“Oh yes, sar. I’m just thinking ahead. I don’t plan on leaving the galley anytime soon. I just want to expand my options.”
“That’s good to know. This is the best coffee this ship has ever had.” He grinned at me and then focused back on my question. “What test will you be taking?”
“Engineman, sar,” I told him and I felt compelled to add, “First.”
“First?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, sar. I’m…uh…planning to pursue all four of the half share ranks.”
He blinked. “Really?”
“I’m not sure what I want to do for the rest of my life, sar. About the only thing I know is I like life in the Deep Dark, and I want to do what I can to stay out here.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Why not pick a specialty and take it up to full share? It’s more money.”
“Well, eventually, I will, but like I said, I don’t know which division I’ll like the most and until I figure it out I want to maximize my employability. If something should happen, and I find myself ashore for some reason, I want to be able to get back on a ship as quickly as possible, and not have to wait for a berth. In the amount of time it would take me to get up to full share, I could have at least two half share ratings.”
“Makes a certain amount of sense.” He sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
“For me, I’d rather be underway, even if it’s not my favorite position, then to wait planet-side for a preferred one.”
“True enough. But would you be able to do a job you hate for weeks at a time?”
“Sar, I have no idea which ones I might like more than any other. Until I get to actually do them, there’s no way I can tell.”
He nodded.
“That’s another reason I want to diversify. So I can try them out. Once I’m rated in each, I should have a pretty good idea what the jobs are like and then I can pick. If I don’t like something I’ll know enough not to pursue it. Going through the test should give me some indication, won’t it, sar?”
He leaned back in his chair and tapped the tabletop with a fingertip while he considered. “Yes, Mr. Wang. It probably will. It’s certainly an interesting approach.”
“Do you foresee any kind of difficulty, sar?”
He shook his head. “Only the time it’ll take to get through all four exams. We only offer the tests once a quarter.”
“Is there any limit on the number of tests I can take in a single period?”
He looked startled. “Could you be ready for more than one at a time?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, sar, but three months is a long time, and I’ve seen the half share curriculum. It doesn’t seem like it would be that much compared to, say, a university program.”
He smiled and gave a short laugh. “No, I suppose not, but at the university, you’re not working ten stans a day in addition to going to school.”
“True enough, but here I’m not drinking my nights and weekends away,” I countered with a laugh of my own.
Mr. von Ickles grinned at that. “True enough, Mr. Wang. True enough.”
He stood and headed out into the passage. At the hatch he paused for a tick and looked back at me. “Engineering is a good place to start but look at cargo as well. There’s a lot of turnover with cargo handlers. The work is a bit boring and relies more on muscle than mind at the lower ratings. If you’re trying to maximize employability, then having your cargo rating is a good step.”
“Thank you, sar. I appreciate the tip.”
He nodded and left me to ponder. I was still sitting there when Pip came out of the galley. “Problems? I heard you talking with Mr. von Ickles.”
I shook my head. “Actually, no. He wasn’t exactly supportive, but he didn’t try to talk me out of it. What’s up with Cookie?”
Pip ran a hand through his cropped dark hair. “We’re good, but I need to find a computer. I don’t want to run my sims on the ship’s system just yet. The equations are getting complicated enough that I need to get some substantial computing cycles.”
“You wanna borrow mine?”
“You have a computer? You brought one aboard?” He gaped at me with his mouth half open.
I looked up at him with a shrug. “Yeah. Is there a rule against it?”
He shook his head. “It’s just that they mass so much and most people don’t want to burn quota on something they can get using the ship’s.”
“Oh well, see, I didn’t know that was available here, and it was my mom’s. I thought it might be useful for studying and stuff and it has more processing power than my peeda.”
“Studying what?”
“I downloaded several dozen courses from the University of Neris before they shut off Mom’s access. Did I tell you she was a professor there?”
“You’d mentioned it, but I didn’t think you’d have brought the university with you.”
“Why not? Your aunt told me that all I really needed was entertainment cubage.”
“And you put university classes in the category of entertainment?”
I shrugged and nodded.
“Amazing. What courses?”
“I don’t remember. Plant sciences, astrophysics, advanced mathematics. I was just grabbing all kinds of stuff. It was right after they told me…” I choked up and looked down.
“Hey, no problem. I understand. We’re clear until 15:30. Can we go look?”
“Sure, let’s go.
Down in the berthing area, we spread my stuff out on the table. Midafternoon was quiet since most people were on day watch and those who weren’t were either sleeping or engaged in their own pursuits.
Pip whistled when I brought out the computer. “This is a really good machine. It doesn’t mass anything like I would have expected it to.”
I shrugged. “Mom used it for her work, although I stripped her stuff off and sent it all to storage. It’s pretty empty now except for basic software.”
We started cataloging the courses I’d brought from Neris: astrophysics, plant sciences, ecological studies, accounting, advanced mathematics, and at least ten others. We didn’t get through the list because we kept getting side tracked by things we found and had to head back to the galley before we got through all the storage cubes. Pip kept exclaiming, “I can’t believe this.” Before we left I gave him the computer and credentials so he could use it.
“Thanks, Ish. This is going to make things much easier.”
“What simulations are you running?”
“Oh, just some trading sims.”
“Uh, huh.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, but I let him off the hook as we shifted into the evening routine.
Chapter 9
Darbat System
2351-September-28
The run into Darbat Orbital wasn’t terribly different then leaving Neris. The daily mess cycle gave all of us a structure to our day that became second nature. Cookie and Pip closeted themselves with the computer and whatever simulations they were running during the afternoon break. I took that opportunity to load up engineering training, intending to take the engineman exam after Darbat. I flashed through the instructional component in about a week and started taking the practice tests. I didn’t do too badly, but I couldn’t seem to get a passing grade.
The cargo materials were pretty straight forward: container types, cargo handling procedures, various techniques for securing containers and the proper way to use cargo manipulation tools like grav-pallets. There was not a lot of meat there, and I see that somebody might get a bit bored. The cargo handlers packed it in, made sure it didn’t move while we were underway, and unpacked it on the other end. I vowed never to complain about mess duty again as I tried to envision forty days in a row of: yup, it’s still there.