He felt as if someone had opened fire on him, and there was nothing to do but absorb the hits.
“Well?” the Old Man said
“Yes, sir. I’m thinking I’ve got mop-up to do. A lot of it.”
“Better talk to Francie. You’ll be going alterday shift, when ops is in question. Better talk to Vickie, too.” That was Helm 4. “You’ve shadowed Francie often enough.”
At the slaved command board—at least five hundred hours, specifically with Francie. During ship movement, maybe a hundred. He had no question of his preparation in terms of ship’s ops. In terms of his preparation in basic good sense he had serious doubts.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Jamie,” the Old Man said.
“Yes, sir?”
“The plus is… I get to see my succession at work. I get to know it will do all right. There’s no greater gift you can give me than to step in and do well. Fourth shift will do Esperance system entry. You’ll sub for Francie on this jump. We’ll hold the formalities after we’ve done our work there. King George can wait for his party. We’ll have occasion for our own celebration if we pull this off. We’ll be posting a new captain.”
Breath and movement absolutely failed him for a moment. He had no words, in the moment after that, except, quietly: “Yes, sir.”
One hour, thirty-six minutes remaining, when Fletcher stood showered and dressed; and the prospect just of opening the cabin door and taking a fast walk around the corridor was delirious freedom. Jeremy was eager for it; he was; and they joined the general flow of cousins from A deck ops on their way to a hot pick-up meal and just the chance to stretch legs and work the kinks out of backs grown too used to lying in the bunk. They fell in with some of the cousins from cargo and a set from downside ops, all the way around to the almost unimaginably intense smells from the galley.
“I could eat the tables,” a cousin said as they joined the fast-moving line. Jeremy had a fruit bar with him. He was that desperate. Everyone’s eyes were shadowed, faces hollowed, older cousins’ skin showed wrinkles it didn’t ordinarily show. Everyone smelled of strong soap and had hair still damp.
Two choices, cheese loaf with sauce or souffle. They’d helped make the souffle the other side of Voyager and Fletcher decided to take a chance on that; Jeremy opted for the same, and they settled down in the mess hall for the pure pleasure of sitting in a chair. Vince and Linda joined them, having started from the mess hall door just when they’d sat down, and Jeremy nabbed extra desserts. Seats were at a premium. The mess hall couldn’t seat all of A deck at once. They wolfed down the second desserts, picked up, cleaned up, surrendered the seats to incoming cousins, and headed out and down the way they’d come.
“Can I borrow your fish tape?” Jeremy asked Linda as they walked.
“I thought you bought one,” Linda said.
“I put it back,” Jeremy said, and Fletcher thought that was odd: he thought he recalled Jeremy paying for it at the Aquarium gift shop. Jeremy had bought some tapes and a book, and he’d have sworn—
He saw trouble coming. Chad, and Sue, and Connor, from down the curve.
“Don’t say anything,” he said to his three juniors. “They’re out for trouble. Let them say anything they want.”
“They’re jerks,” Vince said.
The group approached, Sue passed, Chad passed—they were going to use their heads, Fletcher thought, and keep their mouths shut.
Then Connor shoved him, and he didn’t think. He elbowed back and spun around on his guard, facing Chad.
“You turn us in?” Chad asked. “You get us confined to quarters?”
“Wasn’t just you,” Fletcher retorted, and reminded himself he didn’t want this confrontation, and that Chad might be the leader and the appointed fighter in the group, but he didn’t conclude any longer that Chad was entirely the instigator. “We all got the order. You and I need to talk.” A cousin with her hands full needed by and they shifted closer together to let her by. Jeremy took the chance to get in the middle and to push at Fletcher’s arm.
“Fletcher. Come on. We’re still in yellow. They’ll lock us down for the next three years if you two fight, come on, cut it out.”
“Got your defender, do you?” Connor said, and shoved him a second time.
“Cut it!” Jeremy said, and Fletcher reached out and hauled him aside, firmly, without even feeling the effort or breaking eye contact with Chad.
“You and I,” Fletcher said, “have something to talk about.”
“I’m not interested in talk,” Chad said. “I’ll tell you exactly how it was. You came on board late, you didn’t like the scut jobs, you didn’t like taking orders, and you found a way to make trouble. For all we know, there never was any hisa stick.”
“Was, too!” Jeremy said. “I saw it.”
“All right,” Chad said. “There was. Doesn’t make any difference. Fletcher knows where it is. Fletcher always knew, because he put it there, and he’s going to bring down hell on our heads and be the offended party, and we give up our rec hours running around in the cold while he sits back and laughs.”
“That isn’t the way it is,” Fletcher said. “I don’t know who did it. That’s your problem. But I didn’t choose it.” Another couple of cousins wanted by, and then a third, fourth and fifth from the other direction. “We’re blocking traffic.”
“Yeah, run and hide,” Sue said. “Stationer boy’s too good to go search the skin, and get out in the cold…”
“You shut up!” Vince said, and kicked Connor. Connor lunged and Fletcher intercepted. “Let him alone,” Fletcher said.
And Linda kicked Connor. Hard.
Connor shoved to get free. And Chad shoved Connor aside, effortless as moving a door.
“I say you’re a liar,” Chad said, and Fletcher swung Jeremy and Linda out of range, mad and getting madder.
“Break it up!” an outside voice said. “You!”
“Fletcher!” Jeremy yelled, and he didn’t know why it was up to him to stop it: Chad took a swing at him, he blocked it, and got a blow in that thumped Chad into the far wall. Chad came off it at him, and Linda was yelling, Vince was. He’d stopped hearing what they were saying, until he heard Jeremy yelling at him, and until Jeremy was right in the middle of it, in danger of getting hurt.
“Chad didn’t do it!” Jeremy shouted, clinging to him, dragging at his arm with all his weight. “Chad didn’t do it, Fletcher! I did it!”
He stopped. Jeremy was still pulling at him. Bucklin had Chad backed off. It was only then that he realized it was JR who had pulled him back. And that Jeremy, all but in tears, was trying to tell him what didn’t make sense.
“What did you say?” JR asked Jeremy.
“I said I did it. I took it.”
“That’s not the truth,” Fletcher said. Jeremy was trying to divert them from a fight. Jeremy was scared of JR, was his immediate conclusion.
“It is the truth!” Jeremy cried, in what was becoming a crowd of cousins, young and old, in the corridor, all gathering around them. “I stole it, Fletcher, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“What did you mean?” JR asked; and Jeremy stammered out,
“I just took it. I was afraid they were going to do it, so I did it.”
“You’re serious.”
“I was just going to keep it safe, Fletcher. I was. I took it onto Mariner because I thought they were going to mess the cabin and they’d find it and something would happen to it, but somebody broke into my room in the sleepover and they got all my stuff, Fletcher!”