STARLINER by David Drake

“I came to Earth to make my fortune,” Chekoumian said, looking around the Social Hall with satisfaction. “And so I have done!”

There were already several hundred passengers present, many of them with their seat backs reclined so that they could look upward. On the morning and afternoon before undocking, it was traditional for First Class passengers to gather in the lounge. A bird’s-eye holographic projection on the ceiling showed the Empress of Earth in her berth as ground crews and their machinery swarmed about with the final preparations.

Blavatsky realized that Chekoumian wasn’t bragging about his wealth, precisely. He knew that no matter how successful he had been, a substantial part of the Empress’s passenger list could buy him a dozen times over. His was the self-made man’s pride in his success—a matter worthy of the emotion, in Blavatsky’s terms.

“Well, sir,” she said, “you’ve picked the right ship to go home on, then. The Empress means success!”

Unless you rode her in Third Class, in the spaces that would double as cattle byres when the Empress of Earth lifted from Calicheman.

The passenger beamed at Blavatsky. He wasn’t listening, but he was glad of her presence because he needed an audience to burble his joy aloud. “Marie doesn’t know I’m coming back,” he explained, waving the sealed letters again. “I’d return when I’d made my fortune, we agreed, and every two weeks of those five years she’s sent me a letter. By the Brasil or by the Empress, voyage and voyage. And what I’ve done—”

Chekoumian looked around to see who else might be listening. No one was. He added in a confidential voice anyway, “—you see, these past three months, when I knew I was going home to marry Marie, I’ve saved her letters. I’m going to read one at each planet-fall, and then when we reach Tblisi—I’ll have my Marie herself.”

Blavatsky looked at the passenger. He was a sophisticated man as well as being rich and successful. Unlike many of those in the Social Hall, Chekoumian wore his stylish clothes with practiced ease. He wasn’t dressing up for the voyage; he looked as he did to his business associates, at what must be a very high level of his field of endeavor.

But he was also childishly enthusiastic, especially when he was talking about his Marie. Blavatsky smiled, genuinely pleased by Chekoumian’s good fortune—and his fiancee’s. Her expression couldn’t be pure laughter, though, because she remembered how recently she’d thought she was that happy also.

“Five years ago, I had nothing but the clothes I stand in,” reminisced Chekoumian. He looked around at the ivoroid and silk, at successful passengers and the images of a supernal empire on the walls. “Ship’s clothes they were, too, bought from the bosun’s slop chest. And now, only five years—the Beakersdorff chain decides they must have my connections on Szgrane and K’Chitka. They pay me a million three—so much from nothing, in five years!”

Chekoumian had spoken of his warehouse. It sounded as though he was an import-export specialist—had been one, and would certainly be something, maybe the same thing, again soon. His kind of man didn’t sit on his hands just because he’d found himself rich.

“I’m glad of your good fortune, Mr Chekoumian,” Blavatsky said aloud. She knew she needed to get on, but she no longer felt the pressure of a moment before. Quiet longing eased over her as smoothly as the sea across tidal flats. Commander Kneale’s anger was as remote a possibility as the threat of lightning; and in any case, it didn’t rule Blavatsky’s soul.

“The best of my fortune,” Chekoumian said, “is my Marie. She can’t realize how well I’ve done. I tell her, but a letter is a letter, you know . . . and I didn’t realize until Beakersdorff made their offer three months ago! Many women wouldn’t wait five years, you know.”

And some men wouldn’t wait four weeks, Blavatsky thought. The length of a round-trip voyage, Earth to Tblisi and back, with the wedding planned for the day the Empress docked on her return. . . .

“That’s quite true, sir,” Blavatsky murmured. “I hope you continue to be so happy.”