hardly. Yerusha may be a problem child, but the greens are not a problem for her any more than they are for any other Freer with a loud mouth.”
“Isn’t that redundant?” remarked Baldassare.
“When did you join the Fool’s Guild?” asked Dobbs.
“The day I was born, girl, the day I was born,” he answered amicably.
“What I was saying,” cut in Chandra, “is that everybody is here because they want to be, not because they have to be. It makes all the difference.”
“It does depend on what you mean by ‘have to be,” mused Baldassare. “Al Shei does have a way of finding people who really need her. Tully, Schyler, Lipinski…”
“Lipinski?” Dobbs’s eyebrows shot up of their own accord.
Baldassare nodded. “Lipinski needs a place he can work without interacting with AIs. He was actually an apprentice on a comm-crew when Kerensk went down. It hit him hard, and I don’t think he’s had much help getting over it.”
“Which explains his problems with Yerusha. He can’t think much of a people who think independent AIs are close to gods.” Dobbs sipped her tea. As long as humans had sailed in ships, no one knew more about crew dynamics than the galley crew. It made them a Fool’s natural allies and Dobbs was always careful to cultivate their friendship. She was glad the Sundars were so amenable.
“At bottom, Lipinski is a reasonable man,” said Chandra. “Loud, but reasonable. He’ll work around it, especially if he’s prodded.”
Another faint clang shook Dobbs out of her reverie. On the screen, the tanker fell away against the blackness.
“Intercom to Pasadena. Secure from refueling,” came Schyler’s voice through the speaker. “Four hours to jump.”
Dobbs snapped the catches on her straps and folded the chair back into the wall. Part of her training at Guild Hall had been how to live optimally in confined spaces. She had draped swaths of green and blue painted faux silk across the walls to help soften the corners. She had mounted her two flexible memory boards on opposite walls from each other. One of which showed a starscape, the other of which showed a sunny day in the green hills of Ireland. She had never been there in the flesh, but she liked to look at it. On the wall next to the desk hung a full length, faux-glass mirror. Like Al Shei, she had piles of pillows in the corners of her cabin, fastened down with velcro to keep them from floating around during free-fall. The overall effect was an airy, comfortable one and Dobbs was quite pleased with what she’d been able to accomplish with her thirty-five pounds.
“So, prod I shall.” Dobbs struck a pose in front of her mirror. “Until the very rivets of the Pasadena ring with the mighty shouts of accord between Jemina Yerusha and Rurik Lipinski!” She shook her fist toward the ceiling, took a good look at her reflection and laughed.
Maybe I should put in a call to the Guild, though, she thought, turning away from the mirror and smoothing her tunic down. Not due to report in for another week, but maybe I should get an advisor on for this run. She opened her night-drawer and put her juggling scarves inside. She took out a flattened spray of paper flowers and tucked them into her right-hand pocket. Four shiny gold coins went into her other pocket. It was important to rotate her props on a regular basis to preserve the element of surprise. She decided against the knotted chain of colored handkerchiefs that she carried up her left sleeve. That particular display did not seem to go over well with this crew.
She hooked her finger around her necklace and contemplated the flat, black box in the bottom of the drawer that held her private communications equipment.
In the back of her mind, she heard Amelia Verence chiding her. “Dobbs, you have got to learn the balancing act,” said her tutor and sponsor, “the Guild is a safety net, an information resource, and a back-up, but they can’t do your job for you. Master of Craft means you’ve mastered working on your own.”
“You’re right,” she said aloud to the memory. “I just wish I knew what about this run is making me feel so…young.” She shoved the drawer back into the wall. “Enough stalling, Dobbs,” she told herself. “Time to go to work.”
Lipinski first, she thought as she breezed out into the corridor with her professionally cheerful expression fixed on her face. Yerusha she could tackle later, after they’d made the jump past light-speed.
Dobbs took the stairs down to the comm center. Pasadena was a clean ship, but the inside of the comm center gleamed. All transmissions were captured using the center’s main boards outside. Then, they were screened to verify that they contained only what they were contracted to contain and nothing else. After that, they would be transferred into their prepared storage space behind the sealed hatches of the data hold.
The repair benches, transmission boards and duty stations were all to one side. The other side had its own hatches, sealing the main storage facilities away from the rest of the ship. One of the repair benches had its lid closed and the red lock-light was shining, indicating somebody was doing some secure work. Dobbs filed that fact away for later.
Odel, Lipinski’s relief, sat at Station Three, the coordination board. He glanced up with one round black eye as Dobbs stepped through the hatch.
“If you really want to be here,” he whispered, “you are a bigger fool than you look.”
Dobbs snapped her fingers. “That’s what I forgot to do. Work on that dimensional relativity control.”
Odel snorted. “Fine, take your own chances when the bodies start flying.”
“Bodies? Linear!” Dobbs rubbed her hands together.
Station One, the main transmission station, was a standard board and chair set up. Lipinski sat on the deck next to the chair. One of the repair hatches was open in front of him and he bent so far inside it that his long nose was almost touching the exposed wiring. Above him, Yerusha leaned over the station’s memory boards.