“You didn’t really believe he’d consciously abuse an animal or keep one in intolerable conditions, did you?”
“No,” he replied seriously after a brief pause, “I guess I didn’t, or I wouldn’t if I’d thought about it. I have read some of Jellico’s papers, and all of them show too much liking and respect for his subjects to allow any mistreating of them.”
The man glanced at his timer. “Let’s have a quick run through of the Queen and drop off your gear. We’ll soon have to be strapping down.”
“Good idea.” She hefted her kit bag, which she had eased to the floor while they had been talking.
Thorson eyed it sourly. It was the standard size and obviously of manageable weight but was easily three times as full as his had been when he had boarded the Solar Queen.
Reason quelled his resentment. What else could he have expected? Rael Cofort was not some raw recruit out of Training Pool. She was a veteran of the starlanes who had literally been born in Trade and had hitherto lived and worked under conditions of considerable prosperity. She should have accumulated a few possessions. He, on the other hand, with no kin to back him, had come to his post with only his bare issue gear and the pathetically few extras he had been able to buy for himself to augment that.
The Cargo-apprentice first led the way through the bridge area and pointed out the personal cabins of those working there. Then they descended the core ladder to the next deck, which housed the engine and drive controls, where Johan Stotz commanded and lived with his staff.
The public cabins in which the hands and any passengers gathered during off-duty time were located below that.
Here was the mess and galley, Frank Mura’s chief domain, plus the small crew’s cabin with its media readers and other equipment designed to help dispel the boredom of interstellar travel.
Farther down, close to the holds that, with the fuel coils and drive tubes, comprised the greatest part of the Solar Queen’s interior, were the Cargo-Master’s and Thorson’s own cabins plus those of Frank Mura and Doctor Tau and the two minute chambers kept for passengers, one of which would be assigned to Cofort for the duration of her service aboard the Queen. The final cabin there was, of course, the combination sanunit/fresher that was a mandatory part of every deck containing permanent sleeping quarters.
The newcomer briefly surveyed the cabin to which her guide showed her, then dropped her pack on the foot of the bunk. The room was small even by spacer standards since it had never been intended to serve anyone as a permanent home, but it was adequate. The bunk at least was full size, and there were sufficient lockers for both clothing and bulkier belongings. A large metal panel could be unfastened and swung down and outward from the wall to provide a desk or workspace with the bunk taking the place of a chair. The lighting, she saw, was well placed and more than bright enough for reading or close work.
She did not linger to unpack but quickly went outside again to follow Thorson down to the final deck that they would be visiting. There would be no time to see much more, and she doubted that she would be invited to examine the holds for a while, although they were unsealed, empty for the most part save for a small store of trade goods. A Free Trader was usually cautious about whom he let into that treasury of his business, the storehouse of the magic he hoped to wield among the denizens of the planets he visited.
The level to which they now came was the most interesting of all to Cofort. Here was the sick bay, Doctor Tau’s surgery and laboratory, and the hydro, the large chamber housing the plants that replenished a starship’s oxygen, scrubbed the waste products of respiration from the continuously recirculated air, and supplied as a by-product fruits and vegetables to vary the otherwise monotonous diet of concentrates that was the nearly perpetual lot of space hounds who ranged the vast reaches between the stars.
The portal giving entrance to it was partly transparent, and they paused for a moment to admire the lush greenery within.
“So much!” she exclaimed. “And such variety! — I thought you were forced to flush it all out when you picked up those Sargol pests.”
“We did. Mr. Mura’s worked hard to bring it back.”
Dane took a deep breath as he opened the door, savoring as always the crisp freshness of growing things. Everywhere else, the ship’s air was stale, processed stuff. Here, it was alive.
Feeling something brush against his leg, he glanced down. A large, orange-striped tomcat had slipped in behind them and was rubbing him in the traditional greeting of his kind before turning his attention to the newcomer.
Cofort lightly lowered herself to her knees. “Hello, big boy,” she said softly as she offered him her hand to sniff.
“You’re the Chief of Pest Control, I presume?”
“He is,” Thorson confirmed. “This is Sinbad, an honored member of the crew.”
“Rightly so.” She shuddered. “I shouldn’t care to voyage far on any ship lacking a good cat.”
“You won’t find too many who’d give you an argument on that,” he agreed.
She scooped Sinbad into her arms. “He’s enormous! Ours are kittens by comparison.”
“The Roving Star has more than one cat?”
She nodded. “A senior citizen and two former foundlings who now sort of run the place under her supervision.”
Rael rubbed the big cat under the chin with the tips of fingers obviously well accustomed to that delicate work and received a rumbling purr as a reward.
Reluctantly, she put him down once more and came to her feet. She sniffed the scent-rich air appreciatively. “I’d know you had a master chef aboard even if Mara hadn’t apprised me of that fact. — Thyme, sage, basil, honey seed, sharp grass—all the old faithfuls, and I detect some real delicacies as well.”
“Detect? We’re not near the spices at all . . .”
“I’ve got sensitive senses, smell included.” Her nose wrinkled. “That’s not always an advantage on some of the holes we visit. Besides, I’ve worked in the Star’s hydro quite a bit and more or less know what to expect in a good one.”
One familiar aroma was missing. “You should have some lavender,” she told him. “There’s nothing like it for freshening the air, and it’s not overpowering even in the smallest cabin.”
Three whistles sounded over the intercom. “Lift-off coming,” Dane remarked, unnecessarily since the signal was universal to the starlanes.
They carefully sealed the hydro door after seeing Sinbad out, then scrambled up the ladder with the ease of long
[MISSING TEXT] custom to strap down Solar Queen would be would come the jump v to Canuche of Halio.
5
Boredom was the great plague of interstellar travel, but Rael Cofort suffered very little from that in the days that followed. Chiefly, she worked with Craig Tau, but she spent some time with every department, more or less depending upon current need and her expertise in the work at hand.
It was well after mess time but she was still at Tau’s terminal, obviously deeply involved in the task before her and quite oblivious to their presence, when the chief Medic and Jellico came into the surgery. She seemed equally unaware of the discomfort of the position she had for some unexplained reason chosen to adopt, sitting so far back that her arms had to stretch to their full length for her fingers to reach the keyboard.
The change in perspective won by another step provided the answer. A furry head and paw rested on the woman’s upper right arm. The remainder of the big cat extended down her trunk and filled her lap.
Sinbad’s eyes opened at the men’s approach. He gave a wide yawn, then leapt gracefully to the floor, where he stretched to his considerable supple length. Still purring in feline contentment, he strode off, tail high, to resume his patrol of the starship that was his universe and domain.
Cofort smiled tenderly even as she flexed her stiff arms.
“I love those little fellows so much that sometimes I think I must have been one.”
“Reincarnation?” Tau asked, curious as always about the magic and beliefs of others.
“Aye,” she responded, still smiling, “but the reference was poetic. I think we humans are granted only one voyage in which to prove ourselves. — I like to imagine that Sinbad’s kind might return more often, though, at least when and where they choose. Their life spans are so much shorter than ours that it’s nice to feel we might be reunited with a friend of our youth at a later point in our lives.”
She eyed them for a moment, as if waiting for some challenge, then flexed her shoulders again and glanced at the screen. “The fifth section’s almost in. It’s slow going, but complex enough to make the inputting fairly interesting work.”