Ric Locke - Temporary Duty

The sideways light switch took a bit of fumbling, but things were coming back. Cold water to wake up, then warm for washing, shaving tackle where he’d put it last night, on the shelf below the towels. As he stroked his face with the razor he thought, not for the first time, that shaving might not have anything to do with sanitation at all. It was something familiar. No matter where you were or what was going on, hot water and soap and razor and the familiar curves and hollows of your own face centered you, started the day off with something solid, something you could handle, a minor success to serve as omen for the rest of the day. Maybe that was why women used makeup.

He sluiced the soap off, then went over to the door to Todd’s room and pounded on it a few times. Then he collected his shaving gear and put it away, noticing for the first time that Todd’s was next to his on the shelf. It made sense, he just hadn’t seen it before.

Making the bunk was pure reflex, another ritual like shaving, maybe. The job wasn’t tough, but doing it precisely was military, and doing it right was another good omen for the day. Uniform of the day, well, it looked like that would be the kathir suit until further notice.

Todd was in the toilet room, making blowing noises over the running water. That was familiar, morning in the head, some people noisy, others quiet. Part of what was disorienting about this experience was the aloneness. Todd was just the other side of the bulkhead, but it had been a long time since he hadn’t had three or four others nearby while he was getting the day started.

He’d left almost an hour for getting ready, and here it was, fifteen minutes or so, and he was almost done. On the carrier he’d have had something to do, go get chow, make sure the others were stirring, go collect the Orders of the Day. Here they could only wait. He checked Dee’s watch. It looked like they had almost a full round of the second-biggest needle before the biggest needle came to the mark. Half an hour? Something like that.

He’d been avoiding the window, but now he turned to it deliberately. The Earth was huge in the lower left-hand corner; he couldn’t make out anything but blue, with a few white clouds. There was something funny about the stars. There was Orion’s belt, sitting at an odd angle, and then the rest of it fell into place, Orion’s head and shoulders sticking out below the Earth. You couldn’t see it from that angle anywhere on the surface, at least not anywhere he’d been.

Todd came in, dressed in his own kathir suit. “Checking out the view?” he asked quietly.

“Why ain’t they bright?” Peters gestured at the window. “This here’s outer space, ain’t no air outside, right?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Hah.” It was a snort. “Look, on the ground you gotta look through the air to see stars, right? Here there ain’t no air. They ought to be brighter’n they are from the deck of the ship.”

“Hadn’t thought about it.” Todd leaned forward, as if to inspect the stars more closely. “You’re right, though. Wonder why that is.”

“You’re a big help, you are.” Peters gestured at the bunk. “Have a seat. We still got a while to wait.”

It wasn’t as long as he’d expected, maybe fifteen minutes before there was a tap on the door. “Mornin’, Dreelig,” Peters said, and then wondered how he’d recognized him.

“Pleasant greetings, Peters. Would you like to eat?”

“Oh, shit, yes.” He’d been concentrating on not thinking about it, but now that food was mentioned his belly growled.

“Good. Do you remember the way?”

“Yeah, we been there a few times, but you still better lead,” said Peters. “This here’s a big place.”

Dreelig nodded. “That is probably a good decision,” he observed. “Pleasant greetings, Todd. Please come with me.”

There were Grallt messing around in the bay, fussing over dli s, working with the machinery in the alcoves. None of them seemed to be doing anything about the mess. The bay doors were open, and Peters was a little confused until he realized that it wasn’t the same set as before. Those had been to the left as they went out into the bay, and now the ones to the right were open; the bow, he’d decided to call it until somebody explained different.

The elevator was as before. Peters worked the door handle, wincing a little at the squeak and clank. Todd pushed the proper button with a satisfied grin, and the thing groaned and shook and made noises, eventually opening on the blue-painted corridor.

The mess deck, or restaurant, was fuller this time, the same assortment of people except that a slightly larger proportion was in the skintight kathir suits rather than loose two-piece outfits. A waiter showed up and Dreelig gave him an order, indicating the sailors with a wave. The waiter nodded and grunted, wrote something on his pad, and took himself off.

“What do we get to eat today?” Todd asked. “The stuff yesterday wasn’t bad.”

Dreelig shook himself and looked at Todd. “I should apologize,” he said. “I have not been, ah, gracious today. There are several choices, but I have asked for eggs and flatcakes.”

“What sort of eggs?”

“I don’t know what type of eggs it will be,” Dreelig said. “We have eggs from, ah, is it Mechico? A bird they have there.”

“You get food from Earth?” Peters asked.

“Of course.” Dreelig waved at the room. “There are more than two to the twelfth people on this ship. All of them eat. We have to buy food at every stop. There isn’t enough storage space.”

“Why Mexico? The United States produces food,” Todd asked.

“ Ssth . We haven’t been able to buy anything from the United States,” said Dreelig.

Todd and Peters shared a look. “Nothing?” Peters asked. “I’d've thought we had lots of stuff you’d want.”

“You do. Ssth . It is always like yesterday, when we came to pick you up,” Dreelig replied, his face as always unreadable, his tone and body language disgusted. “Any time we land there are discussions . Ask to buy a loaf of bread or two eights of eggs, and there are discussions. Ask to buy a load of food, and there are big discussions. Finally we gave up. It is a planet, with many people on it, and not everybody on it has to discuss things always.”

“What did our people want to discuss?” asked Todd.

“ Ssth . They want a treaty.” Dreelig leaned back in his chair. “We don’t do that, we are only a ship full of traders and—” He interrupted himself, looked at them, waved to indicate the room full of Grallt. “We want to buy some things, sell some things, learn something new, make a little money. Simple, but not in the United States.”

“Did you try to go directly to the sellers?” Todd asked. “I’d think some people would just want to do the same thing, buy and sell, maybe trade a little.”

“Of course. I think your management, ah, government you say isn’t it? Your government told them not to. When we tried that we got nothing for a while, then more discussions.” Dreelig pushed back from the table to let the waiter approach. “Here is our food. Tell me if you think it is correct.”

The eggs were eggs, sunny side up. With them came a brown jumble with green and white bits and crispy chips in it, some kind of chili or spicy meat. “Hey, great,” said Todd, and Peters looked to see him with a forkful of brown paste and a grin. “Chilaquiles. They’ve been buying food in Mexico, all right. Avocados next, maybe?” Then he had to explain what an avocado was. Dreelig paid close attention.

“Flatcakes” were pancakes, very slightly burned; there was butter or something near to it, and syrup, clear with a bluish cast and extremely sweet. The waiter deposited all that, left, and came back with a carafe and cups, which he filled with hot brown liquid. Peters tasted it cautiously, then took a long sip. “Coffee!” he said with surprise. “Damn good, too. Dreelig, you may get some work out of me today after all.”