Ships of My Fathers Page 10

  He scanned around and found the other two vertical gap pipes on the first wall. He figured they corresponded to the shower, the sink faucet, and the toilet. He heard movement on the other side of the wall, grabbed the one for the sink and called out, “Ready on the sink!”

  He felt a slight ping, heard water moving through the pipes briefly, and then felt a firmer thump, but it was not much. “Negative, I think,” he called through the wall. “Ready on the shower.”

  They progressed through the six fixtures accessible from that crawl space, but none of them felt particularly bad. Michael wiggled his way back out and helped Charlie reattach the panel. “So what now?”

  Charlie smiled and turned across the hall. Another narrow panel was labeled “W/P/A 2-2 & 2-4”. Michael’s shoulders sagged. “How many of these are there?”

  “Now do you see why Eddie and Al were so happy not to go on the leak hunt?”

  Michael chuckled. He had pulled worse duties. When he was nine he had flushed the navigator’s passport down the toilet. Guess who got to disassemble the sludge tank looking for it?

  They opened the panel, and Michael crawled inside. Once he heard Charlie on the other side, he called out, “Ready on the sink!”

  And so it went. They hit pay dirt on sink 2-7. Michael felt it jump in his hand, and he could hear it almost grunt, like Malcolm trying to hold in a sneeze in his environment suit. From the other side of the wall, Charlie said, “That sounded promising.”

  “Yeah,” Michael replied. “Hit it again.” He let go of it this time and watched. He could actually see the shock, almost like someone had hit it with a hammer, and then he saw what he was looking for. A single drop of water trickled down the side of the pipe. He followed its trail all the way back up to the threaded cap at the top. “I think we found our leak.”

  Charlie reappeared out in the corridor. “Okay, now we have to turn the water off. Look for a blue-handled valve near the floor on that side.”

  Michael had been expecting Charlie to come in and do the actual work, but no, he insisted that Michael learn it. He talked him through draining the water out of the pipes, unscrewing the cap, cleaning the threads, coating them with fresh sealant, and tightening it up again. The tightening was the hardest part in such a cramped space, but he got it done. Afterwards, they turned the water back on and tested it. The visible hammering had dropped down to a mild thump that he could only feel, not hear.

  Michael climbed back out and helped Charlie seal up the panel. “Great, now what?”

  Charlie tilted his head down the hall. “We’ve still got eight more panels to check.”

  “But we found our leak.”

  Charlie shook his head. “No, we found a leak. We still have to check the others to make sure it’s the only leak.”

  Michael sagged back against the wall. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “But first, let’s go get some lunch before the crowd shows up.”

  “Good idea.”

  They were the first to report for lunch, but not by much. By the time they were sitting, three more were in the line. Lunch was a spicy sausage and rice combination with a side of black beans. Over time, various crew stopped by to do the name-patch dance. He met two more cargo handlers, another drive engineer, and the pilot, Jake Norris.

  “First shift,” he said. “Actually the only shift, since I only get to do my thing during docking maneuvers.”

  “What do you do the rest of the time?”

  “I have passable knowledge of most of the bridge systems, so I do a lot of shift covering. As soon as I’m done here, I’m heading back up to let Gabrielle get lunch.”

  They chatted a little longer since Michael was curious what it was like piloting such a behemoth, and Jake was more than happy to brag about his skill, but all too soon he had to go.

  Charlie nudged Michael, “Time for us as well. Let’s head down and cover for Eddie and Al, then back to our leak hunt.”

  Down on deck five, scrubber six was back up and running, and Al and Eddie were playing a word game the rules of which escaped Michael. He and Charlie took their places at the station and watched the various indicators update. Mostly though, they did not update, holding steady in their green state.

  “Is it always this boring?” Michael asked.

  “When you’re lucky,” Charlie replied.

  Forty minutes later, they headed back up to deck two to resume their leak hunt, and when he was getting ready to test stateroom 2-11, his worst fears were realized. He heard his uncle’s voice in the hallway. “Who is that back there?”

  He panicked for a moment, but before he could respond, he heard Charlie’s voice. “Good afternoon, Captain.”

  “Afternoon, Mr. Feldman. What’s up here?”

  “We’re on a leak hunt, sir. Now that we finally have tank four up to full pressure, we’re getting some vibration in the system, so we’re checking all the air gaps.”

  “Found anything yet?”

  “Yes, sir, in Mr. Brookstone’s quarters, but we’re checking the rest to be safe.”

  “Good job, Mr. Feldman. My compliments to you and your team.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll be sure to pass that along.”

  A few minutes later, as they closed up the access panel, Charlie brought it up. “By the way, the Captain wants me to pass on his compliments to you.”

  Michael nodded, trying not to frown. “Yeah, I heard.”

  Charlie shrugged. “He’s not all that bad,” he said, heading down the corridor. “Come on, four more to go.”

  Much to Michael’s surprise, their vigilance paid off. He was musing about Malcolm’s past when the air gap for shower fifteen jumped in his hands. “We’ve got a live one,” he called.

  Charlie reappeared at the access panel. “Okay, this time you tell me how you’re going to fix it.”

  It was worth it. He got all the way through without a single correction. They finished checking the final few pipes and headed back down with an hour left in the shift. He sat down in one of the seats and let himself go limp. He was exhausted.

  Charlie checked in with the status boards again and got an update from Eddie and Al. Then he took a look at Michael. “You did good work today, especially for a first shift on a new ship. How about you knock off early? Get some rest before dinner. They’re showing Blue Fins of the Void tonight. It should be fun.” He made a suggestive gesture over his chest. “Paula Stone fun, if you know what I mean.”

  Michael smiled. Malcolm had been all over Paula Stone’s movies for years, but Michael had never liked her as much. She was hot and all, but she was getting old, pushing into her forties even. “I’ll try,” he said, “but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to finish out my first shift. You know, just to keep me honest.”

  Charlie patted him on the shoulder. “Yep, name or not, you’ve got that Schneider work ethic. You’ll do well here.”

  Michael fumed briefly but held it in check. Whatever was in his genes, his work ethic came from Malcolm Fletcher. Besides, most of his shifts on the Sophie had been twelve hours, not eight. The last thing he was going to do was wimp out in front of these slackers.

  The rest of the shift went quickly as he listened to Eddie and Al play their word games. He finally discerned the rule for one of them, a back and forth pun contest where each subsequent pun had to start with the next letter in the alphabet. He was waiting to jump in at V with a virgin-vegan pun, but Doug Gould came in at S.

  “Hey guys, how was the shift?”

  “Scrubber skin,” Eddie chimed in.

  “That wasn’t a pun,” Al complained.

  “Whatever,” Eddie replied. “Plus, Charlie and new guy here got to do a leak hunt up on two.”

  “Pump four?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Michael heard himself replying, surprised at himself. “We found two leaky air gaps.”

  Doug nodded. “You know, I thought I heard something last night, but I wasn’t sure.” He stepped over to Michael and pointe
d to his patch.

  “Douglas Gould, environment systems,” he read. Doug had blond hair and a scar on his forehead.

  “Second shift,” he replied holding out his hand. “Good work on the leak hunt. Those access gaps are a bitch.”

  Michael took the hand. “That they are.”

  Dinner was a blur of beef stew, six more new crew, and Eddie and Al trying to gross him out with increasingly noxious tales from sludge tanks gone bad. He caught a quick shower after dinner and put on a fresh set of utilities for the movie. About twenty of the crew were there, and he was hit with four new names, but soon enough he settled down in the back row.

  He was asleep before the first appearance of Paula Stone’s cleavage.

  Chapter 11

  “Watch what you’re doing, Michael. You might actually learn something this time.” — Malcolm Fletcher

  IN THE MORNING, MICHAEL KNEW he was supposed to report to Terri Schwarz in engineering for the day, but he was not sure how to get there. None of his tours had taken him back to the drive section yet, but he did know where the access hatch was. In fact, he had passed right by it on the way back from the movie the night before, but it was closed and had large stenciled letters reading, “HATCH REMAINS CLOSED AT ALL TIMES”.

  Fortunately, he ran into Zane Forrester in the mess line at breakfast. He had turned to Michael and covered his name patch. “Good morning, new guy.”

  Michael nodded at the game. “Zane Forrester, tach engineer, first watch.”

  Zane dropped his hand and picked up his tray. “I hear we get you for today’s shift.”

  “Yeah. Any chance I can tag along with you. I haven’t been back there yet.” Breakfast looked to be eggs or pancakes. Michael wanted both.

  “Sure, meet me at the forward access hatch by seven fifteen.”

  Michael wolfed down his food and went back to the end of the serving line. There were five biscuits left. He grabbed one and stuffed it in his pocket. On his way out he got hit with two more “Hey, new guy” introductions, but he made it out with enough time to spare.

  He was already dressed, so he had no need to get back to his quarters. Instead, he slid down the ladders to deck five, turned two corners and saw Karen sitting at her station watching the displays. “Think fast!” he called and tossed the biscuit over the intervening consoles.

  She looked up just in time to clutch it to her chest. “Oh my!” she exclaimed.

  “Gotta run,” he said, and headed back the other way.

  “Thank you, Michael!” she called out, and he caught one last look at her smile as he turned the corner.

  Up two ladders on deck three, Zane was waiting for him at the access hatch. “Ready?”

  Michael nodded, and Zane swung the hatch inwards. On the other side was a proper airlock. They went in, and Zane closed the hatch behind him. Zane grabbed a couple of looped belts and tossed one to Michael. He then stepped into the loop and pulled it snug around his waist. Michael did his best to mirror the older man’s actions.

  When Zane went to open the opposite hatch, Michael grabbed at his arm. “Wait, don’t we need environment suits?”

  Zane chuckled. “Ah, because of the lock? No, that’s a design precaution in case we lose atmosphere in the spine.” He pointed to a display next the door. “See, all green. Even a millibar of pressure difference would get you a yellow. Much beyond that, and you’d never be able to pull it open.” He then proceeded to open up the rear hatch.

  The corridor beyond stretched to forever and back, and Michael had a brief sense of vertigo. It was about six meters across and ran the entire length of the long cargo section, all three hundred meters. Zane had already gone through, while Michael paused in the hatchway. Behind him, he heard someone pounding against the other hatch.

  “Hurry up, Michael,” Zane urged him.

  Once through, Zane closed the hatch. “We’re not supposed to have both hatches open at once. It can slow down the shift change, but it’s a safety issue.”

  “What happens if both are open?”

  “If we have atmosphere on both sides, nothing, but it will signal an alarm on the bridge, and you don’t want to have to explain yourself to the XO.”

  “Why?” He felt foolish asking. He remembered what it had been like the last time he has stood under her withering glare.

  Zane smiled. “Because she’ll make it viscerally clear to you what would happen if we had any kind of hull breach with those hatches open.” He shuddered.

  Michael let it go as he heard the next batch of crewman coming in through the forward hatch. Before him, Zane had stepped up to a pulley and cable system mounted in the center of the spine, supported by three columns radiating out. The pattern of supports continued down the length of the spine, visually breaking it up into three wedged paths. He followed Zane in but was surprised by some dizziness. “Is there gravity in here?”

  “A little at each end, but zero for the length of it. I hope you didn’t eat too much at breakfast.”

  Michael briefly regretted his double helping, but he did not worry much. He had been working in and out of zero gravity most of his life. He stepped forward and saw a handle come around the pulley and catch on the other side, the cable moving along without it.

  Zane stepped towards it. “This is the spine express,” he said, pointing to the wedges on the left and right. “You can always glide the length of it on your own, but if you do, use those,” he said, pointing up towards a series of rungs along the ceiling. “Keep the express lanes clear.”

  Michael looked at the end of his belt loop. It had a carabineer that would slip right over the handle. Zane clipped his belt loop onto the waiting handle and grabbed it with his hand.

  “Clip on and take hold,” he said. “Then give it a little twist.” When he did, Zane was pulled down the corridor by the handle moving along with the cable.

  Michael waited for another handle to appear, and when it did, he clipped on. With a deep breath, he twisted the handle and immediately lost his grip on it as it accelerated down the cable. He had less than a second to worry as the belt pulled tight around him and yanked him off his feet. He braced his arms to catch himself, but he never fell to the deck. Gravity slipped away within a couple of meters, and he was flying down the corridor.

  He caught back up with the handle and grabbed hold of it. Zane was ahead of him by about thirty meters. He looked back and waved. Michael nodded and started looking around the passing corridor. It was well lit but fairly boring. Its main features were the central cable system and the rungs along the ceiling. He did pass by some other hatches along those rungs. He could not make out all the lettering, but the biggest read “CARGO 3”, followed by “CARGO 4” and so on.

  He did not have much time to wonder about them, because after about thirty seconds, Zane began to slow down and before Michael could wonder how, he slowed as well. He unclipped his belt as Zane had, and when the handle finally reached the far pulley, he was already on his feet in the returning gravity of the drive section.

  Another full airlock marked the end of the spine, and Michael and Zane passed through it quickly. Terri Schwartz was waiting for them at the other end. “Ah, good to see you made it,” she said.

  “It was an unexpected ride.” More than anything, though, Michael was looking forward to making the trip again. Despite his uncertainty, it had been a lot of fun.

  “So I understand you already have a rating in tach drives.”

  He nodded. The overnight shift was gathering together to depart, but one woman remained steadfast at the console. “Yes, I have a two-T rating.”

  “That’s what the XO said.” She looked him up and down. “Awfully young for such a rating.”

  “I’ve been on ships my whole life,” he replied. In truth, most of these ratings were simply a matter of having picked up the skills necessary to stay alive on a ship for as long as he had. That, and math. Math was always the problem. His struggle with vector calculus was the main reason he had not go
tten his navigation rating yet.

  “Well, then, we’ll see if we can put you to some use.”

  The rest of the drive crew arrived, and he went through the new guy routine with them. He had studied them on the computer before breakfast, so he was in good shape there. The outgoing shift was all new to him, so he went through the whole routine. Frankly, he was surprised the overnight shift had been so large.

  “It’s not like environmental,” Zane explained. “Their first shift does all the maintenance, both fore and aft, while the other shifts mostly babysit the system. But back here in drives, once we’re under tach, we’re always monitoring and keeping it running smoothly all the way around the clock.”

  He was paired up with Zane for the morning, and they went aft to the massive tach sail generators. He had never seen any so big, and the Heinrich had not merely one generator like Sophie, but four. They sat at a station between the lower two, while Nathan Colton sat at a similar station on a catwalk twenty meters above them.

  “Why four?” Michael asked after they had settled in. “Why not a single bigger one instead?”

  “Off-axis polarization is a lot easier with more than one.” When he saw Michael’s confusion, he asked, “Most of your time has been on smaller ships, right?”

  He nodded, though Sophie was not exactly tiny like the little yachts or touring ships. Still, compared to the Heinrich, everything short of the big navy carriers seemed small. “Why would you ever want to polarize the sail off-axis?”

  “You’re used to the eddies and shifts in the ambient tachyon winds, right?”

  “Of course,” he replied. Everyone who had ever been on a starship knew about that. The tachyon winds were leftovers from the universe’s hyperinflation stage in the first fractional second after the Big Bang, and in an otherwise empty universe they would be uniform and omnidirectional. However, in a universe with planets, stars, and black holes, the winds were perturbed. Tachyons got funny in gravitational fields, and in a galaxy as crowded as the Milky Way, it led to a very chaotic system complete with prevailing winds, storms, and even shock fronts. The chaos was one of the reasons navigation required so much math. “But I still don’t see why you’d go off-axis. Why not reorient the ship?”