Charon's Landing by Jack du Brul Page B

that tankers and their cousins, bulk carriers and container ships, simply became another part of the assembly line. To those who owned them and to many of the new generation that worked them, the world’s merchant fleets no longer elicited the emotional responses that they’d commanded a half century before. They’d become just one more cog in the great industrialized machine.
    Maybe that was why Hauser didn’t like the crew he would command until the ship docked at the El Segundo refinery north of Long Beach. They were part of the new generation. They saw what they did as jobs, not callings, as he had when he went to sea at sixteen. Hauser wondered if he was just being harsh. Maybe his wife was right, that he shouldn’t have allowed himself to be coaxed out of a quiet, dull retirement for one last command. Even if he could accept a woman as a bridge officer, progress might have passed him by, leaving him longing for the old traditions that were gone for good.
    “Aw, hell, give ’em time. They’ve had a rough couple a days,” Hauser said aloud. He regularly talked to himself and to his ships.
    Until three days ago, the
Arctica
had been owned by Petromax Oil under the command of Captain Harris Albrecht. Then, through secret negotiations, Petromax sold their remaining tanker fleet, including the
Arctica
, to Southern Coasting and Lightering, an obscure tanker company based in Louisiana. The same day news of the sale reached the ship, Captain Albrecht, the master of the
Petromax Arctica
for nearly six years, had suffered a serious accident.
    Hauser hadn’t yet learned the full story, but due to the severity of his injuries, Albrecht had been choppered from the ship while she was still two hundred miles from port and flown directly to Anchorage’s Providence Hospital. Riggs’ succinct report of the incident stated that Captain Albrecht had lost part of his right forearm in a machinery accident and that the severed member had not been recovered. Hauser was empathetic enough to give Riggs and the rest of the crew time to deal with the trauma before pressing for details.
    Southern Coasting and Lightering had bought the crew’s contracts when they purchased the vessel. However, they did not have a captain able to fill in for the injured Albrecht, so Hauser had consented to leave his retirement and take the vessel from Valdez to California. Hauser had spent most of his career on smaller vessels called product tankers, moving fuel oil, gasoline, or other oil derivatives along the East Coast. This was the first time he’d ever worked for Southern Coasting and the first time in years that he’d commanded a tanker in these northern waters.
    In addition to a more complete accident report, Hauser also wanted to get the reason why the
Petromax Arctica
had been eighteen hours late arriving at Valdez. He could forgive an inadequate log entry concerning the accident, given the circumstances, but he was not about to overlook Riggs bringing the tanker into port three-quarters of a day late without an explanation. That kind of laxity was unpardonable. This had not been an auspicious beginning to Lyle Hauser’s last command.
    The sliding glass door leading to the bridge hissed open, pulling Hauser out of his musings. First Officer Riggs approached, her angular body buried under layers of sweaters and coats. Her face was gaunt and bony, with deeply recessed eyes of an indeterminate color. They were rather hazy and small. Her mouth was tight and lipless, and her eyelids fluttered distractingly.
    “Sir, a call from the Operations Control Center.” Even without the distortion of the walkie-talkie, her voice was clipped and masculine.
    “Yes, what is it?”
    “The tractor trailer has arrived with the new nameplates for the ship.”
    Hauser blew a long breath of frustration. If his new command had not been discomforting enough, the name of the vessel was to be changed as the tanker steamed to Southern California. When Hauser was told