Arabella of Mars(69)
The cook’s boy, whom Arabella had never before seen in a buff coat, now served the officers their dinner. The fare was much finer than that given to the men, but the portions were smaller, the number of courses greater, and the ceremony entirely different. Rather than the current captain of the mess calling “Who shall have this?” the captain carved the joint and portioned it out himself.
It seemed to Arabella that the system used by the men was actually superior. A captain who was less than scrupulously fair could easily create discord by apportioning the meat unevenly. But, as she’d known he would be, Captain Singh was unfailingly precise, and each one present received an equitable share of the meat, beans, and pudding.
Some part of her, she realized, had hoped that she might have a slightly larger or choicer portion, as an indication of the captain’s feelings toward her. But to even hope for such a thing, she chided herself, was foolish. He was the captain of this ship, and as such could show no undue favor to any one.
The conversation was strained, at first. The officers, recently freed from imprisonment by mutineers, had much of import to discuss, but plainly held themselves back for the sake of Arabella’s tender ears, restricting their talk to such safe topics as the weather and the set of the sails.
Arabella did her best to make herself small and silent, to stay out of the way as she had when she’d been captain’s boy. She did not wish to interfere in the running of the ship, and she hoped by listening to understand it better. But the same frock that made her invisible to the men made her all too visible to the officers, and they continued to defer to her no matter how devoutly she wished otherwise.
Finally she could stand the situation no longer. “Gentlemen,” she said, and set down her fork, fitting it into its clip on the table-top. “I appreciate your desire to respect my delicate sensibilities, but I must remind you that until very recently I served in your crew as an ordinary airman. I am just as eager as you are to see the mutineers dealt with, and as far as I am concerned you may discuss whatever topics you find necessary for the safe and efficient running of the ship without deference to me.”
An uncomfortable silence followed her words. Finally Stross, the sailing master, spoke up. “Whilst we recognize that you were … formerly, under an, er, assumed identity, a member of this ship’s company, you must understand that the situation has changed.” He did not, she noticed, meet her eyes. “And we must all keep in mind that any … conversational liberties taken in your presence under that previous … pretense, were in fact inappropriate at the time, even though none of us were aware of it.” On that word “us” he did look pointedly, perhaps even accusingly, in her direction. “So I must, on behalf of the officers and crew, apologize to you for those previous improprieties.” He cleared his throat and returned his gaze to his roast. “Furthermore, I believe that we should continue to moderate our words and behavior in your presence … in deference to your sex, if not to your personal desires.” He looked around the table. “I believe I speak for all of the officers and crew in this?” No one contradicted him, though the captain’s face betrayed a great deal of discomfort.
A quiet whir and click from the far corner drew Arabella’s attention. It was Aadim, whose head had tilted and eyebrows lowered in an apparent expression of negation or disapproval. But Aadim was only an automaton, and as such carried even less influence in this company than Arabella herself.
If such a thing were possible.
Arabella’s gaze fell to her own plate. Suddenly the lovingly prepared joint of beef and Yorkshire pudding seemed overly rich, and entirely unappetizing. “I am terribly sorry to have discomfited you,” she said, looking straight at Stross’s averted eyes, “and, on behalf of my sex, I accept your apology for any improprieties inadvertently committed due to my pretense.” She paused a moment to calm her breathing, though tension still clamped her teeth together. “Furthermore, I find that I am no longer hungry.” She undid the strap beneath her thighs and, with as much dignity as she could muster, extracted her legs and her floating skirt from beneath the table. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
She managed to keep the tears from her eyes until the door of her little closet had closed behind her. Even then, though, with the officers just the other side of a thin partition of khoresh-wood, she had to keep her sobs silent.
*
Two days later, Arabella floated before Aadim, watching the dials on his desk as his clockwork whirred and ticked through another course correction. The map of Mars was spread out before him, his pointing finger resting on Fort Augusta; though Mars’s turbulent Horn was smaller and calmer than that of Earth, navigating through it was still tricky, and frequent small corrections were required if Diana hoped to land at the port itself rather than hundreds of miles away.
The many corrections were, she must admit, rather a blessing to her, as they provided her an excuse to spend time alone with Aadim. The clockwork navigator might not be much of a conversationalist, but unlike the officers and men, his behavior toward her had not changed with her clothing. Even the captain, whose treatment of her had altered the least, sometimes seemed discomfited by her skirted presence.
She looked into the automaton’s eyes; though they did not see, they seemed filled with a sort of animation, jittering slightly as the wheels within his cabinet spun. “I wish I could take you off the ship and show you Woodthrush Woods,” she said, finger tracing an area some inches from the fort. “That is my family’s khoresh-tree plantation.” Though unmarked on Aadim’s map, the spot was well-worn in Arabella’s memory. The great manor house, the Martians’ dwellings of fused stone, the long drying-sheds with their great coal-stores—in which she would sometimes hide, to her mother’s great dismay—all sprang vividly into her mind’s eye. “Khema used to take Michael and me to Fort Augusta nearly every week.”