Chapter 3: Conversations
After stowing his one bag in the small stateroom Jack joined the rest of Amelia's party on the quarter deck. The Einfassen was not a large ship even by the standards of the Earthly navies Jack was familiar with. The quarter deck was crowded and narrow, positioned above the staterooms. Einfassen's sails were ready to be hoisted and the crew was busy with their tasks all across the main deck. They seemed to be experienced spacers but not quite as well drilled as Jack had witnessed aboard the Smollette. From where he stood near the rail he overheard Captain Faux-Jeton explaining to Amelia how the crew had been assigned.
"With the draw on the available regulars we have begun pulling spacers from the merchant fleet," Faux-Jeton said. "When the devil drives. Needs must."
"It was no different when we sailed against the Procyon Armada," Amelia observed. "Remember our shake down cruise?"
"All too well," Faux-Jeton sighed. "If it hadn't been for old Arrow the two of us would have been lost and floundering."
Amelia laughed softly and imitated a rough gravely voice, "Is that how they teach officers to tie a bowline, Ensign Amelia?"
"Crack to, Ensign Faux-Jeton!" The Captain snickered. "I never thought I would live through that cruise. How did we ever do it?"
"Truly. Were we ever so young?" Amelia smiled wistfully.
"We aren't now," Faux-Jeton said as she checked the controls then leaned over the forward rail. "Mr. Pike, have the wrights check the secondary coupler to the mainmast. We're reading a 2.7 flux."
"Aye, ma'am." The bosun was a gangling thing with a thorny hide and flapping ears. He loped down a set of stairs below decks at the double quick.
"He seems a good man," Amelia observed.
"He is," the Captain agreed. "Spent many years in the Imperial Fleet before going into the merchant fleet. I'm very glad to have him on this trip. The crew will be dispersed after we deliver you but I'm hoping to take Mr. Pike with me when they give me a permanent assignment."
The bosun emerged from a deck hatch forward and addressed the captain. "They've got it adjusted now, Cap'n. How's the reading, ma'am?"
Faux-Jeton checked the controls again and nodded with satisfaction. "Very good, Mr. Pike."
Jack's interest drifted out across the spaceport where he observed the various ships at their moorings. Mixed among the leviathans of merchant vessels and the smaller transports were literally thousands of the strange mantabirds. He watched them, puzzled at the sheer numbers.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" a soft feminine voice said from nearby. Ensign Alamimo stepped gracefully up next to him. "It's their migratory period."
"Migratory period?" Jack asked. He didn't feel entirely comfortable with the young officer. He felt that she was beautiful in a way but he also felt that a woman should have no more than two legs.
"Yes. They travel back to the eyries where they were hatched every few years," Alamimo informed him. "It was one way for early explorers to discover new worlds."
"Aye," said Jack. "That makes sense. Back home when we see certain kinds of birds we know we're nearing land. Certain kinds of birds live only in one or two parts of the world at different times of year too. That can help you place yourself on the map if you've been blown off course."
"We generally use the stars," Alamimo said. "It's very accurate. I am a navigational specialist. Graduated the academy with top honors."
"We can only see the stars at night when the sky is clear," Jack looked more closely at the girl. His first impression had been a strong one. As he looked at her now he realized that what he'd taken for a tiara was actually part of her face. A bone structure that supported dark red, nearly black eyes no bigger than his little fingernail. Her hair was not actually braids as he had thought either. Rather it seemed to be something like tubular feathers. She noticed him looking.
"You've never met a Pajakian, have you, Captain?" she asked.
"No," Jack admitted.
"We aren't as fearsome as our reputation." Alamimo smiled at him. Jack would have believed her more readily had he known what that reputation was. It would have helped, too, if he hadn't glimpsed the gleaming, needle-like fangs lined up where human eye teeth would have been. "I assure you, we do not devour children."
"Course not, luv," Jack barked rather louder than he'd meant to. "I would never have thought that. Aahemmn. Never crossed me mind, darlin'."
"I didn't mean to... Well it was just the way you were looking at me," she said. "Am I so strange?"
Jack considered several answers and decided on the least offensive. "You aren't the strangest person I've come across. People where I'm from only have two legs generally. Still, I've seen many strange folk since I came out this way."
Alamimo looked down at her legs briefly and considered Jack a moment. "You find my legs strange?"
"Oh... Unusual, let's say. Not that they're bad legs. Just not used to them." Jack was feeling very uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. He was saved then by the arrival of the children.
"Captain Jack!" squealed Jib as she and her siblings swarmed up the narrow stairs. "Isn't it wonderful? Father said we could watch the launch if we behaved ourselves."
"Yes!" Jack said enthusiastically. For once he was genuinely glad to see the little nippers. "It's fabulous, kitten."
"Why do you always call us that?" Tillie wondered.
"Because you remind me of kittens." Jack leaned down and tousled the child's hair the way he knew she liked but always feigned irritation with. She scowled at him and tried to hide her smile as she raked her fingers through her curls.
"So why am I a pup?" Sunny asked.
"Because you look like one." Jack poked him in the belly with a finger. Sunny tried, as he always did, to catch Jack's finger but Jack was too quick. In response to the attack Sunny kicked him in the shin. Jack decided it was a good time to play along and promptly collapsed to the deck in mock agony. The children piled onto him in a rowdy brawl that was cut short instantly by someone clearing their throat. Still smiling Jack looked up to see Amelia frowning icily at them. Jack's smile faltered and then failed entirely. The children got up and smoothed their clothes, slinking off guiltily to the rail. Amelia relaxed her expression and dismissed Jack from her attention.
"You like children?" Alamimo asked.
"Children? They have their moments." Jack swept up his hat and reinstalled it at its usual jaunty angle.
"Have you none of your own then?" she asked.
"Me?" Jack's gold teeth flashed in a sudden smile. He side stepped the question. "I'm not the father type, lass."
Alamimo regarded him with narrowed eyes. Her ruby colored gaze twinkled for a moment and the corner of her mouth twitched in what might have been a suppressed smirk. "I have children. Fifty of them."
"Fifty?" Surprise creased Jacks brows with an incredulous squint. "You can't be that old, girl."
"Old? No, I'm only twenty."
Jack laughed. "So you're just pulling me leg then."
"Pulling your leg?" Alamimo blinked uncomprehending. "If that means you think I'm joking, I assure you, I'm not. I admit it was a small clutch. I don't know yet how many will survive to adolescence but my stock has always been hearty."
"Who..." Jack decided he did not, after all, want to ask who the father was and changed the question. "Who is taking care of them?"
"My family. I would not have been allowed to join the Navy had I not produced a viable clutch. I was very lucky. There were three males. It's unusual to have even one male in the first clutch." Alamimo smiled as Jack blinked at her. For some reason she really liked those eyes of his. So very strange for a human. And his hair. Could humans breath through their hair? She wondered what the bone was for. Her thoughts were interrupted by the Captain.
"Mr. Iharaira, all hands to stations," Captain Faux-Jeton ordered her first officer. He responded readily and the crew scrambled to their posts. All conversation stopped as the men laid hands on ropes and levers. The sails were hauled up the mast. A thrum of power vibrated through the decks as the mainsail caught the solar wind and fed energy through it's massive cables down to the drive. Lines were cast off smartly and the IGS Einfassen drifted free of her moorings. The gravity went away and Jack felt the old, disconcerting feeling of weightlessness before Faux-Jeton gave a nod to the first officer who drew a large lever down to engage the gravity pump. Jack settled not quite gracefully back to the deck just as the ship began making way. The children clung to the rail with wide eyes watching the sky stream by. The mantabirds swarmed out of the rigging of nearby ships and followed in the Einfassen's wake. They reminded Jack a little of the dolphins that often traveled in bow waves of Earthly ships. The Montressor spaceport dwindled aft to a speck as the old ship climbed out of the planet's gravity well and into the field of stars and the everlasting night of the Etherium.
