Chapter 6: Sweet Talkin’ Woman

Katie knew absolutely nothing about ships or a Merchant Marine, so she decided that she was going to learn the basics so she could take on responsibility for that part of their charter. Her first step was to transport herself into her spouses’ cabin aboard the Summer Paradise. Dressed to the nines, she took a small risk and marched herself to the dining room for lunch where she joined Michael and her other spouses.

“Can you get me maybe an hour with the captain?” she asked them, “and then maybe some time with the sailing master or whatever they call it?”

When Hoag appeared, she asked him to promenade her around the ship while she pumped him for information. She used that to establish a visible legitimacy for her presence even though she was not on the passenger list. After all, who was going to question someone so visibly connected to the ship’s captain?

She learned that Captain Hoag was a graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, a top ranked university producing several undergraduate and graduate degrees in maritime fields. With a faculty of around 130 and a student body of approximately 1700, it looked like prime territory for a hunt. Hoag pointed out that Jan Tormey, his Staff Captain, was a graduate of Maine Maritime Academy, an excellent school of about half the size of MMA, his own alma mater.

Hoag was enthusiastic about extracting from both schools. He explained the various academic degrees and practical training for the students and pointed out the bonus of Maine’s marine studies for use on a new planet. Delighted with the obvious intelligence and beauty in his one-woman audience, Hoag paraded her to the bridge and introduced her around.

Her spouses had already worked their magic, so everyone present was aware of her status. Hoag relieved Jan, and she took Katie aside so that Katie could get a down and dirty assessment of her own Alma Mata.

That evening, Katie was seated at the Captain’s table with his wife and Anita and Brian Davidson. He introduced her as a referral from an old friend who had expressed an interest in reserving a large block of cabins for a later cruise. In doing so, he piqued Anita’s avarice and established a high social standing for Katie in her eyes.

Katie used the opportunity to extract a confession of boredom from Anita and to plant the suggestion of a cruise with a succession of music ‘festivals’ at each port on a subsequent cruise. She iced the cake by mentioning that she felt such a program would be worth a premium rather than a ‘block discount’ when she booked her party cruise.

By the time dinner finished with an excellent port wine, Anita was panting, dollar signs dancing in her eyes.

Katie arrived at each school with a letter of introduction to the respective president. She had little time to pull this off, as she needed to organize and execute before graduation, ROTC commissioning, and the start of training cruises. Luckily, there was a little time between the two schools’ schedules.

Her pitch to the two school heads was almost identical. The letters gained her brief appointments, and when she was ushered into the first office in Buzzards Bay, she handed the school’s head, Malcolm Adams, Rear Admiral, USMS, the now frequently used PDA appearing device. While he was recovering his orientation, she placed a transporter disk on the office floor, then she used it to move them to her family’s quarters in the moon where Carole and Ginger sat at a conference table.

“My apologies, sir,” Katie started, “but I felt this demonstration would do more than words to establish my authenticity. We have a proposal that will take a little more time to explain than the time you allotted me. If you can spare us an additional hour, I’ll return us to your office to cancel your next appointment, then my partners and I will explain.”

In both instances, the shocked individual nodded acceptance, appointments were cancelled, and the conference commenced back in the moon.