Quarter Share: A Trader's Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper by Nathan Lowell

me since he usually spent his evening playing cards with the other senior crew. “Mr. Wang,” he started, but stopped and smiled at me. “Ishmael, you seem to be taking to life aboard very well.”
    I smiled back. “To tell the truth, Cookie, I’m not sure how well I’m really doing, but I’m trying. I really need to make this work. I don’t have a lot of options.”
    “Yes, Captain Giggone spoke with me. You seem to be adapting to your recent loss.”
    His mention of my mother’s death caught me out of the blue and I turned back to the pot I was scrubbing to give myself a tick to regain control. “Thanks. It’s been…” I paused to think, “over a month now. I spent almost three weeks on Neris trying to figure out what to do.”
    He patted me on the back. “You’ve done well and landed on your feet after a terrible blow. I’m sure she’d be proud of you.”
    I nodded my thanks, not trusting my voice to remain steady. I worked silently for a time.
    “What will you do now?”
    “Now? I just got here. You’re not planning to put me ashore in Darbat, are you?”
    “No, young Ishmael. You misunderstand me. You’re too good to stay at quarter share. I want you to think about going for half share as soon as you can.”
    “Will I be able to remain on the ship?”
    He pursed his lips and cocked his head in consideration. “Well, you’d probably have to change vessels. The Lois isn’t rated to carry a food handler, but you could switch to another division and stay aboard if a half share berth opens up.” He folded his arms and leaned against the prep table. “I want you to start thinking about those kinds of possibilities.”
    “Wait a minute. I’ve been on this ship, what? Ten days?”
    He smiled and nodded.
    “Pip is in his second stanyer and he’s still at quarter share.”
    “But you are not Mr. Carstairs. For you, staying at your current rating would be a waste. You have done more in your ten days than Pip has done in the seven months he’s been aboard. I gave him the same test I gave you and he failed.”
    “You didn’t give me a test—” I started to object, but then remembered. “The coffee?”
    “Yes.”
    “But that’s not fair. My mother was a snob when it came to coffee. She drilled that stuff into me. How was Pip supposed to know?”
    “You continue to misunderstand me, Ishmael. It wasn’t that you knew how to fix it. That, I confess, was a happy serendipity. What you did was take responsibility. You showed pride in a job well done and addressed the problems systematically. When you knew the solution, you acted. When you didn’t, you sought help. You’re contributions have made the ship a better place.”
    I’m pretty sure I blushed then. “But I don’t know anything. Pip knows how everything works.”
    “And he proceeds on the basis that things must always work as they have, despite what his intelligence tells him.” He raised an eyebrow. “Did Pip know the coffee was bad?”
    I nodded in reluctant agreement.
    “And his advice to you was to keep your head down and your mouth shut, was it not?”
    Again, I nodded. “But—”
    Cookie smiled and held up his hand to stop me. “But me no buts, Ishmael. Yes, you have knowledge he did not. And he knows things you don’t. The difference is you use yours to help us all. That is what I look for in a shipmate.”
    “This is unfair. He’s helped me so much and I don’t want to come in here and leapfrog over him.”
    “Then perhaps you can help him in return. You could be a good influence.”
    I thought about that as I rinsed the pot. “I don’t know that I can, but I’ll try.”
    “Good. Now, what specialty do you think you’d like to pursue?”
    “Specialty?”
    “Ishmael, you could be an excellent cook, but I’m afraid if you took that path your talents would be wasted. You need to consider all possibilities. Engineering, perhaps? Environmental? Maybe you’d like to become a deck officer or cargo