Or out of it, I added silently. If only Mr. Malstrom had been the one assigned to teach us navigation. But his primary duties were ship security and passenger liaison. Judiciously, I said nothing.
I wandered back to the wardroom. Inside, Sandy Wilsky sat attentively on the deck, legs crossed. From his bed, Vax Holser scowled. “Well?”
With a shrug of despair Sandy blurted, “I don’t know, Mr. Holser.”
Vax’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not by some chance still a cadet? Have we a genuine middy who can’t find the munitions locker?”
I crossed to my bunk, ignoring the boy’s hopeful look. Vax was entitled to haze him a bit. We all were; Sandy was junior and just out of Academy.
“I’m sorry.” Sandy glanced to me as if for succor, but I offered none. A middy should know such things. I kicked off my shoes, flopped on my bed.
Vax demanded, “What’s the Naval Mission?”
Sandy took a hopeful breath. “The mission of the United Nations Naval Service is to preserve the United Nations Government of and under Lord God, and to protect colonies and outposts of human habitation wherever established. The Naval Service is to defend the United Nations and its--its..”
He faltered.
Vax glared, and finished for him. “--and its territories from all enemies, internal or foreign, to transport all interstellar cargoes and goods, to convey such persons to and from the colonies who may have lawful business among them, and to carry out such lawful orders as Admiralty may from time to time issue. Section 1, Article 5 of the regs.”
“Yes, Mr. Holser.”
Vax said, “It’s worth a demerit or two, Nicky.”
I made no answer. If Vax had his way, the juniors would spend their lives in the exercise room. Within the wardroom, only I could issue demerits, though Vax could make the middies’ lives miserable in other ways.
“Laser controls?”
“In the gun--I mean, the comm room.” The youngster wrinkled his brow. “No, it must be... I mean... “
Vax scowled. “How many push-ups would it take--”
A few push-ups wouldn’t hurt Sandy--we’d all been subjected to worse hazing--but Vax got on my nerves. He even had the boy calling him “Mr. Holser,” which I resented. By tradition, only the senior middy was addressed as “Mr.” by the juniors.
I snapped, “Laser controls are in the comm room. You should know that--were you asleep during gunnery practice?”
“No, Mr. Seafort.” A faint sheen of perspiration; now he had us both annoyed at him.
I made my tone less grating. “On some ships the lasers are in a separate compartment called the gunroom, which is also what old-fashioned ships call their middy’s berth.”
“Thank you.” Sandy sounded appropriately humble.
Vax growled, “He should have known it.”
“You’re right. Not knowing your way around the ship is a disgrace, Sandy. Give me twenty push-ups.” It was a kindness. Vax would have made it fifty.
Dinner, as usual, was in the ship’s dining hall rather than the officers’ mess. I sat at my place sipping ice water, waiting for the clink of the glass. When it came I stood with the rest of the officers and passengers, my head bowed. Captain Haag, stocky, graying, and distinguished, began the nightly ritual.
“Lord God, today is October 19, 2194, on the U.N.S. Hibernia.We ask you to bless us, to bless our voyage, and to bring health and well-being to all aboard.”
“Amen.” Chairs scraped as we sat. The Ship’s Prayer has been said at evening in every United Nations vessel to sail the void for one hundred sixty-seven years, and always by the Captain, as representative of the government, and therefore of the Reunified Church. Like crewmen everywhere, our sailors considered shipping with a parson to be unlucky, and any minister who sailed in Hiberniadid so in his private capacity.
Few ships had it otherwise.
“Good evening, Mr. Seafort.”
“Good evening, ma’am.” Mrs. Donhauser, imposing in her elegant yet practical satin jumpsuit, was the Anabaptist envoy to our Hope Nation colony.”Did yoga go well today?” She smiled her appreciation of my offering. Mrs. Donhauser believed that daily yoga would get her to Hope Nation sane and healthy. Her stated mission was to convert every last one of the two hundred thousand residents to her creed.
Knowing her, I had no reason to disbelieve it was possible.
Our state religion was the amalgam of Protestant and Catholic ritual that had been hammered out in the Great Yahwehist Reunification after the Armies of Lord God repressed the Pentecostal heresy. Nonetheless, the U.N. Government tolerated splinter sects such as Mrs. Donhauser’s. Still, I wondered how the Governor of Hope Nation would react if she succeeded too well in her mission. Like Captain Haag, the Governor was ex-officio a representative of the true Church.
Hiberniacarried eleven officers on her long interstellar voyage: four middies, three lieutenants, Chief Engineer, Pilot, Ship’s Doctor, and the Captain. We all took our breakfast and lunch in the spartan and simple officers’ mess, but we sat with our passengers for the evening meal.
Our hundred thirty passengers, bound for the thriving Hope Nation colony or continuing on to Detour, our second stop, had their informal breakfast and lunch in the passengers’ mess.
Belowdecks, our crew of seventy--engine room hands, comm specialists, recycler’s mates, hydroponicists, the ship’s boy, and the less skilled crewmen who toiled in the galley or in the purser’s compartments caring for our many passengers--took all their meals in the seamen’s mess below.
Places at dinner were assigned monthly by the purser, except at the Captain’s table, where seating was by Captain Haag’s invitation only. This month I was assigned to Table 7. In my regulation blues--navy-blue pants, white shirt, black tie, spit-polished black shoes, bluejacket with insignia and medals, and ribbed cap--I always felt stiff and uncomfortable at dinner. I wished again I could wear the uniform with Vax Holser’s confident style.
At his neighboring table Chief Engineer McAndrews chatted easily with a passenger. Grizzled and stolid, the Chief ran his engine room with unpretentious efficiency. To me he was friendly but reserved, as he seemed to be with all the officers.
The stewards brought each table its tureen of thick hot mushroom soup. We dished it out ourselves. Ayah Dinh, the Pakistani merchant directly across from me, sucked his soup greedily. Everyone else affected not to notice. Mr. Barstow, a florid sixty-year-old, glared as if daring me to speak to him.
I chose not to. Randy Carr, immaculate and athletic, wearing an expensive pastel jumpsuit, smiled politely but looked through me as if I were nonexistent. His aristocratic son Derek strongly resembled him in appearance, and copied his manner. Sixteen and haughty, he did not deign to smile at crew; what courtesy he had was reserved for passengers.
“I started a diary, Nicky.” Amanda Frowel favored me with a welcome smile. Our civilian education director was twenty, I’d learned. I’d thought her smile was for me alone, until I’d seen her offer it to all the other midshipmen and two of the lieutenants. Ah, well.
I focused on her comment. “What did you write in it?”
“The start of my new life,” she said simply. “The end of my old.” Amanda was en route to Hope Nation to teach natural science. It was common practice to have a passenger fill the post of education director.
“Are you sure you mean that?” I asked. “Doesn’t your new life really start when you arrive, not when you leave?”
I took a bite of salad.
Theodore Hansen cut in before she could answer. “Exactly so. The boy is correct.” A soy merchant, he was investing three years of his life to found new soy plantations with the hybrid seed in our holds. If all went well he’d be a millionaire many times over, instead of the few times he already was.