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Authors: David Drake
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dock, and the crane was winching up a seventh to join them.
Several of the dockworkers were missing limbs. Mon had continued Stacey Bergen’s practice of hiring former RCN spacers, particularly those who were no longer fit for interstellar service. As with Daniel’s decision to appoint Mon as manager, it was an act of kindness which had proven to be extremely good business.
“It’s always a pleasure to see how well things are going,” Daniel said. He beamed at the bustle. The Bergen yard had gotten more than its share of Navy work during the war because employing injured veterans had protected it against the loss of workers to man the fleet. Things didn’t seem to have slowed down since the Treaty of Amiens, though. “But I came here primarily to pick your brains about a ship. I’d like to hire—or buy; perhaps purchase would be a better idea—a well-found freighter of a thousand tons or so. You know, a tramp that a crew of six could work but with cabin space for twenty.”
Mon looked at Daniel and rubbed his cheek. His black hair was receding, but he had begun wearing fluffy side-whiskers which merged with a magnificent moustache. Mon was much plumper than he had been as a lieutenant, but he looked truly happy—which had never been the case when he wore an RCN uniform.
“Well, I tell you, sir,” he said. “I’ve got three ships myself that’d fit, though only two of them’re on Cinnabar right this moment. I own them, I mean—bought them out of my share of the yard’s profits and fixed them up. You can have any of them for a florin—buy or rent, I don’t care. It’ll be a pleasure to turn her over to you.”
Daniel frowned. A nearby tramp tested its intake pump by running up to high flow and exhausting the reaction mass back into the pool; the roar gave him time to think.
“I appreciate the offer, Mon,” Daniel said as the flow whirred down to a trickle, “but that’s scarcely necessary. I realize that the price of shipping has gone up considerably since the treaty, but—well, from the yard alone, my income is very substantial thanks to your good management. Which ships are on Cinnabar now?”
Mon grimaced as he thought. “Well, one is the Golgotha Dancer ,” he said. “She’s the one I’d recommend. Twelve hundred tons, two antenna rings, of course, but I just replaced her High Drives. Right now she’s in Portola”—on the East Coast—“loading a cargo of fusion bottles for Chateaubriand. But we can land them back on the dock in six hours, that’s no problem.”
“She’s just the sort of ship I have in mind,” said Daniel. He’d need to look over any offer before deciding, but he trusted Mon implicitly on the freighter’s soundness. “And the other?”
“She’s the Kiesche , right over here in the end berth,” Mon said. He gestured forward and set off down the track around the pool. “Twelve hundred tons, two antenna rings again, but she turns like a cat. I’ve never seen a ship so handy. In civilian service, of course.”
Warships had large crews, which made them handier than merchant ships even with the same rigging, and generally warships mounted more masts than civilian vessels also. A starship’s rigging was fully automated, but anyone who expected thousands of valves and pulleys to work perfectly in service was a fool.
Ships lifted and landed on pillars of plasma, and they passed through atmospheres which had their own corrosive possibilities. Without riggers on the hull, a ship would soon become mired in the Matrix and eons away from anywhere her captain wanted to be.
“What is her crew?” Daniel asked. What must be the Kiesche came in sight at the edge of the inlet channel to Lake Xenos. His first thought was disappointment—the freighter had a rusty, bedraggled look. But that again was a matter of crew size: much of a warship’s exterior maintenance was busywork to keep the crew occupied when the vessel wasn’t in the midst of a battle.
“I run her
Several of the dockworkers were missing limbs. Mon had continued Stacey Bergen’s practice of hiring former RCN spacers, particularly those who were no longer fit for interstellar service. As with Daniel’s decision to appoint Mon as manager, it was an act of kindness which had proven to be extremely good business.
“It’s always a pleasure to see how well things are going,” Daniel said. He beamed at the bustle. The Bergen yard had gotten more than its share of Navy work during the war because employing injured veterans had protected it against the loss of workers to man the fleet. Things didn’t seem to have slowed down since the Treaty of Amiens, though. “But I came here primarily to pick your brains about a ship. I’d like to hire—or buy; perhaps purchase would be a better idea—a well-found freighter of a thousand tons or so. You know, a tramp that a crew of six could work but with cabin space for twenty.”
Mon looked at Daniel and rubbed his cheek. His black hair was receding, but he had begun wearing fluffy side-whiskers which merged with a magnificent moustache. Mon was much plumper than he had been as a lieutenant, but he looked truly happy—which had never been the case when he wore an RCN uniform.
“Well, I tell you, sir,” he said. “I’ve got three ships myself that’d fit, though only two of them’re on Cinnabar right this moment. I own them, I mean—bought them out of my share of the yard’s profits and fixed them up. You can have any of them for a florin—buy or rent, I don’t care. It’ll be a pleasure to turn her over to you.”
Daniel frowned. A nearby tramp tested its intake pump by running up to high flow and exhausting the reaction mass back into the pool; the roar gave him time to think.
“I appreciate the offer, Mon,” Daniel said as the flow whirred down to a trickle, “but that’s scarcely necessary. I realize that the price of shipping has gone up considerably since the treaty, but—well, from the yard alone, my income is very substantial thanks to your good management. Which ships are on Cinnabar now?”
Mon grimaced as he thought. “Well, one is the Golgotha Dancer ,” he said. “She’s the one I’d recommend. Twelve hundred tons, two antenna rings, of course, but I just replaced her High Drives. Right now she’s in Portola”—on the East Coast—“loading a cargo of fusion bottles for Chateaubriand. But we can land them back on the dock in six hours, that’s no problem.”
“She’s just the sort of ship I have in mind,” said Daniel. He’d need to look over any offer before deciding, but he trusted Mon implicitly on the freighter’s soundness. “And the other?”
“She’s the Kiesche , right over here in the end berth,” Mon said. He gestured forward and set off down the track around the pool. “Twelve hundred tons, two antenna rings again, but she turns like a cat. I’ve never seen a ship so handy. In civilian service, of course.”
Warships had large crews, which made them handier than merchant ships even with the same rigging, and generally warships mounted more masts than civilian vessels also. A starship’s rigging was fully automated, but anyone who expected thousands of valves and pulleys to work perfectly in service was a fool.
Ships lifted and landed on pillars of plasma, and they passed through atmospheres which had their own corrosive possibilities. Without riggers on the hull, a ship would soon become mired in the Matrix and eons away from anywhere her captain wanted to be.
“What is her crew?” Daniel asked. What must be the Kiesche came in sight at the edge of the inlet channel to Lake Xenos. His first thought was disappointment—the freighter had a rusty, bedraggled look. But that again was a matter of crew size: much of a warship’s exterior maintenance was busywork to keep the crew occupied when the vessel wasn’t in the midst of a battle.
“I run her
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