Temporary Duty (26 page)

"I got a idea," Peters told him. "I seen the bridge yesterday, and I talked to the XO. I reckon if they can’t give us an answer, they can point us towards the folks who can."

Todd frowned. "Are you confident enough to ask in Grallt? The people upstairs aren’t likely to know English."

Peters sipped
klisti
thoughtfully. "No, I ain’t gonna try that all by myself," he said after a pause. "And no, the bridge crew don’t speak English. They don’t have no reason to, as far as I can see." He scanned the room. "I don’t see Dreelig or Dee."

"I saw Dreelig yesterday. He and Dee, and Donollo, had to go down and do the President of Mars act for the suits in Washington. He probably won’t be back until late."

"Shit. Well, I reckon there’s nothin’ for it but bug Znereda again. I think the professor’s gettin’ a little tired of us." Peters sighed and leaned back. "Let’s take our time over coffee, huh? I don’t think Znereda gets up real early, and I don’t want to add insult to injury by roustin’ him outa the rack."

The little language teacher made no difficulty about going with them, even though they did find him in his nightshirt. «I don’t have a class at the moment, and I have only seen the control room once before myself,» he confided in carefully enunciated Grallt. «I’m grateful for a good excuse to see it again and meet the people there. Thank you for asking me.» He put on a
kathir
suit, irregular splotches of red and purple over the base color, and a jumper and trousers in pale blue over that. «Shall we go?» he asked with a smile.

«Can you prepare me for what we are to talk about?» Znereda said as he puffed up the stairs. «In the Trade, if possible. You need the practice.» Peters tried, with Todd putting in suggestions from time to time, but he had to resort to English for several of the points. The little teacher nodded. "Yes, I understand," he said, then reverted to Grallt as they passed through the door and encountered the first watchstander. «We would like to see Dhuvenig,» he explained.

«Yes,» said the other. «Second door on the right. If he is not there, wait. He will come soon.»

Dhuvenig wasn’t in his office, but breezed in before they had waited more than a few minutes. «Oh, hello,» he said to Peters. «You were here yesterday, were you not? What are you doing here, Znereda?»

«Peters and Todd have some questions to ask, Dhuvenig,» Znareda said. «They aren’t confident of their ability to ask clearly, so they asked me to come along to clear up any misunderstandings that might arise.»

Dhuvenig nodded. «That was probably a wise decision,» he agreed. To Peters: «What do you need?»

«Two things,» said Peters very carefully. When the other nodded, he went on, «Our group been–has been cleaning the operations bay. They collected a large quantity of what seems waste. We want to know what–ah, what should be done with waste.» He paused, out of breath and apprehensive, and looked at Znereda, who beamed.

Dhuvenig only nodded. «Remarkable. Do you mean we actually have people in marketing who care about ship operations? This must be encouraged. I will send people to look over the waste and decide what to do. Where should they go?»

«They should see Warnocki, on the second level, right side, ship storage room four.»

Dhuvenig frowned. «Those are not correct designations,» he said.

«I’m sorry. Just a moment.» Peters reverted to English. "He don’t understand which compartment I mean. What’re the official designations?"

A little back and forth established Warnocki’s whereabouts to Dhuvenig’s satisfaction; the correct designation for the hangar wasn’t a number, but used ship-specific terms that Peters and Todd filed mentally as "hangar, midships, aft." «I will send someone right away,» said Dhuvenig. «And your second question?»

«We –» Peters indicated himself and Todd with a gesture, «– want practice using airsuits outside ship. I was outside once, and it was very, ah, confusing. Is there place where this is normally done, and will the ship move soon?»

Dhuvenig looked alarmed. «You have been outside the ship? When was this? I was not informed.»

«A man fell.» He explained the incident in hesitant Grallt; Znereda stayed silent, grinning, throughout.

«That is bad,» said Dhuvenig. «It’s not normal to go outside the ship. You were careless, and very lucky.»

"Oh, shit, don’t I know it," said Peters in English under his breath, then to Dhuvenig: «Yes, agree fully both points. For this reason we need practice.»

«Yes,» said Dhuvenig. He hesitated. «The zifthakik are not engaged at the moment, except for life support. It is unlikely that the ship will move, but it is impossible to guarantee that without special precautions.» He looked at Peters. «When would you like to practice outside?»

«At your convenience,» said Peters. «If needs special arrangement, you tell us when safe.»

«That’s wise.» Dhuvenig looked blank for another few moments, then: «Yesterday you told me that you had eight and three squares of persons to train in use of the airsuit. How many of these persons will require training outside the ship?»

Sharp cookie, this one. «All those persons,» Peters told him. «Not in this llor. It be–it would be good if training done in next three eights of llor, but again we wait your convenience.»

Dhuvenig looked at Znereda, who returned the look with remarkable blandness. «This is not normal,» said the officer.

«I believe you will find the humans more to your liking than we are,» said Znereda. «They are always worrying about what might happen.»

Dhuvenig focused on Peters. «Do you worry about things before they happen?»

«Yes.» Dammnit, why didn’t these people have some equivalent of
sir
! «Normal for us to think things might go badly, and prepare best way we can.»

«Remarkable,» said Dhuvenig under his breath. «Yes, this is ….» he used a word that Peters didn’t know. "Gratifying," Znereda muttered. «I will speak to Heelinig,» the officer continued. «I don’t know what arrangement will be made. Someone will come and tell you. Where can you be found?»

Peters looked at Znereda, back at the officer. «This llor, we be–will be instructing in basic airsuit procedure,» he told Dhuvenig. «The person can find us in airsuit practice room.»

«Good.» The officer rummaged around on the desk, found a clipboard with papers, and made a note. When he was done he looked up. «Is there more?»

«No, Dhuvenig.»

«Then our business is complete. Good day, Peters.» The phrase he used was more like "pleasant
llor
", but Peters understood.

«Yes, Dhuvenig. Thank you.» He nodded; the officer responded with a sharp nod of his own, and Peters took Todd’s arm and urged him and Znereda out of the office.

"That went well, I thought," Todd said when they were outside the bridge area. "What I understood of it."

"Oh, yes, very well indeed," Znereda said happily. "Mr. Peters, you’ve been sandbagging, haven’t you? You didn’t need me at all. Se’en told me, and I see she was right. Next time, go by yourself."

* * *

"So what are we going to do about the suits?" Todd asked.

"Hunh. I don’t know yet what I’m gonna do."

Todd stopped. The corridor was bare, only one door in sight, no people. He twisted to look down at the crow on his arm, then up at Peters. "Look, I worked for this, OK? I’m not real happy at giving it up."

"I feel the same way."

"I thought you might. All right, the point here is just to be different, right?"

"Yeah."

"Fine." Todd spread his hands. "Then let’s have Keer or Veedal just blank them, like they were when they were new."

Peters narrowed his eyes. After a moment he said, "Ye-es," slowly. "That’d work. We ain’t
zerkre
, and for the purposes we want, we ain’t really sailors, leastwise we ain’t in the chain of command. We’re just a coupla folks who know about airsuits, ain’t we? Blank. Yeah."

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.

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?»