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“How about the empty container?”

“That’s going really well. I’ve got a base budget of fifty kilocreds to fill it each time. We’ve pulled anything from one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty back out.”

“Nice ratios,” I said, and sighed.

“What’s the matter, Ish?”

“What the hell am I going to do?” I asked him. “And for that matter, what are you going to do? Isn’t your two year contract just about up?”

“Oh, well, I extended for another year. It’ll expire in August 2353,” he admitted.

“Why?” I asked him.

He looked startled by the question. “What? I’m going to leave just when we’re starting to get established? If we buckle down and do some serious trading—with the co-op and our mass allotments, we’ll be sitting on fifty or sixty kilocreds in a year.”

I looked at him. “You’re serious?”

He shrugged. “We’ve already split four and there’s seven in there again. That’s from a standing start with almost no mass allotment.”

“Well, we had a lot of luck,” I pointed out.

“Luck only has a little bit to do with it. We picked cargoes that turned really good profits. Yeah, Sarah made the most of the stones, but she’s thrilled with her commission, and we were just doing business.”

“But we’ve been six months making eleven thousand,” I said. “What makes you think we can turn that into fifty or sixty by this time next year?”

“Two things, mass and money. We started with almost none of the first and darn little of the second. We now have enough to take just about anything we want.”

He made sense. “But that doesn’t answer the question for the long term. What are you going to do next year when your contract is up?”

“I don’t know. What are you planning to do?”

I pushed the last bit of carrot around on my plate and said, “I told the captain I’d make up my mind about the academy.”

“Make up your mind about it?”

“Yeah. Mr. von Ickles brought it up. Then the captain took me aside while we were dithering around in Betrus.” I looked up at him then to see how he was taking my news. “They think I should go.”

“What do you think about that?”

I couldn’t read his expression. “I don’t know. I think I need to get some kind of credential. A degree is good. If I’m going to go ashore, I’ll need a trade or something. That’s what pushed me out here to begin with.”

“Well, you’ve got credentials to spare at the moment,” he pointed out.

“Very true,” I said thoughtfully. “But—I don’t know. If I stop thinking about the creds. If I assume, that somehow the ability to pay will be there. Then most of my objections to going are silly.”

“So the only thing stopping you is the cost?” he asked.

“No, not the only thing. I’m coming up on a year on the
Lois
in a couple weeks. It’s been a blast.” I shrugged. “If I still think it’s fun at the end of two, then maybe I need to go invest some time and money and get a third mate’s certificate and see where that leads me.”

“What? And leave the
Lois
?”

“Maybe Lois will be done with me by then,” I pointed out. “Yes, I know,” I said forestalling his comment on talking about Lois as if she was real.

We finished dinner and the waiter took our plates while offering dessert, but neither of us was in the mood, so we settled up and headed out to walk off the meal.

Finally Pip said, “How much will it take?”

“How much will what take?”

“How much will it take to go to the academy?”

“Conservatively? Sixty kilocreds for the four years.”

“Fifteen a year?”

“Yeah, something like that. Ten for tuition and half again more for room and board, books, and equipment.”

“So if we make sixty kilocreds over the next year, you’ll have half of what you need?”

“Yeah. Assuming I want to go next year.”

“Well, even if you decide not to go, that would be a nice little nest egg to do anything you like, eh?”

“True.”

“Okay, well, hell. What are we worrying about this now for?” he asked with a grin. “We’re two stud muffins out on the town. Why aren’t we down on the oh-two looking for lust?”

Behind us a woman’s voice said, “Phillip? Phillip Carstairs, is that you?”

Pip stopped in his tracks, blanched as white as a ship-tee, and turned to see who had spoken to him. “Oh, hi, Aunt P. What are you doing on Niol?”

Aunt P turned out to be a distinguished looking woman with cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a lithe build, and a burly guy in tow.

“Hi, Uncle Q,” Pip said.

“Phil, you rascal,” Uncle Q said with a grin. “What in the name of the seven sisters are you doing here? I thought you were at the academy?”

I arched an eyebrow at Pip noting the similarity in build between Pip and his uncle.

“Uncle Quentin, Aunt Penelope, this is my shipmate, Ishmael Wang,” he made the introductions like they were barbed wire. “Ish, this is my aunt and uncle, Captain Penelope and First Mate Quentin Carstairs.” He looked like he wanted the deck to swallow him, but he added, “On my father’s side,” as if either an apology or an explanation.

“How nice to meet you!” I said, and stuck out my hand in their general direction. I didn’t know who I was supposed to shake first, so I let them decide. The captain took priority and she gave me a firm and warm hand shake. The first mate’s grip threatened, but never actually attempted, to crush my hand.

“You’re his shipmate?” Aunt P asked with a little head twitch like some tall bird.

“Yes, Captain,” I said. “We’re on the
Lois McKendrick
.”

Aunt P looked up at Uncle Q for a flashing instant before turning back. “We thought you were in Port Newmar, dear.”

“Yes, Aunt P, well, that didn’t exactly happen.”

“So I see,” she replied primly. She looked over to her first mate again.

He spoke this time. “Well, this is hardly the place for a family reunion. Why don’t you boys come back to the
Penny
and have a beer and we’ll catch up?”

I started to beg off and Pip gave me the
if-you-leave-me-here-I-will-hunt-you-down-and-kill-you
look so I merely shrugged, leaving the actual negotiation to him.

“I think we have time for one. Thank you, Uncle Q. We’ll have to leave soon because we have duty in the morning, of course.” Pip was talking quickly and I saw Aunt P’s eyes narrow, but she didn’t say anything.

They started walking and we fell into step. Pip walked beside Aunt P who took him by the arm, not so much as to walk arm-in-arm with her nephew, but to prevent his escape, I thought. I walked on the other side of Uncle Q. He looked down at me curiously from time to time, a kind of bemused half-smile stamped on his face.

Before it got too awkward I said, “So? What brings you to Niol?”

“Triangle trade, Ishmael,” he said. “Boat parts for the fishing fleet from here to Umber. Bulk fertilizer to Barsi, frozen food from Barsi to here.”

“Not very exciting,” Aunt P added, “but it has put our three boys through the academy and paid off the
Penny
.”

I leaned forward and looked at Pip, walking along on the other side of her. He looked like he was marching to the gallows. Personally, I had no idea families could be so entertaining.

Uncle Q and I had become fast friends by the time we got off the lift at the docks. Pip wasn’t faring so well with Aunt Q, but they were already catching up. We headed to starboard where the orbital docked the smaller freighters. We walked up to a standard lock and Aunt P keyed it open. The telltale said:
Bad Penny
with a departure date of 2352-August-20.

Aunt P marched aboard as soon as the lock was open enough and Uncle Q stood back to let Pip and I go in first. Aunt P spoke into an intercom just inside the lock saying, “Roger? We’re home, honey.”

A disembodied voice said, “Okay, Mom,” from the overhead speakers.

What struck me was how tiny it was. I thought the
Lois
was small, but this was like walking into a tram. We had to enter single file even through the lock. The passage wasn’t more than five meters long before it opened into what looked like a living room. It was actually slightly larger than the living room mom and I had in our flat back on Neris, but it had a rug on the deck, a coffee table, even a pair of sofas arranged in a classic conversational grouping. I felt like I had stepped into something out of Lewis Carroll.

First Mate Uncle Q crossed to the small wet bar and said, “Drinks? Anybody for drinks?”

“Gin and tonic?” I asked hopefully.

“Of course,” he said. “Phillip?”

“A beer would be good, Uncle Q, thank you.”

He handed Aunt P what looked like a whiskey neat without her asking, and she sucked about half of it down in the first go. He handed me a very nice gin and tonic, complete with citrus wedge. “Thank you,” I said. “Just like mother used to make.”

He grinned, but Aunt P looked at me a little funny. “You drank gin and tonics with your mother?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Yes, sar, she didn’t like to drink alone.”

“Just Penny, dear. I’m Penny when I’m at home.”

“Phillip!” a new voice boomed out of the passage followed by a junior version of Uncle Q. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were at the academy?”

Pip looked a little embarrassed by all the attention. “Yeah, well, things didn’t work out the way everybody expected.”

“When you left home, you were heading for Port Newmar,” Aunt P said. “Did you get shanghaied along the way?”

“Not exactly. I didn’t actually get on the liner for Port Newmar,” he said, sucking on his beer. “I signed the Articles and shipped out as a quarter-share in the environmental section on the Marcel
Duchamp
.”

“How’d you get on to the
Lois
?” Aunt P asked. “They didn’t let you transfer?”

“No, they traded me.”

The overhead took a dent when Aunt P’s eyebrows bounced off of it.

“The
Lois
had a crewman who wanted to transfer into environmental. Pip—er Phillip—was willing to help them out. It was a good move for everybody,” I contributed.

Roger in the meantime had helped himself to a beer, threw himself down on the sofa, and put his feet on the coffee table.

I looked around and except for the obvious things, like the hatch combings and the lock that I could see from where I sat on the couch, I could have been in somebody’s house. I supposed, in a very real way, I was.

The conversation flagged for a moment and Roger grinned and offered, “Uncle Thomas is going to throw a rod, when he finds out.”

I looked at Pip and gave him the
oh-we-do-have-to-chat-later
look.

Aunt P sighed then and said, “What in hell were you thinking, Phillip Carstairs? Your father and mother are expecting you back with your third mate’s ticket ready to go! How have you managed to fool them into thinking you’re actually at the academy?”

“Semester in space,” he said miserably.

“Semester in space? For two stanyers?!”

He shrugged. “Well, you know how they are with things like that. They probably don’t even notice that it’s been that long.”

Uncle Q said, “Well, they were proud of you for winning that scholarship so they didn’t have to pay tuition and fees.” He winked. “That was ingenious.”

Aunt P slapped him on the leg. “Don’t encourage the boy, Quentin,” she snapped. She turned back to Pip. “You know we’re going to have to tell them, Phillip.”

He nodded with a miserable expression on his face, but he didn’t say anything.

Aunt P threw herself back in her easy chair and took another pull of whiskey from the glass before heaving a sigh. “So, what are you planning, Phil?”

He looked up. “Well, I just wanted to get a feel for what it’s like on the other side before I got tied down at the academy, Aunt P. Take a year—or two—”

“Or three?” she interrupted.

He shrugged. “Or three. See whether I could make it out here trading on my own for a bit.”

She stared at him. “You always were the hellion of the group,” she said. “Are you going to hide out for the rest of your life?”

“Actually, Ishmael and I were just discussing going to the academy over dinner, weren’t we?”

All three seemed to remember I was there and focused on me. “Are you interested in going to the academy, Ishmael?” Aunt P asked.

“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “It’s something that Captain Giggone has suggested. I don’t know how I can manage it, but I’m thinking about it.”

“Alys Giggone has talked to you about going to the academy?” Uncle Q asked.

“Yeah, I told her I wanted to work out my contract and see if I still liked it out here before I committed that kind of time and money.”

Aunt P smiled. “Well, if I know Alys, you’ll make up your mind the way she wants, and you’ll like the decision too.”

I smiled at that. “No doubt, sar—er—Penny. No doubt.”

Uncle Q asked me, “So what’s your rating, Ishmael?”

Pip started laughing, but he got it under control quickly. “You’re gonna love this answer. Go for it, Ish.”

“Well, I’m rated Cargoman, Messman, Able Spacer, Spec Two Systems, and Spec Two environmental.”

The statement lay there on the coffee table feeling lonely for a time before Roger said, “Gawd!”

“You’re rated full share in all four divisions?” Aunt P confirmed.

“Yup, he is,” Pip said with a little bit of pride.

“You look so young,” she said. “How long have you been a spacer?”

Pip choked back another laugh.

“Well, I’ll be finishing my first year in a couple of weeks,” I said, uncomfortable with the way this was going.

“And do you come from a spacer family?” Aunt P persisted.

“Um, no. My mother was an ancient lit professor at the University at Neris.”

Aunt P and Uncle Q looked at me, then each other, and then back at me. “No wonder Alys wants him to go to the academy,” Uncle Q said.

Aunt P just nodded with a speculative look in her eye. “You looking for a berth, Ish?” she asked.

“No, Penny, thank you. I quite enjoy my work on the
Lois
for now.”

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” she said. “Somebody with your skill set is highly marketable.”