Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(100)

He was still first in line at the mess. Nobody else was there early. Apparently they were busy. Or in class. That’s right, the last morning class let out fifteen minutes after the official lunch mess began because, of course, this was the IF.

The lunchroom staff wasn’t so much surprised to see Dabeet as it was surprised to see anybody. They were apparently so used to having nobody show up until fifteen minutes later that the door didn’t slide open on time and he had to slap the door hard to get the attention of the people inside.

“Well, we’re impatient, aren’t we,” said the noncom who opened it.

“Hungry. Sorry,” said Dabeet. What he had wanted to say, what he would have said at Charles G. Conn, was, How about doing your job so people don’t have to get impatient? But Dabeet was trying to extend his new, human, less-despicable personality to everyone, not just people he needed things from.

Though actually he needed something from the kitchen staff, didn’t he.

“You don’t show up on the roster.”

“You know my face. You see me here all the time.”

“But your name isn’t on the list anymore.”

“That’s because somebody thought I was leaving the station a couple of days ago, and then I didn’t, and the people who could have put me back on the list went with that ship, so what am I supposed to do, starve? Then you’ll just have to drag my desiccating skeleton away from the door. Isn’t it simpler to give me food?”

He tried to say it with wry humor. One of the cooks got a smile, but nobody else seemed to think he was amusing at all.

“What did you do for the last five meals, when you didn’t show up?” asked the noncom.

“Starved,” said Dabeet.

“That’s your best bet,” said the noncom.

“You have the food. You always throw some away after every meal. Please throw some away now by giving it to a beggar boy who’s not on the list but is still, by evidence of your own eyes, alive and present at mealtime.”

“What can you do?” said the head cook, who was probably the noncom’s boss. “He said ‘please.’”

Dabeet was relieved that instead of skimping, they had taken his skipping of five meals seriously, and he had extra-large portions of everything. None of the food was as tasty as what even the poorest families in the barrio got, but that was the military and he was used to it. What he needed now was calories. He tried to eat methodically, not taking a new bite until he had thoroughly chewed and swallowed the previous one. Still, he polished it off in less than ten minutes. None of the other students had arrived when he carefully took his tray to the cleaning stack, sorted the silverware and cup, and scraped the leftover biomass.

Dabeet stopped at the serving window. They looked at him like they were getting ready to say, Didn’t we already give you enough? But before anyone else could speak, Dabeet said, from the heart, “Thank you so much. That was very kind of you.” Then he pushed away from the counter and headed for the door.

“Wait,” called the noncom.

Dabeet turned, saw her beckon, and walked back to the window. She handed him a bag. “Rolls,” she said. “They’ll stay fresh in this bag for a couple of days. In case you have to skip the next five meals.”

It was a sign of how tired Dabeet was that tears sprang into his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, and turned away to hide his emotions. Of course it didn’t work, he knew they had seen, but except for Mother such unasked-for kindness had never happened to him. He didn’t know how to deal with the combination of weariness, surprise, and gratitude.

“Go save the world,” said the noncom. It had been the standard farewell from the kitchen staff during Battle School days. They were the only ones left from that era.

Won’t save the world, thought Dabeet as he went through the mess-hall door. Just the station. Maybe.

There were students coming toward the mess hall now, all from the same direction, because that was the nearest elevator. Dabeet turned and walked the other way. These corridors were wheels, after all. He didn’t want to talk to anybody, explain anything, or even have rumors flying: I saw him. Coming out of the mess hall. He’s still on the ship.

Not that anybody would care enough to spread a rumor.

Not that the kids he saw wouldn’t have recognized him, so it was already too late to stop the rumors.

Nobody was on the up elevator, and soon he was back at his station, where all three suits were in their charging stations. He took the one that was next in line.

There are suits at all the other airlock doors, he reminded himself. And the other airlock doors don’t have stinking piss buckets standing by.

No time to go empty it.

No, you’re not going to dump it into space. No reason anybody should have to cope with little pellets of piss-ice out there, colliding with all the surfaces of the station.

Besides which I’d probably get it all over the spacesuit. If it didn’t freeze in the bottom of the bucket the moment I got it outside.

He made it through the airlock again, and closed the door while gripping the outside bar, as usual. Then he made his way to the top of the inner wheel and looked toward the loading dock of the bottom ring of the unfinished portion of the station.

There was a ship attaching to the loading dock.

It was bigger than the packet, and while it displayed a registry number, it was not an IF ship. In fact, if Dabeet had learned his corporate sigils, this wasn’t just a corporate ship, it was a Juke vessel, and it was designed to carry passengers and a cargo, too.