Ships of My Fathers (29 page)

And he sat across from her, eating pork tenderloin: Jimmy Anders.

“This is good — much better than you’ve got down in the galley.”

She shrugged. “Captain’s privilege.”

“I appreciate it, but I don’t think you invited me because you had extra.”

She shook her head. “Your boy has been asking a lot of questions.”

He took a sip of the juice and made a face at its tartness. “Well, he’s curious.”

“He’s getting too curious for my taste, too curious by far.”

Anders shrugged. “Well, he’s never been on this kind of ship before. Things are different here. More cargo workers for starters.”

She smiled at him. “Cargo workers?”

He chuckled. “Well, I could hardly call them boarders, could I?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“So, what kind of questions is he bothering you with?”

She shook her head. “Not me, my bridge crew. I was willing to tolerate his interest in navigation. It seemed a reasonable distraction for him, but now he’s digging through the logs looking at wake reports.”

He made another face, this time not from the tart juice. “Watch reports?”

“Wake reports,” she repeated. “Tachyon winds, sails, trailing wakes. That kind of thing.”

He frowned. “I guess I’ve heard about them. Those don’t actually work, do they?”

She shot him a feral grin. “Let’s not get too deep into how I run my business. It’s enough that he’s been looking where he shouldn’t, and I want it to stop.”

“Why don’t you cut off his access?”

“I already have, but now I’m worried about how much he’s seeing on the bridge in general. We’re keeping clean on this run, for more reasons than your boy, but I can’t turn this into a peace-loving vessel at the flip of a switch. He’s got an eye like Malcolm had, and I won’t have that eye wandering around untended.”

“So what then, toss him in the brig? I remind you that we’re trying to keep his trust, or at least keep it long enough to access the
Sophie
’s computer core.”

“I think we can avoid the brig for now, but I’m growing pessimistic about him handing over those codes in good faith. My security chief agrees.”

Anders shrugged. “Your Mr. Bishop seems unnaturally dour if you ask me.”

“I don’t pay him for his optimism.”

“Obviously. So what do you want to do about Deshmon? We get there tomorrow, right?”

“The boy stays on board. He jumped ship once. I don’t intend on giving him that opportunity myself.”

“What do I tell him?”

“Restricted liberty. He went last time.”

He nodded. “Just as well. You know, he was actually thinking about sending a message back to his ship. Hey, I’m all right and all that.”

She sighed. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this, Jimmy. I really don’t.”

“Restricted liberty, my ass!”

Michael sat up on his bed and bounced a ball against the wall partitioning off the closet. The only other time he had been denied liberty was when he had disobeyed Malcolm, but apparently on the
Blue Jaguar
this was a matter of course. And this turnaround was even faster than the last, nineteen hours.

He threw the ball again, hitting the exact same spot over and over. It made a nice hollow thump against the partition and fell back towards him as a dead weight. His head and shoulders were leaning against structural bulkheads. He had tried bouncing the ball against that, but it had retained too much energy and bounced wildly around the room. He had a private bath across from his bed, but that was a maze of uncatchable ricochets.

So he threw the ball again. By this point, he could see he was leaving a mark on that one spot.

Yes, he knew different ships were run different ways, but the
Jaguar
was almost alien to any ship he had even heard about. He did not have a lot of ship-born peers, but he did run into them at port every now and then. They sometimes complained about things Michael liked, or they raved about things he hated, but by and large, they were all living similar experiences — not so much on the
Jaguar
. How Captain Lewis kept her crew happy was beyond him.

“Better not be restricted next time,” he grumbled. “Or I might have to find another berth.”

Gabrielle pushed the remnants of her lunch around the tray. She hardly expected the food on board the CFS
CP-2133
to be up to the
Heinrich
’s standards, but even for instant food, this was pretty weak. The so-called galley was little more than a refrigerated locker, a speed heater, and a table with four chairs. Then again, with an active-duty crew of five, they probably never needed more than that.

The three passengers had been ordered onto a shifted schedule, two hours off from the crew. “It minimizes the shocks to the support systems that way,” their skipper Morris had said, a lieutenant who seemed far too young to be that fat. Father was using the one shower on board at the moment, while she had breakfast. Her turn would come in an hour, after the water systems had recharged.

She heard footsteps and looked up to see Commander Collins ducking through the hatch. “Good morning,” she said.

He nodded and went to the coffee dispenser. He sniffed at it and added a squirt of cream. “How are you holding up?”

She put on the best smile she could manage. “It’s not home, but it’s okay.”

He sat down opposite her. “At least it’s fast.”

“How fast?”

He shrugged. “Emergency speed is classified, but we’re moving at a good clip. We should reach Tortisia tomorrow and Arvin four days after that. You do the math.”

She already had. It was almost four times faster than the
Heinrich
’s usual plodding pace. Even then, they weren’t sure they would reach Arvin before Michael did. Collins had hinted that the
Blue Jaguar
might be faster than they expected, and they had lost another day and a half at Latera waiting for the next courier run.

“What do we do when we get there?”

“Well, I wish I could have sent word ahead to flag the
Blue Jaguar
, but of course, that message would have gone on this ship. If we get there first, we can be waiting when she docks. If not, hopefully we can hold her before she leaves.”

“You hope? They’ve got Michael. Isn’t that enough to hold them?”

He sipped at his coffee and chuckled. “We think Michael is on board, but that’s a far cry from ‘they’ve got him.’ Captains don’t take kindly to having their ships boarded and searched.”

“Even by the navy?”

“How do you think your father would react?”

She frowned. “Yeah, he wouldn’t like that much.” In fact, she was pretty sure she knew exactly which sections of the commercial shipping code he would quote while standing steadfast in the airlock.

“Then what’s your backup plan?”

He took another sip of his coffee and scowled. “I’m not sure I have one yet, but we have another five and a half days. Do you have any ideas?”

“Other than throttling him when we find him? No, I don’t.” She pushed her own tray away. “But I guess I should start thinking.”

Michael stepped out of his quarters and stood for a moment, counting silently. After twelve seconds, he heard footsteps. Maya Zoland rounded the corner and spotted him. “Hey Michael, what’s up?”

He shrugged. “I was thinking about getting a snack from the galley.”

Maya grinned at him. “That’s a capital idea. I’m pining for one of those brownies myself. Let’s go.”

Michael repressed a sigh and followed along. As if the restricted liberty had not been bad enough, after Deshmon he had been denied access to the bridge for monitoring navigation. Anders had explained that he had been causing too many distractions for the crew and suggested that he simply enjoy the rest of the trip as a passenger. “Get some rack time,” he had said. “Catch up on the latest vids.”

So for two days he had been stuck in his room, a virtual prisoner. Every time he went out into the corridor, another crewmate just happened by and was eager to accompany him on whatever he wanted to do. Last night had been Leo Perez for dinner. This morning had been Chester Walsh for breakfast and then Vince Weston for a trip to the gym. They were all either cargo handlers or mechanical specialists. The
Blue Jaguar
seemed to have an endless supply of them, all with sharp stares and strong arms. He had thought Karen had been muscular, but this Maya put her to shame.

Maya led him to the mess with frequent over the shoulder looks, chatting with him about the most inane topics. Michael followed obediently. Upon their arrival, he looked at the brownies but settled for a muffin instead. He headed back immediately, hearing Maya follow him all the way to the final corridor intersection. “See you around, Michael,” she said.

Michael closed his door behind him and tossed the muffin onto his bed. He leaned against the door, pressing his ear hard against the surface. He listened. Eventually, he heard a pair of departing footsteps. He waited another minute, still listening. Nothing.

So he waited another minute more, and then five more. After ten minutes, there had still been no sound.

He went back into his bathroom and turned on the exhaust fan and then went back out to his door. He opened it but did not go out. He simply stood there by the door and counted. By the time he got to fifteen, he heard footsteps.

This time it was Leo walking by. He stopped outside his door and nodded to him. “You okay, Fletcher?”

“Yeah, I’m airing out the bathroom.”

He sniffed at the air and peered past him. “Ah, I see you’ve been having some of Cookie’s notorious muffins. That’ll stink up any bathroom. I’d stick with the brownies if I were you.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Leo nodded and started down the hall. “Holler if you need anything,” he said.

Like a straitjacket? Michael shook his head and closed the door. He went back into the bathroom and turned off the fan. He stood before the sink, staring at himself in the mirror.

A fucking prisoner! He kicked the wall beneath the sink. It felt good, so he did it again, and a third time for good measure. That last one had made a lot of noise, so he gave up on it and returned to his bed.

“Catch up on the vids,” he said to the empty room. “How about
Forty Days in the Pit
or maybe
Mariner’s Escape
? Yeah, that would be a good one right now. Practical, plus lots and lots of Paula Stone’s cleavage.”

He shook his head and sat up. That was when he saw it. The wall panel beneath his sink was hanging loose. He got up slowly, stepped over, and knelt before it. It was not riveted onto the structural frame like the panels on
Heinrich
had been. It was clipped into tabs in the wall’s metal frame. In his kicking, he had knocked two of the tabs out of their brackets.

He pulled at the loose end while pushing at the fixed end, and before long, the fixed end popped loose as well. The sink pipes came in through a gap between the panels, but the opening from there to the floor was largely clear. He laid down and cautiously put his head through. It was a collection of pipes, vents, and electrical conduits, almost exactly like the spaces he had worked in back on the
Heinrich
.