A third of personnel, including the bridge, and older crew, whose personal quarters were in areas that would be downside during dock, could simply sit in quarters during docking and undock, if they chose to do that. For the seniormost crew not so blessed by the position of their cabins during ring lock-down, there was the small theater topside, where a pleated floor (Jeremy had explained this wonder of engineering), solid seating and safety belts were available. The whole theater became stairsteps.
But for the able-bodied, they packed them into rec like sardines, and they rode it through with takeholds and railings, just the way they’d done in undock. The junior-juniors disdained the theater. Jeremy said docking was more fun than undock.
Fletcher secretly wished they’d offered him a theater seat with the ship’s oldest. But, with Jeremy, he went down the corridor with his duffle, joining all the other crew doing the same thing. There was a chute, Jeremy had forewarned him, where you sent your duffle down to cargo; your baggage would meet you on the docks. It was why you tied silly personal items to your duffle strings and had your name stencilled in large letters. His was just what he’d boarded with, plain, distinctive only in that it wasn’t worn and stencilled. He’d put a ship’s tag on it, Jeremy’s recommendation. He’d tied a bright civvy sock to the tag strings, the only thing he owned amenable to serving as ID. He’d not brought anything in his baggage but clothes and toiletries. And watching the way the duffles went down the chute he was glad he’d packed nothing else.
“They’re not damn careful,” he said.
“Warned you,” Jeremy said brightly, “They’re more careful coming back. That’s the good thing. They know the incomings got fragiles.”
The rec hall was transformed again. Machines and tables were out. The safety railings were back. He and Jeremy stood, indistinguishable from the mob of other silver-suited Finity crew, Linda and Vince each with senior crew protectively spaced between them as Finity glided toward dock and occasional decel forces shoved gently at the ship.
“ Decoupling, ” the intercom said. “ Condition yellow take hold .”
That meant real caution. Next thing to Belt-in-if-you-can. Don’t let go to scratch your nose.
Gravity ebbed. Fletcher’s stomach went queasy. Don’t let me be sick. Don’t let me be sick. It’s nerves. It’s just nerves. Nothing out of the ordinary’s going on .
“ Condition red take hold. ”
“Hold on tight,” Jeremy said.
Big jolt. Not too bad, he thought.
Then a giant’s hand grabbed them and suddenly slung everyone in the room hard against the rails with a crash and a bang that echoed through the frame.
No one came loose. No one screamed. Fletcher thought his sore fingers had dented the safety rail and his neck felt whiplash.
“That was the grapple,” Jeremy said cheerfully, on the general exhalation and mild expletives in the room, and added, “We’re carrying a lot of mass.”
“I could live without that.” Fletcher congratulated himself he hadn’t screamed. His stomach was the other side of the wall. Jeremy had let go the rail to stretch his back. “We didn’t hear an all clear.”
“We will,” Jeremy said in cocky self-assurance, and in the very next instant the intercom came on to give it:
“ The ship is stable. We are in lock. Mainday three to stations. ”
Jeremy constantly scanted the rules. Fletcher had begun to notice that small defiance of physics and warnings. Jeremy was confidently just ahead of everything; he’d taught him some of his unsafe habits, which he knew, now that he’d actually seen the written regulations for himself. And one part of Fletcher’s soul said the hell with it, the kid knew, while another part said that since he was nominally in charge he ought to call the kid on it…
In a system the kid knew from before his birth.
He had his instructions from JR, all the same. Yesterday at shift-end a brand new bound print of ship’s rules had arrived in his quarters, a gift which Fletcher acknowledged to himself he’d have chucked in the nearest waste chute a day ago in disdain of the whole concept. Instead, knowing he had Jeremy to oversee, he’d fast-studied it and memorized the short list in the front; he had it in his duffle, and meant business. He’d advised the junior-juniors so: he’d take no shots from the Old Man due to their putting anything over on him.
“ Section chiefs report forward for passport procedures .”
“There you go,” Jeremy said.
Jeremy not only hadn’t resented his appointment over him, the kid had actually seemed to take pride in it—as well as in the fact he’d gotten that rise in rank directly after the rough Welcome-in, when he’d, as Jeremy so delicately put it, knocked the fool out of Chad.
“Meet you out there,” Jeremy said as he extricated himself from the row of cousins. He felt a pat on his back, a pat from other, older crew as he passed them to get to the door… they knew he’d gotten an assignment, and they encouraged him. Him , the outsider.
He made the door in a flutter-stomached disorganization, telling himself, without feeling of his pocket, that, yes, he had his passport, and Jeremy’s and Vince’s and Linda’s, for which he was responsible.
He joined the other section chiefs, far senior, over sections far more important to the ship. It was simply his job to get the junior-juniors through customs and to get them back through customs on the way out. To save long lines when there was no particular customs slow-down, section chiefs handled passports, ID’ed their people for customs in a mass, and passed them through; but junior-juniors, being minors, didn’t handle their own passports at any time. He had to. In the sleepover, being minors, they didn’t sign their own bills.
He had to sign for them. He had to authorize expenses for the junior-juniors, and he was to dole out credit in a reasonable way for pocket change, but meal and authorized purchase bills went to his room. He’d thought it was a watch-the-kids kind of baby-sitting JR had handed him. It had turned out to have monetary and legal responsibilities attached. A lot of money. Several thousand c worth, that he was supposed to dispense and account for.
There’d been a visicard hand-clipped to the front of the manual, a quick and easy condensation of the rules, specific advisements for this port, even a good fast study for the arcane procedures of getting into a sleepover—one of those dens of iniquity stationers viewed as exotic and dangerous and about which teenaged stationers entertained prurient curiosity. He was going to such a place with a parcel of apparent twelve-year-olds forbidden to drink or to consort with strangers. He took the card out of his breast pocket, thumbed the display on and double-checked it while the line advanced another set of five, right down to his group.
Phone the ship with your sleepover address code and enter it into your pocket com first thing after registering and reaching your room. Do not carry cash chits above 20 c at any time. Memorize the date and hour of board-call and report no later than one hour before departure. If you overnight in another sleepover, phone the ship. If injured or ill phone the ship. If arrested, phone the ship. Note: White dock is off-limits to all deep-space personnel by local statute. Junior personnel are limited to Blue and Green by order of the senior captain. The senior staff reminds the crew that this is a tight port with strict zoning. In past years, we have had military privilege. That is not in force now. Be mindful of local regulations. Have a pleasant stay.