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Our first lead was a three-master that would have been recognizable to those who sailed the clipper ships of the 19th century on Earth. The tall masts would be full of sails under weigh, and the hull was designed to cut through the water, outspeeding any steamer. There was something about a sailing vessel catching the wind that spoke to the poet in all of us. This pseudo-clipper and its kind were doomed, but while they lasted they were among the most beautiful of any oceangoing vessels ever made. “Who do I speak to about passage?” Asina inquired of one of the sailors grooming its sides.
“The Captain,” he pointed us to a weather beaten man in late middle age – probably early forties, Earth reckoning. This was a working vessel – the Captain was known to his crew. Beautiful uniforms were for passenger liners and the military. His garb was the adapted cotton we’d had engineered to pass for a native plant on Calmena, new and scarce enough that it was the sign of someone prosperous enough to afford it. Nonetheless, his clothes had seen as much hard use as his body. Officers on a working commercial vessel were not gentleman overseers.
“My husband and I would like passage to Yalskarr, Captain.”
“Passenger or working?” he asked.
“No objections to working passage,” I replied, “I’ve several years at Windhome Bay as a builder, and my wife as well.” I gestured to her clothes. The three small huts we’d built so long ago were now the greatest shipyards on the planet, and those willing to work were well paid for their exertions. The revolution we were going to unleash at Yalskarr would change shipbuilding, but Windhome Bay would still be one of the biggest builders on the planet.
“You’re what – Five eights? Five eights and four?” The captain was expressing skepticism in the form of telling me we weren’t old enough. The younger age was about sixteen Earth years.
“We’re agaani. I’m sixty-four, eight, and three,” Asina replied. The operants of Calmena weren’t up the standards of Guardians, but they’d been making progress in learning how to handle not only aging, but the wear and tear of hard environments and brutal work. “But we can pay if you need passage money more than crew.” She batted her blue eyes at the Captain. It wouldn’t go anywhere, but it was still a useful negotiating trick. She turned heads on Earth, where anyone could look young and attractive.
“Three gold each for passage.”
“My husband said we worked at Windhome Bay, not that we owned the Yards. Two for the pair of us.”
“Two and four each.”
“You going to feed us like the Lords of Yarvahs, and give us a palatial cabin? We were looking for common passage. Two and four for the pair of us, and we eat with the crew.”
“Two each. You’ll displace cargo I can charge for.”
Both of us laughed at that, “Not on any ship I’ve ever seen. You lash it down, and crew and common passengers find sleeping places around it. Two and four, and we eat with the crew.”
“Three for the pair. If you’re agaani, you’ll eat like four crew each.”
It was a fact that operants ate more than natural state humans – energy is never free. “With the slop you feed your crew, we’ll get worms. Two and six, if your crew can vouch that the food isn’t infested. You’ll still profit like a water merchant at the Crossroads.”
“Agreed. Two and six. Welcome to the Shimarr. We sail at first light.”
It was a lot for what shouldn’t be any more than a three day passage, but the fleet sailing vessels like Shimarr would be two days faster than the steamships. At this latitude, the prevailing winds blew out of the southeast. Shimarr should be sailing within a few (Earth) degrees of straight downwind to Yalskarr, and we wouldn’t have to worry about food for the voyage. If what he fed the crew was too bad, we could eat Life if we had to. Asina checked in with Tellea, We have passage on a vessel named the Shimarr, out of Yalskarr. She’s a fast sailer, should be there in three days. I checked in with Staff Private O’Hare, who Sephia had assigned as our contact, with the same message.
Then, we waited. There wasn’t much else we could do. We could have wandered around Tabbraz – as Guardians, we’d have been safe enough from the locals, but trouble might have caused us to miss our ship. At least we didn’t have a need to go into the city to buy food for our voyage – we were eating with the crew. We found an area between crates in the hold, spread our sleeping mat, and curled up together, Asina a pleasant warmth on my left side as well as a welcoming presence in my mind.
Chapter Two
Yalskarr was nothing impressive to look at – yet.
Docks, blocky wooden warehouses, and the occasional stone or brick edifice rising three or four stories off the ground. It was Calmena’s answer to Houston at the dawn of the petrochemical age.
This time, the hard work of setting up the station had been done for us. Yalskarr had been one of Hashiboor’s first seaports, and for nearly thirty years, a rail hub as well. Asina’s daughter Tellea and her husband Fittorn had built it up from nothing, one small bit at a time, over the past fifty local years, as they worked to nurture the nascent petrochemical industry of Calmena, currently centered north of Yalskarr. In one of the many ironies of the Calmena uplift, we were playing the part of Tellea’s daughter and son-in-law to enable them to ‘retire’ and return to the Empire – both were approaching a public age that would make continuing the masquerade difficult, and they’d been on Calmena for eighty Earth years or so. It was time for them to take a break. The result was that we were ‘inheriting’ an ongoing business. As a result, the Imperial gear was already well hidden, nearly an ifourth below ground level, and the hidden quarters Asina and I would occupy had all the improvements that could be hidden from the natives.
Things were a little more complicated now than they had been. At the end of our first assignment, we’d simply told everyone else that our replacements were our inheritors, and walked out of town with no trouble to our replacements, then or after. But things were done formally now; the transfer would take longer and the local government would extort a certain amount in exchange for official recognition of the transfer. It wasn’t to protect anyone; the purpose was the avarice of those in control of the local government.
Tellea’s eyes were hazel now, her dark brown hair was sprinkled with grey, and her somewhat Polynesian appearance was weathered and wrinkled, a concession to what the Calmenans expected from someone who had spent the last forty Earth years – 100 local Calmenan – working with chemicals and shipping and everything else. Her husband Fittorn looked like he could have come from nineteenth century Holland or Belguim – light brown hair, blue eyes, and tall for Calmena, similarly weathered. But the appearance was only skin deep; Tellea was actually in her first days of pregnancy with what would be Asina’s first grandchild. They’d be looking like any other young adults in the Empire within a day or so of arriving at Bolthole Base for transport out. Mother! Uncle Joe! she greeted us, good to see you even if it is only for a couple weeks! Asina and Tellea hugged; Asina hadn’t actually seen her daughter in a year.
Copyright 2019 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.
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