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Authors: Dana Stabenow
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job. The mayor would have fired him for this partiality except that each month, rent for transient parking accumulated in the city account at the National Bank of Alaska, twenty cents per foot per day, for nine hundred feet of dock. It was deposited directly into the account, in the exact amount required per foot of slip space. When rents had gone up two years before, the amount had obligingly adjusted itself accordingly.
The mayor decided what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, although it made sport fishermen in for the day a little irritable, because no one could see the visiting spaceships except Gull. The same size and mass that allowed Gull to keep the peace in the harbor had kept anyone, thus far, from arguing the point. It was infinitely easier to raft their boats together two and three at a time.
Besides, Alaskan fishermen, a race who embraced eccentricity as a way of life, were rather proud to call Gull one of their own, especially when they got a couple of beers down him and he began to hold forth on the price per pound of bantha tongue on Tatooine.
So Kate walked the floats with Shitting Seagull, Mutt padding patiently behind, listening as Gull rebroadcast the latest headlines from abroad, a tale involving the secretary-general of the Council of Planets, centrally located on Deneb Prime; the son and heir of the warlord of Dubhe; the nubile daughter of the prime minister of the United System of Sidus Ludovicia-num; a rare element called merakium found only on, you guessed it, Merak; the Free Traders; and pirates from Spica Four.
Kate was enthralled (this was better than a Heinlein novelhell, it was better than Star Wars on Bobby's VCR, with or without popcorn), and was just about to request a definition of "nubile" on Sidus Prime when a shout came from the head of the gangway at the end of the dock.
She looked up and saw a tall man with dark hair and blue eyes in an almost ugly face, a boy who was obviously his son, waving madly, and Old Sam with his nasty grin dwarfed between them.
Gull, thrown off his rhythm, frowned up at the end of the dock. After a moment his brow cleared. "Hey, isn't that Jack Morgan? Who's that kid with him? Kate?"
But when he looked around she was already running for the gangway.
Chapter 5
They left that evening at ten o'clock, and dropped anchor in Alaganik Bay a little after eleven. With the sudden facility of prepubescence, Johnny crashed in the spare stateroom across from Old Sam's, who was already bunked down and out if the snores rattling the door in its frame were any indication. Kate and Jack rendezvoused in the bow, beneath a clear sky with a rim of light around the horizon, no clouds and no stars, either, because it was too light to see them. It would be too light until September.
"Goddam, woman, I have missed the hell out of you," Jack said, and without bothering to wait for a reciprocal declaration grabbed her up into a comprehensive embrace that escalated rapidly.
"Hold it," Kate managed to say after a moment.
"Funny," he said, "I was just about to ask you the same thing."
She smothered a laugh. "Jack, no"
"Not the 'n' word, not now." He lifted her to sit on the gunnel and moved purposefully between her legs.
"Jack!"
"What!" he bellowed.
"Knock it off." somebody yelled from another boat, and somebody else cursed and added, "Can't a person get some goddam sleep around here?" The comment was followed by a long, loud wolf whistle, and at least three heads popped out of cabin doors.
Kate stiff-armed the extremely aroused and extremely frustrated male away from her. "That's what."
She was not unaffected by having her legs wrapped around Jack Morgan for the first time in three months. Johnny had spent spring break with his grandmother in Arizona, and Jack had spent his in the loft of Kate's cabin. It had been an extremely active ten days, followed by a long and very fallow three months interrupted only by Kate's too brief spring shopping trip to Anchorage. Considering
The mayor decided what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, although it made sport fishermen in for the day a little irritable, because no one could see the visiting spaceships except Gull. The same size and mass that allowed Gull to keep the peace in the harbor had kept anyone, thus far, from arguing the point. It was infinitely easier to raft their boats together two and three at a time.
Besides, Alaskan fishermen, a race who embraced eccentricity as a way of life, were rather proud to call Gull one of their own, especially when they got a couple of beers down him and he began to hold forth on the price per pound of bantha tongue on Tatooine.
So Kate walked the floats with Shitting Seagull, Mutt padding patiently behind, listening as Gull rebroadcast the latest headlines from abroad, a tale involving the secretary-general of the Council of Planets, centrally located on Deneb Prime; the son and heir of the warlord of Dubhe; the nubile daughter of the prime minister of the United System of Sidus Ludovicia-num; a rare element called merakium found only on, you guessed it, Merak; the Free Traders; and pirates from Spica Four.
Kate was enthralled (this was better than a Heinlein novelhell, it was better than Star Wars on Bobby's VCR, with or without popcorn), and was just about to request a definition of "nubile" on Sidus Prime when a shout came from the head of the gangway at the end of the dock.
She looked up and saw a tall man with dark hair and blue eyes in an almost ugly face, a boy who was obviously his son, waving madly, and Old Sam with his nasty grin dwarfed between them.
Gull, thrown off his rhythm, frowned up at the end of the dock. After a moment his brow cleared. "Hey, isn't that Jack Morgan? Who's that kid with him? Kate?"
But when he looked around she was already running for the gangway.
Chapter 5
They left that evening at ten o'clock, and dropped anchor in Alaganik Bay a little after eleven. With the sudden facility of prepubescence, Johnny crashed in the spare stateroom across from Old Sam's, who was already bunked down and out if the snores rattling the door in its frame were any indication. Kate and Jack rendezvoused in the bow, beneath a clear sky with a rim of light around the horizon, no clouds and no stars, either, because it was too light to see them. It would be too light until September.
"Goddam, woman, I have missed the hell out of you," Jack said, and without bothering to wait for a reciprocal declaration grabbed her up into a comprehensive embrace that escalated rapidly.
"Hold it," Kate managed to say after a moment.
"Funny," he said, "I was just about to ask you the same thing."
She smothered a laugh. "Jack, no"
"Not the 'n' word, not now." He lifted her to sit on the gunnel and moved purposefully between her legs.
"Jack!"
"What!" he bellowed.
"Knock it off." somebody yelled from another boat, and somebody else cursed and added, "Can't a person get some goddam sleep around here?" The comment was followed by a long, loud wolf whistle, and at least three heads popped out of cabin doors.
Kate stiff-armed the extremely aroused and extremely frustrated male away from her. "That's what."
She was not unaffected by having her legs wrapped around Jack Morgan for the first time in three months. Johnny had spent spring break with his grandmother in Arizona, and Jack had spent his in the loft of Kate's cabin. It had been an extremely active ten days, followed by a long and very fallow three months interrupted only by Kate's too brief spring shopping trip to Anchorage. Considering
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