Despite his… unusual feelings, he was in a good mood-almost giddy-and seemed possessed of an abundance of almost jittery energy. He turned off the water, wrenched the tattered green curtain aside, and grabbed a towel. Mostly dry, he pulled on his skivvies and started aft, whistling “Deep in the Heart of Texas” while still vigorously toweling his freshly trimmed hair. He almost didn’t see Diania standing at rigid attention and holding a salute as he padded through the wardroom.
“Jesus, girl!” he shouted defensively, quickly wrapping the towel around his middle. “What are you doing here?”
The forward crew’s head had-of necessity, in Matt’s view-been reserved for all “female” personnel. It made things inconvenient for everyone, and there was a lot of griping, but the human destroyermen still aboard simply weren’t ready, in any sense, for coed crappers. Exceptions were made when the crew was at battle stations, but even then, some care was exercised-a knock on a bulkhead, a shout of warning. While Walker was at anchor, a meagerly screened “fantail crapper” was rigged over the starboard propeller guard, and anybody could use that. It took a little of the pressure off.
“The Lady… Lieutenant Sandra sent me ta’ fetch somethin’ fer her… an’ I coudnae find Mr. Marcos!” Diania stuttered fearfully. She deeply admired Captain Reddy, but she was scared of him too. In her mind, he had more power than the Governor-Emperor-and she knew he was against women in the Navy.
“Well, get whatever it is and scram!” Matt said less harshly. “And in the future, don’t go running around officers’ country without an escort!” he added a little apologetically, suddenly struck by his hypocrisy. They probably had to deal with this all the time in the crew’s berthing spaces, and despite her status as engineering officer, Lieutenant Tabby had remained in the aft crew’s berth. But Sandra lived in “officers’ country.” Of course, she’d been there long enough to know the rules, to make her presence known, and, besides, well, she was a “doctor.”
That didn’t mean the arrangement was fair, and things were bound to get more complicated soon, particularly as more women inevitably joined them. He realized that without thinking about it, and because he hadn’t thought about it, he’d left a glaring, possibly hurtful hole in his otherwise blanket insistence that Lemurian females-and he guessed women too, now-had to receive, to count on, equal treatment in all respects. It seemed just like the Lemurians, Matt’s men were always having to make adjustments. He sighed.
“Forget it, Diania,” he said. “And, by the way, we don’t salute indoors.” He tightened his towel and marched down the passageway to his stateroom, realizing he needed to pass the word for Tabby to shift her gear forward-and the chiefs’ quarters were going to get more crowded too. The men might bitch, but with the bigger jobs came the few perks that helped reinforce a chief’s or officer’s authority. He determined then that aboard Walker, and in his Navy, discrimination of any sort would never be tolerated- Except when it comes to the heads, he amended.
By the time he pushed his own curtain aside and hung up the towel over his little sink, he was whistling again.
Resplendent in their immaculate Whites-and God knew how Juan and his small division of stewards and laundry ’Cats had accomplished that — Matt and his party stepped ashore and boarded the trolley waiting to take them to the Cathedral of St. Brenden in the heart of Respite City. It was the first covered trolley Matt had seen and it was generously carved and gilded. The driver told them that it once belonged to the Company director, but Matt was grateful for the protection it afforded them, because the humidity in the valley where the bulk of the city lay was oppressive and afternoon storms were common. Other trolleys would bring a large percentage of the rest of the crew to join them, leaving a small but alert watch aboard the ship. Maybe Matt had grown paranoid, but it seemed to him that far too many bad things seemed to happen whenever their guard was down, and even Governor Radcliff agreed. The Respite militia was in a high state of readiness, and a couple of picket ships had been sent beyond the reef to reinforce and broaden the range of the guard ships stationed there.
The smallish trolley was filled almost to capacity because Spanky, Gray, Chack, Kutas, Campeti, Juan, and even Silva all attended Matt on this fateful journey. Midshipman Brassey would join them at the cathedral as an Imperial representative in the party. Little conversation passed among the group, and what did was somewhat awkward. Of those in the trolley, only Gray and Campeti had ever been married before, and the adventure ended in disaster for them both. In neither case had the proceedings been accompanied by such fanfare, and they began to get a real dose of that as they wound through the outlying streets and approached the center of the city. The roadside grew increasingly choked with happily waving well-wishers.
“I… wasn’t expecting this!” Matt muttered, looking at the throng. He wasn’t whistling anymore and even looked a little pale. “I guess I wasn’t this nervous before we fought Amagi!” he suddenly blurted, shocked by the admission his mounting tension released.
“That’s okay, Skipper. You’re s’posed to be scared to death before jumpin’ into somethin’ like this,” Gray assured him. “Hell, that’s one o’ the reasons I only ever did it once!”
“Skipper’s not scared of anything,” Spanky denied. “It’s Juan’s coffee that has my guts in an uproar. That’s probably what’s bothering him too. Sorry, Juan, but by God, it’s time somebody spilled the beans you been murderin’.”
“I don’t think Juan’s coffee is to blame,” Matt objected bleakly.
“Course not!” the Filipino declared, glaring at Spanky. “Snipes poison themselves on burned bilgewater,” he added, referring to Spanky’s previous, longtime status as engineering officer. “I’ve seen it take years to get that sooty swill out of their system! Here, Cap-i-taan Reddy!” he offered, trying to pass him a sick-berth urinal. “In case you feel… ill. I sterilized it myself!”
“Put that goddamn thing away, you idiot!” the Bosun growled incredulously, then snatched the cylinder himself and tossed it under the bench they sat on. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“But his uniform!” Juan objected.
“The Skipper’s uniform won’t get a spot on it, ’cause he ain’t gonna puke. Sure, he’s a little edgy. Who wouldn’t be with all this fuss? I guess if he was the sort to spew, he woulda done it the first time he ever stuck a Grik with his fancy sword!”
The thought of that very sword at his side right now caused a queasy stir in Matt’s stomach.
“Just shut up, everybody,” he murmured. “About… being sick, anyway.” He looked at Juan and offered a weak smile. “Thanks for the thought, but I’ll manage.”
Dennis Silva muttered something and chuckled.
“Think I’d prefer a quick pass by the JP myself,” Lieutenant Kutas said. His scarred face looked pinched as he stared at the crowd.
“It does seem quite a… fuss,” Chack observed. “We do such things much differently, as you know. Why could you not have just a simple ceremony like you performed for Mr. Letts and Nurse Theimer, Cap-i-taan?”
“Because we were all fixin’ to die then, Chackie,” Silva said. “This is politics!”
As was often the case, Silva was more astute than he generally pretended, because politics were definitely involved. Governor Radcliff wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the destroyermen to reinforce Respite’s dedication to the Alliance-and the Empire they’d helped to save. Emelia, as she’d stated, wanted to showcase Sandra and the respect her own people gave her to emphasize the advantages inherent in dismantling the system of female indenture and the advancement of associated social reforms. The… spectacle was also clearly intended to display strong friendship not only to Walker ’s crew, but also to the large number of allied personnel now stationed on the island and the crews of other ships in port. Of course, Matt and Sandra’s decision to wed on Respite demonstrated their esteem for the people there and the Empire in general.