“How many of those do we still have?”
He pondered for a few heartbeats before answering. “A couple of kilos worth. Probably two hundred and fifty of them.”
“You going up today?” I cut into the omelet with the side of my fork and inhaled the warmth.
“Yeah, I thought I’d help out here for a bit, get some breakfast myself, and then head up after cleanup. We’ll be done here by 09:00 easily. Technically Sarah’s got the duty today but you know how it is.”
“I do, indeed.” I took a bite of omelet. “This is good. You’ve been practicing.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, I’m on today, but I get off at 18:00. Brill has something in mind for tonight, but I’ll be around tomorrow. I don’t go back on duty until the overnight watch. I can take any stones you don’t sell—or don’t want to sell—up to the flea in the afternoon, if you like.”
“That’ll help, but what we need is something to take to Betrus. We’ve got a lot of mass that’s begging to be filled.”
“Yeah, and I spent a lot of cred yesterday so I’ll be looking hard tomorrow. Say, would you bip me when you head down to change? I’d like to get one or two of those stones for myself before they get picked over any more. They’d go great with my new shirts.”
Pip got a funny look on his face and leaned closer to me. “Ish? Is that you? What’d they do to you yesterday?”
I laughed with him. “Yeah, I know, but we had a ball. I can’t even begin to describe it.”
Rhon Scham came in looking for breakfast so Pip scurried to fix an omelet for her. I pretended not to see her glancing my way every so often, but Pip noticed. He had a problem getting her to pay attention so he could slide the eggs onto her plate. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I just shrugged. I was done, so I bussed my dishes, refilled my coffee, and waved to him on my way back to environmental.
All things considered, it was a pretty uneventful watch. I took one break to pick through the rocks and I found a nice, dark green ovoid and a smaller white one with a golden streak in it. Just after lunch, I did the trap maintenance—not a difficult job but messy. I saved my VSI run until midafternoon to break up my studying and to stretch my legs.
Francis showed up on the stroke of 17:45. He grinned when he came in. “You survived yesterday, I see.”
“Oh yeah, it was touch and go for a while, but I made it.”
“Diane came in all flushed. What’d you guys do anyway?”
“Does the name Chez Henri mean anything to you?”
He shook his head. “No, should it?”
“Probably not. But that’s where we spent the afternoon. We got out just in time for her to come back to the ship and relieve you.”
“What is it? A restaurant?”
“Tailor’s shop.”
“They took you to a tailor?” He smirked at the idea.
“Yeah, we had a ball, actually.”
“Well, to each his own.”
“Mr. Gartner, all ops normal. Maintenance on number three water intake trap scheduled and performed. You have the watch.”
“Mr. Wang, I relieve you. I have the watch,” he replied, then added, “Did you get a haircut or something? You look different.”
“Nope, but you’re not the first one to say that.”
Chapter 18
DUNSANY ROADS ORBITAL
2352-APRIL-17
Brill stopped by during my watch and we arranged to eat aboard before heading out for the evening’s festivities. Cookie had one of his garlic and lamb dishes on the menu with fresh potatoes and it sounded good to me. I had smelled it all afternoon every time I had gone into the mess deck for coffee. The aroma made me drool in anticipation. When I stepped onto the mess deck for dinner, I found Diane and Brill having some kind of intense discussion.
I crossed to their table and heard Diane say, “But Murdock? You know what happened the last time—”
Brill saw me coming and gave me one of those big smiles. “Hi, Ish.”
Diane turned to me then and I got a matching grin from her. “You even look better in that shipsuit. Funny what some new clothes will do, huh?”
“Problems?” I asked looking back and forth between them.
Diane shook her head. “No, just having a little discussion about a contractor.”
“We need some plumbing done and we’re just trying to figure out who and when.” Brill lied very smoothly, but I did not call her on it. If she wanted me to know, she would tell me. It did pique my interest though.
“Okay, well, I’m starved, so I’ll be right back.”
Sarah was in the galley with Cookie and they were working on something with a lot of flour scattered around the prep table. It looked like pie crust discussions, so I just waved. I did not want to get into the shortening versus butter debate just then.
The lamb and potatoes looked great, though, and they had sautéed some carrots as a vegetable side. It smelled divine and I took a big helping, dithering around the buffet until Diane and Brill had hashed out—or at least set aside—whatever it was they were discussing but did not want me to know about. When the coast appeared relatively clear, I headed back to my seat.
“Okay, what’s on the agenda for tonight?” I asked.
“We’re meeting Bev around 21:00, so we’ve got some time to get ready. There’s a bar down on the oh-two level that caters to spacers. Good drinks, music is usually live, and the people there all understand what being a spacer means,” Brill said.
I glanced at Diane who still had a bit of a glower going on and asked, “What’s that mean? About being a spacer?”
Diane answered, “Civilians have a different perspective. They’re going to be here next week. We’re not. It can be problematic at times.”
Whatever they were talking about was all Greek to me, so I just nodded like I understood. I dove into the lamb and potatoes. It was superb. Say what you will about the ambiance on the mess deck, but the food was always excellent. With Pip and Cookie augmenting the stores’ budgets with port-trading, it was definitely improving, too.
It did not take long to put away my dinner, so I bussed my plates and drew a fresh mug of coffee for dessert. I did not want to fill up too much. I had a feeling I was in for a long night. “Anything I should do to get ready?” I asked. “Trim my nose hair? Shave my legs?”
I caught Diane in mid-drink but she recovered well. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Mom always shaved her legs before a hot date,” I said with a smile. “And she always came home complaining about guys with an excess of nose hair.”
“Tell ya what,” Brill said. “We’ll shave our legs. You trim your nose hair. Clip your nails while you’re at it. You don’t know where those fingers might end up.”
She caught me with that one, but I did not recover as well as Diane had. I had to get towels from the galley to clean up the table. That was the point where I knew for sure that it was going to be an interesting night.
We horsed around over the remains of dinner until 19:00, then cleared our table to help Sarah out as much as possible before going our separate ways. I headed for the gym to get in a short run and a sauna. I took it easy because of dinner, but it felt good to run. I had been so busy the previous few days that I did not really have much of a chance to exercise. The sauna felt good too, and I had the place to myself. I let the heat seep into me and worked on that feeling of languid relaxation that only serious heat brings.
Afterward, I took a quick splash at the gym to get the sweat and grime off, but headed up to the berthing area to get my real showering in. Rebecca was reading in her bunk when I got up to the berthing area.