Your living allowance will now reflect your status as a crewmember of the third precedence. The enclosed is provided in additional recognition of your special effort.By order of Preligotis, First of Llapaaloapalla,
Heelinig, Second for Personnel and Operations.”
Peters looked up at Todd, who was still beaming. “Yes, I read it. It took me a while to puzzle it out,” said the younger sailor without apology. “I thought maybe a little square on the right arm, just below the shoulder, would be about right.”
“Hmph.” Peters looked down at the paper, then up again. “Somehow I can’t see the Master Chief goin’ along.”
Todd shrugged. “Well, it does say if your superiors permit… we never did put the ship’s name on our suits,” he pointed out. He gestured at the desk. “I didn’t open the envelope. I expect we both know what’s inside, but I’d like to know how much.”
“Yeah.” Peters ripped at the envelope, finally getting the flap open. “Not too bad. You need a loan?”
“How much?”
“Let’s see… I ain’t never seen a sixteen-ornh bill before. One, two… sixteen of those. Four squares of ornh.”
“Five thousand dollars, more or less. What’s that?”
“That” was a note in Grallt script, clipped to another piece of plastic paper. Peters read it aloud: ““To crewman Peters, third precedence: This is your share of the salvage of the fighting-ships of Brindalpoalla”—that’s the name of the pirate ship, I found it in the raider CO’s stuff—“as supervisor of the salvage crew: two squares of trade shares. The additional four squares of ornh consitute a bonus.” It’s signed “By order of the First”, like the other one, but I don’t recognize the name underneath. Says he’s the third of Llapaaloapalla for financial affairs.”
“Purser,” Todd suggested.
“I reckon.” Peters was staring into space, calculating, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come!”
“Just passing the word,” said Vogt a little apologetically, looking curiously at the paperwork Peters was holding. “The runner’s just been to the Master Chief.” He extended a plastic flimsy. “We think we know what it says, but you better check it for us.”
Peters took the sheet and scanned it. “Says here liberty’s going ahead, just a little late. The boats’ll be loadin’ after the second meal tomorrow for the trip down.”
“That’s about what we thought we’d made out, but we wanted you to make sure.”
“Yeah,” Peters nodded. The programmer returned the nod and started to close the door, but Peters interrupted: “Wait.”
“Yeah?”
“Everybody got one of these, right?” He picked up the first piece of paper and showed it to the other.
Vogt inspected it briefly and shrugged. “Far as I know. I know I got one, but I haven’t seen the translation yet.”
“It says the Grallt are payin’ for our liberty again, except it’s the ship’s crew payin’ this time.”
Vogt’s eyes lit. “Hey, great! The last couple haven’t been much fun, what with only having our pay to spend.”
“Well, that ain’t a problem this time. Pass the word if you would.”
“I sure will! Thanks, Peters.” Vogt left, unceremoniously in the way they’d all adopted.
Todd was still grinning. “Well, you don’t need for anybody to pay for your liberty,” he pointed out. “I can’t help thinking that a man with a half-million dollars in his pocket can find something interesting to do.”
Peters grinned thinly. “I reckon you’re right.” He eyed the younger sailor. “If I do, you’re invited. My treat.”
“Thankee.”
“Hunh. We been in this together since the beginnin’, wouldn’t seem right otherwise.” Peters regarded the share paper and the number written on it: dash dash two. “Anyhow I reckon it’s better if I go ahead and spend it.”
“How’s that?”
“You forgot who we are? Couple of enlisted pukes. What do you bet there’s some kind of regulation’ll make us turn this in when we get home?”
“You think so?”
“Don’t see how it could happen any other way. The suits’ll be antsy to get all this stuff.” He waved vaguely, indicating Llapaaloapalla and all it contained. “Can’t see ‘em lettin’ a little thing like it belongin’ to me stand in their way.”
Todd had sobered. “You’re probably right.”
“Yeah. Oh, they’ll figure out some way to make it all elegant like, probably like they did when we got back from Palestine, we gotta turn it in for American money.”
“Or they might just call it income and tax it away,” Todd suggested. “You ever had a run-in with the IRS?”
“Not personally… Hunh. 2055 already, and we ain’t even got our forms, let alone turned ‘em in. ‘Course we been kinda busy and pretty far from a mail drop, but that ain’t no excuse to the Revenue.”
“You got that right… what do you suppose they’ll say it’s worth?”
Peters grinned without amusement. “Hell, I don’t know. Dollar a share or somethin’. Whatever it is, it won’t be enough for us to buy any of the shit we’ve been seein’.”
“You’re probably right,” Todd acknowledged with a nod. “So you figure that paper’s either about two good drunks apiece…”
“… or a pretty damn nice time the rest of the cruise,” Peters finished. “I know which one I’m gonna pick. Like I say, my treat. Let’s see if we can spend it all before we get home.”
It wasn’t at all clear what a white web belt and a 5.56mm automatic would do to keep the boogers off if the said boogers came calling with spaceships and nukes, but on balance Peters approved of the bow and stern watches in spite of their seeming futility. As the Master Chief had said, they’d been slipping into a sloppy disciplineless state, and having the regular watches was a Navy-like arrangement that tended to keep their minds on business.
The Master Chief had kept his word: the only ones not on the watch rota were the medics. For some strange reason he and the other Chiefs tended to get the morning and midday watches instead of missing their sleep, but the principle was clear and the example was impressive, if not quite what Peters would have done in the situation.
Llapaaloapalla was rotating slowly, stars drifting by from lower left to upper right. The Grallt didn’t seem to care about that, or maybe they didn’t have the fineness of control to prevent it; at any rate, whenever they were on orbit the ship seemed to wander… as did his mind in this circumstance.
Liberty on P’Vip had been a bust, fortune in his pocket or no. The site, a timber lodge in the midst of a vast snowy plain with little copses of scruffy trees, hadn’t been to anyone’s taste. There’d been nothing around it, and no transportation to more salubrious climes available—Peters had asked that first thing, and gotten what amounted to sneers. The only entertainment available had been trekking in the snow, either on foot or using riding animals like skinny cows.
It had been a relief, really, that the Master Chief insisted on rotating people back up to Llapaaloapalla for the security watches. About all they could do on P’Vip that they couldn’t do on the ship was get stone stinking drunk, and Peters for one didn’t find that terribly entertaining.