“You are free transportation for your crew,” Serrano said. “You pay well enough that they know you must have more—you have everything done by top firms. But I think for Olin it was the places you could go without comment—the places he wanted to go, which you could take him to.”
Cecelia thought about that, and set it aside. What Olin’s motives had been did not concern her now. “You had a point to make about the crew?” she asked. Serrano’s twinkle rewarded her for coming back to that point.
“Yes, I did. I had intended to suggest some replacements of the least effective after your season of hunting; considering what’s happened, I think you have both cause and justification for making some changes now. Assuming you don’t want to start with me.”
“Don’t be silly!” Cecelia said. “I don’t blame you for any of this.”
Serrano shrugged. “You might well have. Good captains don’t let such accidents happen. Anyway, you need a replacement for Iklind. I’m seriously concerned about the entire environmental department, and would suggest you also drop the new juniors, retaining only the survivor of the accident. Mr. Gavin I believe to be honest, though totally devoid of initiative, and I think he can be salvaged by some good training. Your pilot . . . actually, besides his manner, I have no complaint of his performance. But he strongly defended Olin’s choice of course, in the face of a possible course that would have had you on your schedule. I suspect his complicity. We could do without a pilot, I am licensed for that duty, a separate qualification, and the expense of this refitting would explain your dropping him entirely.”
“But can we find good crew out here?” Cecelia asked.
“Yes—in fact I’ve asked Mr. Brynear about that already. As this is a major repair facility, there are always crews coming through. Someone is sick, and stays behind; someone is unhappy and jumps ship—not that we want that sort. Velarsin and Co., and other firms, hire these temporaries, and their work records here give us something to go on. Also there are people who start in refitting who want to work aboard a ship; if they’ve taken their exams, and we interview their supervisors, we can find some good ones. But it’s up to you, milady.”
Exactly what she didn’t want, on her ship. She wanted it to function perfectly without her having to make any decisions at all. Just transportation . . . but of course, there were people who looked at horses as just transportation, and she knew what she thought of them. “I’ve always left it up to my captains,” Cecelia said slowly. “Are you asking me to interview with you, or—”
“If you wish; it might be helpful to you to understand what I would look for in applicants. But what I meant is that I would not dismiss your employees without gross negligence on their part. You had some input, I assume, in the size of crew when you started out?”
“Well . . . to be honest . . . I took the advice of the employment agency even then. Told them what I had bought, and asked them to arrange a crew.” She could see by her captain’s expression that this was not the right thing to have done. She shook her head. “I was a fool, wasn’t I? Just like people I’ve known who’ve gone broke with racing stables. It just never occurred to me that the same things could happen here, in a simple little yacht.” Serrano’s expression did not change, but her eyes softened.
“You had other things to think about, I’m sure. Why don’t you come along to some of the interviews, at least, and begin to pick up some of the terms? It will impress applicants, and it won’t bother me.”
“Fine. I will.” She would learn every screw and bolt on her ship, the way she had once learned the anatomy of horses and every piece of leather and metal on her tack. How could she have left herself unguarded like this?
“And don’t be hard on yourself,” Serrano said. Cecelia blinked. Was the woman a mind reader as well? “Remember, I still don’t know anything about horses.”
“Welcome aboard, milady,” Heris said. Eight hours late, they would be, undocking, but she felt happy anyway. Better a good job than a fast sloppy one. She had inspected the replacements with Mr. Brynear six hours before, and knew the new system was up to spec. Her new environmental team knew what they were doing, and Timmons was rapidly learning; he wanted to keep his job. The disgruntled pilot had complained bitterly about being dumped in the middle of nowhere; Lady Cecelia had finally paid his passage to one of the inner worlds of the system, even though her legal advisor said it wasn’t necessary. Lady Cecelia had told her gleefully about the stormy battle going on between Diklos & Sons, the insurance company, and her lawyers; she thought she would get her money back, at the least, and she had convinced the union that Iklind’s death was probably due to the bad work done by Diklos . . . so now Diklos had the union on their backs as well. Lady Cecelia’s staff had boarded an hour ago. Heris had given Bates the staff emergency directives, and he’d taken them without comment . . . They would soon begin emergency drills, proper drills, and this would be a proper ship.
“Thank you, Captain Serrano.” Lady Cecelia and her maid came aboard serenely, as if nothing had happened; Heris saw her eyes flicker at the change in uniform. Heris had squeezed in a visit to a good tailor, and while it was still purple, it lacked the scarlet, teal, and cream trim and about half its gold braid. The docking access tube still had a thick carpet, but the walls were properly bare for inspection, conduits and tubing color-coded in accordance with Transportation Department directives.
Behind Lady Cecelia, her nephew and his friends straggled in. Heris watched them with contempt behind her motionless features. Rich, spoiled brats, she thought. A waste of talent, if they have any; a waste of the genetic material and wealth it took to rear them this far. She gave a crisp “Welcome aboard,” and then walked past them out the tube to the dockside. Bates was waiting in the passage to see to anything more they needed. She would have avoided the greeting altogether except that she wanted to say a last few words to Brynear.
“I hear you had a wager with your owner,” he said, grinning at her. “She making you pay up?”
“She’d have let me off, considering the circumstances,” Heris said, grinning back. She liked his sort of toughness, his competence. He reminded her of the best she’d known, a memory she didn’t want right now. She pushed it out of her mind. “But the forfeit’s to learn more about what fascinates her—horses, of all things!—and if I’m to be a good captain for her, I need to understand her.”
“If it weren’t rude and nosy, I’d ask you a question,” Brynear said.
“It is, and I won’t answer it,” Heris said, with an edge. Then she softened. “I know what you’d ask, and I’m not ready to talk about it. Just wanted to thank you for a good job done well in a hurry. I’m glad we were able to argue our way past your schedule—and sorry to disrupt it.”
“You can disrupt my schedule anytime,” Brynear said. “As I would have made clear, if you weren’t leaving so soon.”
“You can repair my ship anytime,” Heris said, smiling. He was attractive, but not that attractive. Yet. The other memories were still too clear. “As I did make clear—but I wish we didn’t have to leave now. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Captain.” He threw her a civilian’s version of a salute and turned away. Heris went back to the ship and thoroughly enjoyed showing her crew that she was as good as the former pilot at undock and tug maneuvers.
“You shouldn’t have insulted the captain to her face,” Raffa said severely. They were two days out of refitting, two days of cool courtesy between Cecelia and the young people. Ronnie pouted, but she did not relent. “Don’t put out your lip at me,” she said. “It was wrong, and you know it.”