Friends and Enemies (Gwen Farris Book 5) (21 page)

She nodded.

"You look like saints, that way, compared to what we have back home. I haven't seen so much as a bare shoulder since I've been here, you know?" That was pretty much true, except for a bit of flesh flashed during fights.

There was a happy clap then, and a rustle of paper as the man got things around for their job.

"Good then. We'll go when we get into port? If you get the time. Now, I was thinking Holsome and Fitch for the next watch? They're the only two that weren't half drunk when they came in. that's the hard part of a crew like mine. Working out who was drunk last."

Chapter nine

The days kind of dragged on after that.

The airship was, probably like most of them were, big and slow. That, how everything moved at a glacial pace, was one of the things that Gwen really just kind of hated about the new world she'd found herself in.

Right now it was making her cranky.

Moody in a way that no one around her deserved to have to put up with. They all
did
it, because there was no other choice, being trapped with her like they were. The back of the boat, the loading area, was empty now. Finally. The floors dirty and dingy, compared to the well swept and tidy Peregrine. Even the brass safety railings looked like they needed about six years of polishing in order to fix. Bits of tarnish had grown over time, until the whole thing was just a bit poor looking.

That was another difference that she was just starting to notice about her new world compared to her expectations. The place wasn't a rich steampunk operation out of a movie in the slightest. Once the covering of vast wealth and power was pulled back, even a tiny bit, the whole place was just like anywhere else. It was a bit disappointing to realize, actually. At the Vernors, or even in the areas just around them, the entire place had seemed so different. Lustrous and polished, all the time.

Now she didn't know if that was true, even for the things she'd seen firsthand.

Oh, in the end it wouldn't be all dirt and downtrodden masses either. That was probably the rule in all worlds. The rich were called that for a reason, and the poor made do with what they had. It
could
be shared a bit more evenly though, without hurting anyone too much. Spread out so that one person didn't hold so much of the value that only
they
had a decent life.

Beth had been helping with the unloading, watching her the whole time as if she were afraid Gwen was going to fall down. That, or strip her clothing off and run around giving everyone handjobs. For a perverse half second she kind of wondered what that would be like. Not with everyone, but doing something that close with anyone at all.

She never had. It had never been an
option
for her to do anything. She'd never gotten more than a kiss on the cheek either. Even that had been from her father. The man that had raised her, at any rate. Paid by her psycho real mom to watch her.

It left her feeling sad in the moment. Then everything kind of did at the moment, so she ignored the idea.

Her life had made her stronger than regular people in some ways. She knew sadness first hand and long term, and how to handle being in a bad mood, because it had been her entire life for so long. Most people were taken off guard when they felt like this. For Gwen Farris it was so normal it was nearly her real super power.

She glanced over at Beth, and shook her head a tiny bit, not understanding what was going on in particular. Her blonde friend had been acting suspicious again. It had happened a few times now, since she'd gotten to this new world, so she knew the signs of it.

The first time had been about the fear the Gwen could be taken over by someone else, which had, in the end, actually been all about Katherine. The Westmorlands weren't perfect in all things, and had some gaps, even in their magic, as powerful as it was. For instance, they didn't do well with death.

They could
kill
, on command certainly, but their telepaths couldn't read the mind of a dying person very well, if at all. Their precogs couldn't see where the bodies were. Which made some sense, given that they worked for nobles, who were, by definition, the ones with things like that to hide that had a right to.

So Katherine and her had to mess them up a little bit. More to the point,
she
did. The fact was, no matter how it was sliced, she was dead. A ghost invading another person's mind, possessing her body. Stealing her life away, as if she had a right to it.

It didn't take a rocket surgeon to work out that Beth was afraid that Kate was taking over. It also didn't take a lot of effort to understand that it was probably the fair thing to have happen.

'Oh, stop it, Gwen!'
The voice in her head still seemed snooty and a bit to commanding, coming from such a waste of space.
'Miss Westmorland might be suspicious of
me
, but she trusts you beyond all reason. You should know that by now. As for you being the invader here... I have to suggest that the fault really is mine. I may not be the perfect person, but even I can see that much. Now. So stop being a sad Susan, or I will take over and start servicing all and sundry. Teach
you
not to be maudlin, won't I?'

It was geared toward humor, rather than attack, so Gwen didn't play back, not being able to care at the moment. Her normal personality was starting to come back, it seemed.

The problem there was that she had never really liked herself all that much.

At the back of the loading deck there was a bit of a cluster. Men standing there, watching, as the last of the bundles of goods were being loaded onto the wagons. There was a new man standing there, tallying the whole thing, doing figures as he stood, using a rather standard looking clipboard and pencil. The one in use here was a bright enough red that it showed from the other side of the space.

Without waiting, not wanting to stand there like a tourist herself, while the man did his job of figuring out the breakage and loss ratio for the trip, she called out. Her voice was a bit rough, like she'd been yelling at people for days. Given that she
had
, off and on, her anger getting the better of her at times, everyone else being so slow and lazy, it felt well earned.

"Let's get this place swept out and ready for the next load." That wouldn't be coming for two days, which meant that the men got leave in town until then. They were eager to get to it, so groaned at her.

They did that a lot.

This time, instead of sneering and acting like they were idiots, she forced a grin.

"Come on, don't be whining little bitches. You
know
that you aren't going to want to do it any more in a few days when you stumble in half drunk. If we work this part now, it will be done and over."

Givens muttered, and looked at her from the corner of his eye, his gold hoop earring shining at her. Twinkling in the combination of glow lamps and natural morning sunlight, which worked its way in from the open back portion of the airship.

"Can't see as how it matters. We don't lose points for things being a little dusty." The big man didn't really glare at her, but it was pretty clear that
he
wasn't going to be mopping up all the time, as soon as she was gone.

It was true, too. Functionally speaking it
didn't
matter, as far as actual shipping went. They didn't get paid for spiffy. They made their money by being fast, consistent, and not breaking shit. Only two of those were under their real control. The first one was all about what the Captain did, along with the weather.

She nodded, as Beth walked over with three brooms, holding one out to the man. Like a present. An unwanted box, filled with goat droppings, from the way Givens glared at it.

Gwen explained her reasoning, making up some bullshit on the fly, trying not to sound dejected as she did it.

"It's about the minds of the men, Givens. When a person does a job, they take responsibility for it. The more they do it, the more invested they are in always getting things done. It seems weird, I know, but clean floors and shined railings lead to a well running ship, just as much as not being drunk on duty does. It isn't a direct thing, but in the long run people will take more pride in what they do, if they do it all the time, and that leads to a smoother operation."

The man knew when his balls were being buttered, it seemed. It was an odd, and clearly crude, turn of phrase, but Beth smothered a smile with her right hand as soon as she passed the wooden handled straw broom over to the man. The words had been muttered, but clearly enough that they all got the idea.

Then, as if the whole thing had been his idea, Givens bellowed.

"Let's get it done. The loss and spoilage will be done when it's done. Standin' on the man like that won't make him go faster!"

The rest of the men, twelve of them, moved then. Slowly, but the work finished before the dock loading boss waved Givens over. There was pointing at the paper, and everyone else started that way, as soon as they had their brooms put back in the supply closet.

After a while, looking a bit grumpy, Givens waved them all over.

"Seems
we're
all going to be paying up for a bit. Loss was point zero nine. Even." He glared at Gwen, and then winked, doing it in a scrunched up fashion that she knew was actually very lascivious. A thing that she'd only been told about after doing it that way herself for about four months.

Everyone else, including Beth and the Vernors had thought it was hilarious, apparently. Her walking around acting like a slut that didn't know what she was doing. It really would have been funny, if the second half hadn't been true. She was so clueless there that it really wasn't a joke. Not as far as she was concerned.

Givens reached out and gave her a hug, moving closer to her than she was used to other people doing. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was enough that Beth moved in and actually pulled on his shoulder.

"None of that please, Mr. Givens. Gwen is a proper lady."

The men chuckled at the interplay, but the crew boss
did
move back, nodding.

"I guess I should have made my play sooner? Hard to beat a Duke that way. Point zero nine! That's the lowest loss ratio I've ever seen on a boat this big. First rounds on me, boys!"

That got a happy cheer, which was probably a bit too much for something as simple as not breaking a lot of stuff, or letting rats and insects eat it. The job took some doing, watching the cargo and making sure things didn't get out of hand, but it wasn't
magic
. Just work.

After that people rushed off, their desire to go get drunk, or laid most likely, sending them all off into the wind faster than most people in their world moved without fire being part of the equation.

Shrugging, she looked at Beth, and smiled, trying to be a bit more pleasant than she had been for a few days. It was simply that she was feeling watched. Observed on a level that wasn't normal. Nearly an intense staring, like every tiny movement, and each facial expression, was being recorded. Beth could do that, in a certain analytical state, but she wasn't in that one at the moment. She only used it for investigation. Without someone else to get her out of that kind of thing she could end up being stuck.

It was close though. Intense and pointed. Like she was waiting for a mistake to be made. One she could capitalize on.

"Gwen, dear? We should go and get our gear. We can't know how long the investigation will take, and need to make preparations to stay for some months."

That was the first that she'd heard about the idea of the trip being longer than a few weeks, all told, but kind of understood what was happening. For some reason she was being kept out of play, back home. Not that it had totally been kept from her understanding what was going to happen.

The only thing there was that she didn't know
why
that would be. Just that she was being watched again.

Sure, she could rift, in theory anyway. No one had made that big of an issue of it however, that she could tell. Even Beth had told her that Adam freaking Westmorland
himself
had basically brushed off the idea instantly. Not because he didn't think she could manage it without the rest of the training, either. He actually thought she
could
. He just trusted her not to abuse the ability.

For some reason.

There had been no call from King Ferdinand, asking her to not do it either. She'd chatted with Christophe a few times, using the telestator room for personal business on the trip, which wasn't forbidden, as long as you didn't use the thing constantly. It was the kind of thing she sucked at. Being a good fiancée, or even
girlfriend
was so far outside of what she knew that it was practically alien to her.

That part had been a bit strained. It was almost as if Chris had been constantly censoring himself. He'd let slip that the king was actually happy with her progress, however.
Glad
that her goal of putting rifting into an object was coming along ahead of schedule. Happy with what she'd managed to get done on the project so far, without the underlying panic that
she
would have felt if someone she knew to be a killer had that power.

So it didn't seem like it was all about
that
. She could understand if it were, of course. Power corrupted and all that, or so she'd heard people say. It seemed to her that it was kind of a personal choice, if you let things go to your head. More than that, the corruption tended to come not from having power, but in what people did to try and
get
it. Gwen decided to be happy enough with what she had. It would be enough to keep her in line, she figured.

Even if she had less, it would. All she really needed was a way to stay fed and housed well enough. In this body, in the world she was in, that was a pretty easy thing to manage.

Instead of making a big scene about the whole thing, guessing at the idea that a certain Westmorland asset wasn't going to simply explain things to her for some reason, Gwen jogged to their shared room to get things cleared out. It wasn't as if she'd unpacked, so it didn't take long for either of them to get things going. After a bit she realized that she hadn't been speaking, just grumping along like she had been for a while now.