Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(41)

“I’m a child,” said Dabeet. “One of several children who learn things very, very quickly. We’re ready to learn the actual job that we’re being trained to do, not just listen to memorized lessons and find typographical errors in bills of lading.”

She studied Dabeet for a moment, then looked at the other children one by one. “It seems to me,” said Enya Polonia, “that only one of these boys shares your criticisms of and amusement at our teaching methods.” She indicated Zhang He. “The others wish you’d shut up.”

“They wish I’d eat kuso and die,” said Dabeet. “It was explicitly stated. But I’d rather spend my time learning something real, than eating the kuso that the other guy was laying down for us.”

“We have two ships docked here,” said Enya. “They both have to have a complete tally before they can be off-loaded. So we’ll divide you into two teams. You, Dabeet, the self-assessed genius. And Zhang He, is it? A little quieter, not so confrontational, but the disciple of an arrogant git has voted for the gitty arrogance.”

Zhang He smiled and nodded.

“I will give the two of you the slightly larger cargo, while the other four children will take the other ship. Your job is to tally—to make sure that every container on the bill of lading is present in the hold, and to identify any cargo that is not listed. In case you’re tempted to check everything off and declare the job done, I should inform you that we have five items that are either listed but not present, or present but not listed. They may be all in one ship, or divided between them, or I might have lied about the total. If you try to goldbrick on this job, you will be caught. That’s a matter of personal integrity and reliability, so it’s not like failing an exam. It’s failing as a human being. Am I clear?”

As Dabeet and Zhang He followed their wall bands to their ship’s dock, Dabeet said, “I should be insulted that they would expect us to cheat, but for consistency’s sake, how can I pretend to be surprised? My whole argument with Git Number One was about how easily corrupted their system was, so why shouldn’t they assume that we’re corrupt?”

“Only one correction,” said Zhang He. “It was our argument about the corruptible system. Not just yours.”

“Apologies,” said Dabeet. “I’m really not used to doing anything with anybody, ever. I haven’t had much need for the first-person plural.”

“I’m not your disciple,” said Zhang He. “She said that to hurt my feelings.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” said Zhang He. “But you’re just vain enough to believe that she was right about that, so I thought it was wise to clarify the matter.”

Dabeet laughed. “So you call me vain.”

“Aren’t you?” asked Zhang.

“Of course I am. But if you were my disciple, you’d find a nice way of saying it. ‘Self-assured,’ ‘self-confident,’ greeyaz like that.”

“If you ever hear me using weaselly words like that instead of speaking plainly, then you can be sure they’ve done something to my brain.”

“They’re doing things to all our brains,” said Dabeet. “Wasting them.”

There was nothing about the passageways into the ship that in any way resembled a terrestrial dock or wharf or even an airport. They went through corridors, passed through an airlock security system into a large cargo bay, and then through another corridor and airlock into a somewhat smaller room that was filled with strapped-down shipping containers of every conceivable size.

“Here we are,” said Zhang He.

“We’re on another ship?” asked Dabeet.

“See the practical tie-downs to keep the cargo from shifting during ship movement?”

“When did Fleet School end and the ship begin?”

“The second airlock. That other big cargo space is where they off-load this cargo once we’ve tallied it.”

“It occurs to me that spaceships also store things they’re going to consume in flight. Food. Water. Shouldn’t some of these containers be open?”

“Only the tiniest ships use the same space for cargo and supplies,” said Zhang He. “The crew would never let us near the ship’s stores unsupervised. Their lives depend on that stuff.”

“You lived your whole life on Luna,” said Dabeet. “How do you know that?”

“We must have read different novels.”

“We’re in a race now,” said Dabeet. “But I don’t actually care about winning. Do you?”

“Not a whit,” said Zhang He. “I care about doing a good job so they don’t catch us in any mistakes.”

“I also care about catching mistakes they didn’t make deliberately in order to trap us,” said Dabeet.

“If there are any.”

“How should we do this?” asked Dabeet. “It makes no sense for each of us to carry a list and do separate tallies. That way we might both overlook something. I think we need to have one pair of eyes do all the inspections, calling out the ID of each container, while the other one checks it on the bill.”

“I agree,” said Zhang He. “And because you’re the one with the least skill at moving through reduced-gravity environments—”