Veedal thought they were crazy, but showed them how to clear their kathir suit patterns. That led to a surprise: the back of the buckle, which looked blank, became a keyboard and display when the proper buttons were pressed. The way it worked wasn’t even all that different from a handheld or phone, and both sailors got the basic idea immediately.
“I think I should not explain any more to you,” Veedal commented ruefully. “You will take my job.”
“No, we not take your job,” Peters assured him. “We have—” he had to search for the word “—associate is very skilled using equipment similar, and he be much interested. He not take your job too, but after he learns to speak, you maybe tired seeing him.”
“If that happens, I’ll call you, and you can tell him to leave,” said Veedal. “But send him to see me when he learns the language. I can’t pretend that I know everything about this machine, and if your associate is skilled with similar ones, perhaps he can help me discover new things.”
Peters didn’t know if it was the suit, Chief Warnocki’s admonitions, or leftover mana from the previous sessions, but the sailors, all First Class, assembled at the practice room hatch and began skinning out of their dungarees, stowing them with low-voiced murmurs among themselves but no overt protest or even comment. He led them inside and dogged the hatch, and when he turned they were all in a close group near him, carefully avoiding controls and windows. He grunted in satisfaction. “All right, the first thing to know is that the kathir suit ain’t really a spacesuit, it ain’t got the horsepower. But it’ll keep you alive when needed, and get you out of tight spots if you know how to work it. Ever’body pull your buckle off and look at it, and we’ll see what the controls are…”
Todd was with Warnocki, helping him talk with the engineer sent down from Ops to look at the trash collection. Peters had handled the initial contact, Todd still being diffident about his ability in Grallt, and was still relishing the look on Warnocki’s face when he’d transmitted the Grallt’s name: Goofig. Goofig wasn’t experienced in dealing with humans, so the Chief had probably managed to keep a straight enough face to avoid offense. Not that it mattered. Goofig was so delighted to encounter people who thought “cleaning up” and “maintenance” were worthwhile pursuits that he was grinning ear to ear and willing to forgive little faults like giggling and rolled eyes when his name was pronounced.
This first group was by way of experiment. Peters had decided on the approach he would take: all business, direct statements, polite commands, not even acknowledging any challenges to his authority. It seemed to be working. Warnocki had used, by his own admission, sweet reason and threats of dismemberment to get Chief Gross to release an issue of twenty-five earbugs. Being able to talk in airlessness was a big help.
By the end of the two utle he’d allocated for the session all of them could navigate around the room on suit thrusters with some facility, and there’d been no overt challenges to his position. He ushered them out, collecting earbugs as they went by, and watched them donning their dungarees with a feeling of relief. This was working. Maybe it would continue to do so.
The second group looked like more of a challenge; it contained all the Chiefs but Warnocki and a couple of First Class with five and six hash marks. Master Chief Joshua gave him looks that promised a reckoning later, but voiced no protests, and Peters kept his tone level and businesslike, with no attempt at command voice; it seemed to work. Unfortunately Joshua was a bit inept with the suit controls, and having to continually rescue him from off-center moves strained both of their composures a little, but they got through it with no more than an exchange of glares. A third group went much the same way, and that brought them up to fourth meal time.
Chapter Sixteen
A Grallt crewmember in four-ways stood watching as the class was filing out. The humans tended to face away from her when pulling on trousers, but she didn’t interfere with the process, just stood watching with folded arms and a not terribly patient expression. Peters glanced at her from time to time, and took Chief Warnocki aside to suggest that future classes dispense with outerwear for the trip to the practice room and back; Warnocki nodded and agreed to talk to Chief Joshua about it.
The woman’s name was Peet, which made Peters wince; she thought it was funny. She spoke quickly, using slang and pronunciation different from the formal words he’d heard from Znereda and the officers on the bridge, but with a little backing and filling they established that Dhuvenig had designated the midships third of the dorsal surface of the ship (Peet called it the “top,” and Peters understood that) as a practice area for working outside. Starting the next llor, there would be no maneuvering during the first ande unless in an emergency, which would be signaled by a flashing light over the bridge. Visibility of the warning light seemed to have been the main factor in deciding which area to allocate. “It’s dangerous,” Peet said. “You can’t talk, and you can’t hear warnings, so it has to be something you can see.”
Peters held out an earbug. “We can talk. We use these.”
The woman looked it over. “What’s this? It doesn’t look like much.”
“We call it—shit.” Peters couldn’t come up with anything idiomatic for “earbug,” lacking a word for “insect,” so he settled for the English word, “Earbug. It is a communicating device.”
Peet used a word. “So tiny? We have them, but ours are—” she held her hands apart, to indicate a large device “—and they are not dependable, the gabble in the valves fails. How do you make the valves so small?”
Peters, who had never even heard of a vacuum tube, didn’t know what to make of that. “I don’t know,” he said. “But these will work for about an ande. Then it is necessary to, ah…” He floundered, unable to come up with anything like recharge the battery in Grallt.
She laughed again and sidled well inside his personal space, laying a hand on his collarbone and smiling into his face. “Earbug,” she said. “What can I do for you that would be worth an earbug, hmm?”
Peters flushed, but he had met girls with that attitude, and worse, in lots of places. Peet was an innocent, relatively speaking. “Apologies,” he said. “These are in my charge, but they belong to others. You must speak to another if you want an earbug.”
She pouted, produced a sound approximating “Aw-w-w,” and smiled, moving her hand over to touch his neck below an ear and tracing down to his clavicle with a forefinger, then backing off with a little push. Peters flushed again. Just because he’d encountered this sort of thing before didn’t make him immune to it. She noted his reaction, plain in the skintight suit, and her smile became a grin. “Another time, perhaps? For now, I should show you how to get to the practice area. Follow me.” She set off, walking with a little more hip swing than necessary, looking back occasionally and grinning, especially at stair landings. Peters tried to keep his eyes on his footing as much as possible. Maybe Commander Bolton was right about the suits after all.
Between stairwells they passed through areas he’d never seen before. These were obviously berthing spaces. People moved around in the corridors and chatted in doorways, and Peters got his first look at a Grallt child, a little girl who stood wide-eyed in a doorway as he passed. He reflected on that for a bit. The little girls he’d known in Whitesville, West Virginia, would’ve run screaming if they saw a Grallt stroll by.