Raschid got.
That night, Moran grudged a compliment. The mess in front of him was better than usual. Raschid blandly explained that he had used some new seasonings. Glucose, acetone bodies, minerals, fats, creatine... Moran told him to shut up before Raschid reached uric acid.
The crew had sobered enough to concentrate on their new enemy: Raschid. There was nothing that could be done about the ship, except pray it made it to a landing where one could desert. That sealed cargo—it would prove trouble in its own time. Their still-unknown next port? It would be another sinkhole—the Santana took only those cargoes that nobody would handle for worlds that no one but the desperate would land on.
The officers? Jarvis was either drunk and invisible, drunk and visible, or a sober, ghostlike image, huddling on his own bridge.
Moran? Bitch to the mate and hope there's still some med supplies left in what was called sick bay. Raschid admired—intellectually—Moran's lethality. The man seemed unable to give a command without a blow, and the blow always hurt, just enough for an instant, an hour, or a day's agony, but never badly enough to take a man off watch.
D'veen? Why bother? She kept the Santana's drive working. 'Sides, she's no different 'n any of us. Took any slot offered to get away from dirtside. Times're tough f'r any deep-space sailor. Take it out on the cook. Somehow he's responsible for the slop. Don't matter if he come on on'y an hour b'fore lift.
Raschid ignored the complaints, insults, and then threats for a while. Then the following sequence of events occurred: A tureen went against a bulkhead. The thrower went after it. Someone came out with a knife. The knife became two pieces, and Raschid attempted to duplicate the effect on its wielder. Two other crewmen jumped Raschid and went against the tureen-bulkhead.
This crew was exceptionally thick, Raschid decided, deep in the dogwatches, when he heard the fumbling at his door. After the flurry subsided, he rousted out the off-watch and had them carry the avengers to the sick bay. He bandaged as best he could. He did not have the supplies or knowledge to straighten the second man's nose, but he consoled himself that he was not the first or even, most likely, the tenth to smash it. He set the third man's leg and the next day, when Moran threatened to brig the now-useless sailor, convinced the mate he could use some help in the galley.
Not that there was much to do between planetfalls. On a normal ship there would be maintenance, cargo handling, and so forth. On the Santana, why bother? Scrape rust... and one could well go right through the hull.
That added to the mutterings—the crew had little to do when they were off watch. Moran was even a lousy bully mate—as long as crewmen stayed out of his sight and showed up for their watch, he didn't care.
Very, very stupid, Raschid thought. Matters were getting tense. The crew had gone beyond complaints into sullenness. They were beginning to talk once more, some of them, two, sometimes three at a time, talking very quietly in corridors or unused compartments. The talk could be of only two things: murder or mutiny. Or both.
Raschid watched closely and listened where he could. There were three sailors he thought would be ringleaders. He used his new potwalloper to background the three.
Then he sought them out. One had been part of the off-watch ambush party. All T'Orsten wanted was trouble, and promised that part of that trouble would be thin-slicing Raschid at the first possible moment.
The second was a basic bully. Cady. All she was unhappy about was that Moran was a more successful, more dangerous bully.
The third, however, was a bit more complex. Engine Artificer Pitcairn. She tried to sound no different than the others and mostly succeeded. But Raschid heard the echoes of some kind of education in her speech. He paid close attention to the woman—and his attention was noted.
She sought him out in his quarters.
"Wanted to ask you something about dinner," she began, and pointed to the com.
"It's clean," Raschid said. "Moran or somebody had an induction pickup inside. It don't work no more."
"Pretty sophisticated for a hash slinger."
"Not sophisticated. Just careful."
"You SDT?"
Raschid shook his head.
"Didn't think so. Pease Lines don't hire nobody but scabs. Or those who don't claim a union card."
"Like you?"
"Hard stayin' militant when you been beached for a couple of years. Plus where I boarded, union organizin' was a bit risky."
Raschid's curiosity about Pitcairn was satisfied. The Ship, Dockside, & Transport Union was on hard times. It was famed as a militant and understandably aggressive organization; the Empire's down economy made it easy for bosses not only to force yellow-dog contracts on any spaceport workers, but to blacklist any union official or organizer.
"Reason I wanted to talk... this drakh can't keep on the way it has been," Pitcairn said. "If Moran don't beat somebody to death, Jarvis'll get blistered an' navigate us into a collapsar."
"Mutiny's a hard way to go."
"Nobody said nothing about that. Yet."
"What other options do you—do we have? I don't see any grievance committees lurkin' out the porthole."
"You're quick," Pitcairn said. "Course th' others ain't figured that out yet."
"How many are in on it?"
"Ten. You'll make eleven."
"That's a start. But we don't have enough goin' for us. Run up the black flag—that closes out the options. Especially if an officer gets dead or marooned to death in the process. Bosses get hostile, somethin' like that happens. They'll hunt us all down, however long it takes, and we'll be dancin' Danny Deever."
"You talk like you've got some experience."
Raschid started to answer by saying "Not for a couple of thousand years or so," then stopped. Where the hell did that come from? He wasn't Methuselah.
"I read," he said instead. "But let's say nobody feels real logical and the drakh comes down. What then? We got ourselves a ship. Maybe half a fuel load. With a cargo. Which gives us what? This scow ain't suited for smuggling, and the on'y place people go piratin' is in the livies.
"Say we head for whatever Smuggler's Roost we can find. What are we gonna get for what's in the hold?
"Somethin' better. Where we headed? What kinda armpit? Desert with cannibals, or someplace where we klonk Moran over the head, jump ship, and live with what we got?"
"Good questions," Pitcairn said after thinking. "We need more skinny. Can't compute with what we got. Problem's gonna be keepin' somebody from gettin' assed, goin' berserk, and we got blood on the bulkheads."
"You rabble-roused for the union. With only twelve goons to worry about, you oughta have no trouble keepin' 'em under your thumb," Raschid said.
"For a while," Pitcairn said, "I can do it. But they ain't gonna stay in a holdin' pattern forever. We better get more info quick."
Four ship-days later, they did. Their destination was the Cairenes—specifically, the capital world of Dusable.
"That ain't good," Pitcairn observed. "I organized there for about twenty minutes. If there was an honest being in the whole damn system, I never met him, her, or whatever. Plus they got a righteous depression goin'. We jump ship there, we'll be on the beach a long, long time.
"You know anything about Dusable?"
Raschid was about to say no, but didn't. Because he suddenly realized he knew a whole hell of a lot about the system and the way it worked. But he could not remember ever having visited or read anything about the Cairenes.