After a few ticks of walking me through the controls, O’Rourke went back to her place at the counter. I could see what she meant about the open slots. I went through each ship’s particulars. Her summary of the situation seemed to be depressingly accurate. As large as the ships were, they didn’t need a lot of crew. Out of that small number, the entry-level quarter share ones accounted for only a tiny fraction.
“What’s a share?” I asked, calling to her from where I sat.
“A share is extra pay ya get if the voyage is profitable. Owners, captains, and the other officers get the most, but everybody gets somethin’,” she called back.
“So in an entry-level position, I’d get a quarter of a share?”
“Yeah, but don’t be plannin’ to retire on it. It’s not much. Better than a spanner to the cranium, but it isn’t all that many creds.”
As I looked through each quarter share listing: engine wiper, mess deck attendant, cargo loader, I realized these were the dirtiest tasks and probably boring to boot. I sighed. Beggars, as they say, can’t be choosers. Unfortunately, even begging couldn’t get me a job where none existed. I shut down the terminal and headed for the exit.
“Thank you, Ms. O’Rourke,” I called over my shoulder, as I braced myself to step back into the midday glare.
“Hey, kid, if ya’re serious about gettin’ a berth, pack a bag and be ready to go.”
I stopped with my hand on the door feeling like a big, cartoon question mark was rising over my head.
O’Rourke beckoned me to the counter. “I like ya. Ya remind me of my nephew. Here’s how this really works. No ship will pull in here with an open quarter share, but they often unload a troublemaker. Some idiot signs on but then doesn’t pull his weight. He gets here, to the ass-end of nowhere, and put ashore with no income and no way home. A few days dirt-side gives him a bit of motivation, so to speak, to do better. Of course, that leaves the ship short-handed.”
“And if I’m ready to ship out…?”
“Well,” she said slyly, “ya’d have to be ready to go on a few stans notice and can’t take much with ya. Twenty kilos is the mass allotment for a quarter share. But ya don’t need clothes and there’s hygiene gear on the ship. Only thing ya really need to take is entertainment cubes and personal stuff.”
“I don’t need clothes?”
“Shipsuits, lad, shipsuits. They come with the berth. Ya pay for them out of yer first few chits. But they don’t count against yer mass allotment. One change of civvies will get ya through, if ya’re careful with ’em.” She smiled at me, and I felt she’d just given me some valuable insight. I just had to figure it out.
“Thanks, Ms. O’Rourke. How will you contact me?”
She pointed to the display that still had my data on it. With a couple of keystrokes, she saved it and gave me a broad wink. “I think I’ll be able to find ya, kid. If ya’re serious, be ready. The Lois McKendrick is comin’ in late next week. Rumor has it she’s got some deadwood that needs seasonin’ dirt-side. That gives ya about ten days to get ready.” She pulled a data cube from a rack under the counter and tossed it to me. “Here, read up. It’ll save ya some problems down the line.”
I nodded with a smile of thanks, stuffed the cube in my pocket, and headed home to figure out what to take with me. How do you fit a whole life into twenty kilos?
It didn’t take long to get back to the flat I’d shared with my mother. It still felt weird walking in and knowing she wasn’t there-that I was really alone.
The hardest part was going through her personal things. It made me a bit queasy dealing with her underwear drawer. I felt silly for being so squeamish. I had folded her bras and panties hundreds of times while doing laundry, but this was different somehow. Finally, I took her suits and dresses to the local charity drop. I just emptied the rest into the refuse bin without really looking.
She had a ton of professional stuff like books and papers and such. Her peeda had been with her, and lost in the flitter, of course. She had left a portable computer though. I donated her books to the library, while her pictures, data cubes, and records went into storage boxes. I packed her diplomas on top. Altogether it didn’t amount to much, maybe a hundred kilos in five boxes.
In contrast, looking around my own room, I realized I could walk away and probably wouldn’t miss any of it. My peeda was already stocked and I had some spare storage cubes and my good boots. The problem was my bag. I only had a heavy suitcase. It massed three kilos empty and seemed kind of clunky.
After three days of sorting, tossing, filing, and just generally working my way through the flat, I finally finished. I took out O’Rourke’s data cube and slotted it into my peeda. The title was The Spacer’s Handbook published by the Confederated Planets Joint Committee on Trade. The CPJCT, it turned out, was the arbiter of all things trading related. The cube reminded me of the scout manual I had as a kid. It had everything you needed to know about being a spacer: what to wear, how to wear it, and when and whom to salute. A little holo clip showed the proper technique for the later. The saluting part wasn’t too difficult, and you only did that under special circumstances, and only to officers.
The manual listed the various ranks and shares: quarter share, half share, full share, and on up to owner’s share. The thing was huge. I checked the size on the chip and gasped when I saw just how big it was. The Encyclopedia Galactica was smaller. I hoped I wouldn’t need to read the whole thing.
The introductory chapter caught my eye with a small section titled: Shipping Out. It explained the mass allotment increased as you rose through the ranks. As O’Rourke had said, the shipsuits were provided and items like toothpaste, shampoo, and shaving gear were all standardized and available on board. The Handbook recommended that a new shipmate should report wearing decent civilian attire and not worry about a change of clothing. The illustration showed a somewhat dated picture of what a well-dressed person might wear to a casual dinner with a friend. The jackpot in this section was the recommendation of the duffel bag for loading your gear. The lightweight mono-mol bag encompassed almost a half-cubic meter of volume, but massed less than twenty grams and could be folded up to about the size of a handkerchief when empty. Spacers considered it a standard and, according to The Handbook, “could be purchased at a reasonable cost at any Union Hall.” I smiled, thinking I should pay another visit to my friend O’Rourke. In the meantime, I started weighing out gear on the bathroom scale.
Twenty kilos turned out to be a lot.
Chapter 2
Neris Orbital
2351-September-03
My peeda trilled sharply, jarring me awake. The display showed a simple text message from O’Rourke: Time to go! I was more than ready. I wanted to get on with it before the anticipation drove me crazy, or my money ran out. While the payout from the company had been enough to cover ninety days’ rent, I had other expenses to cover and my funds evaporated at an alarming rate. The sooner I stopped paying to live on Neris, the better.