Shooting the Rift - eARC by Alex Stewart Page B

actually it was just a room full of stuff not doing anything particularly interesting, including the captain. Unlike the virts, no one was striding purposefully across the middle of the room with an urgent message, or gazing intently at complicated instrument panels. Indeed, there were very few of those, mostly powered down, and the ones that were activated were simply repeating dataflow that was cascading through the fringes of my ‘sphere. The ship, it seemed, was flown by neuroware interface, with the physical controls just there for backup.
    “You made it, then,” Remington greeted me, glancing up from the chair in which he was sprawled, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. He licked a smear of escaping mayonnaise from his fingers.
    “Simon Forrester, reporting for duty,” I said, suppressing the urge to bow formally as I spoke. Clio’s reaction to my Avalonian greeting had put me on my guard, and I resolved to act a little more casually around my new shipmates, at least until I got a handle on the Guild way of doing things.
    “Right.” Remington nodded, and slurped from a tea mug. “Found the crew quarters?”
    I echoed the gesture. “Clio showed me. I’ve already picked out a room.”
    “Good. You meet Rennau on the way in?”
    “Her father?” Remington inclined his head in confirmation, still apparently more interested in his snack than in me. “He sent me up here to report in.”
    “In a few well-chosen words, no doubt.” Remington chewed and swallowed the last of his sandwich. “Not one for diplomacy, our Mik. But a good man to have at your back.”
    I found myself reflecting that if Rennau had Remington’s back he’d slip a knife into it as likely as not, but Guilders apparently had their own ways of looking at things, so perhaps the Captain’s confidence was justified.
    Remington looked at me for a second or two, as though surprised to find me still there. “Cut along, then. Tell him to find you something to do.”
    “Yes, sir.” I hesitated, wondering if I was supposed to salute or something, and Remington sighed.
    “Call me Sir if I get a knighthood. Till then, stick to Skipper. Or Captain, if you’re feeling formal, or we’re trying to impress a dirtwalker.”
    “Yes s . . . Skipper.”
    I left the bridge, and descended the stairs, once again wondering what I’d got myself into.

    I’d like to say I found my feet quickly, but I spent most of the next few days getting in the way of people who knew what they were doing, and following the instructions they’d given me in varying tones of tolerance or exasperation. Rennau had started me off by stowing cargo, heaving the pallets the drones had delivered the last few inches into place and securing them, under the direction of Rolf and Lena, a couple of transgeners who’d clearly gone all out for physical strength. Both quite literally bulged with muscle, lugging crates larger than I was with scant sign of visible effort. Despite their intimidating appearance, however, they welcomed me aboard with surprisingly delicate handshakes, and spent their breaks discussing philosophy and literature in terms so abstruse as to leave me floundering within minutes.
    On the whole, I felt I did a reasonable job, and the simple physical work seemed to agree with me: by the time we were ready for departure I’d regained the muscle tone I’d been in danger of losing after neglecting my regular training regime for so long, and resolved to continue working out in order to keep it.
    Not that lugging boxes around was my sole occupation in the days leading up to our departure. (And days it was: Remington’s implied threat to leave me behind having turned out to be either a test of my resolve, or a negotiating tactic to wring some unspecified further concession from my aunt.) If anything needed to be fetched, I went for it. If anyone needed a spare pair of hands, mine were the ones required; I saw a lot of the ship’s internal systems while passing tools to