Chapter 41

"Ouch ... ow ... that hurt ... stop it ... Julie, give over — why did you lot pick on me?" TJ almost whined at the Windsor Women who had lined up to land a blow to his head, pop him under the earhole, clip him over the ear, belt him about the bonce and bang some sense into his head.

The voyage from Bhute to Gorgipest started off in relaxed fashion but rapidly became a cram course in all aspects of merchant marine spacefaring. Clare, TJ and Morg each took a small group to teach the intricacies of spatial navigation. Charles introduced the crew to the wonders and pitfalls of a Master's paperwork. Charles, backed up by Dorothy Ember, who covered the more practical elements, lectured on ship systems involving manoeuvring and Orville lectured on their maintenance. Orville lectured on power plants generally as required to be known by bridge officers. Julie was co-opted to lecture on catering as opposed to just preparing meals. Cedric held discussion groups covering communications. Charles and Orville broadly covered repairs, refits, overhauls and major refits. Orville instructed his one time ERAs in the nuances of spacefaring power plants with a view to having those interested obtain ship's engineer tickets

The crew found they were accepting of the pressure not fully realising the calming influence of their hairy friends. Absorption of knowledge was improved but not magical, and acceptance of deficiencies was met with equanimity.

However, planetfall at Gorgipest was met with relief by the crew as Charles had decreed make and mend for three days. The Commodore and his exhibitors planned on a two week exposition and arranged berthing at the passenger terminal with air bridges to the five decks.

While the Commodore arranged his exposition, the Windsors relocated to Sloane Square taking the off duty crew with them. The shuttle bus was dusted off to run a ferry service to exchange watches. Julie put the Club and the House on standdown for the duration of the stay. (Some of the crew females admitted to ambivalence.) Julie sweetened the pot by extending open invitations for the Sundowners and Percy Gantry to attend at Harriers as guests during the stop over — an offer availed of frequently.

Aunt Gabrielle arranged briefings on the status of individual finances. To her surprise, every crew member availed themselves of these and the trustees reported answering searching questions. Gabrielle was astounded at the aplomb demonstrated by individuals discussing almost fantastic balances — it was the sheer unbelievednes of the balances which gave itself to the acceptance (hundred of tonnes of precious metal divided among eighteen).

Bet meantime had been visiting the clothing factory in Dancer Street and talking to some of the senior hands there. She was informed that places in the factory were as strongly contested as places in Harriers — the point was made that those females who opted for the more licit positions often were tempted by the returns of the illicit activities and many mothers in the Stews regarded Harriers as the "Den of Iniquity". Bet was able to defend Harriers with a clear conscience but was not averse to taking advantage of those attitudes. Bet called a conference of Sundowners in Sloane Square and suggested that E deck be manned (Womanned?) full time, employing workers from the Stews. The discussion was candid and the stumbling block was the workers' down time in a spacefaring vessel — they could hardly go home for the night. Bet was given to think about this problem and bethought herself of the solution on middle deck. Julie's requested opinion on duplicating middle deck was that some narrow minded people would then regard E deck as a mobile bordello and would believe Harriers as the better option as the workers went home after work back to parental guidance.

Bet did not have Comminantes blood to just carry oxygen; she put that inherent scheming to work and presented her plan.

Young workers be employed / trained in the E deck specialised fabric manufacture; accommodation to be built about the already existing central area; a gym / entertainment centre to be built in the forward section of E deck; schooling to be available in the machine shop on after middle deck; tuition in the skills needed by the House of Tulip and exposure to New Harriers which most certainly did not have any illicit aspects.

The conference could agree to all that and the Sundowners were willing to play a role in teaching — provided — the enterprise be owned by Sundowner Corporation.

Bet was ... yeh, that describes it wonderfully.

Before Bet exploded, Dorothy, who had tears running down her cheeks looking at Bet, managed to contain her chortles and move that the Windsor Women be allowed to purchase a share in Sundowner Corp and to call upon Aunt Gabrielle to negotiate on behalf of the Sundowners.

"Dorothy, that is devious!" Morg laughed.

TJ had been quietly nattering to Orville, and he put the kibosh on the scheme,

"There isn't access between the de... , sorry, there is no access big enough to pass humans between C and E decks. I've often felt the need to have internal access across the decks but it aint there and Orville says it will take four weeks in a fitting out yard and our restricted access from the outside to each deck doesn't help either."

"Do we have to have anything fancy? Why not a couple of pneumatic tubes? One up, one down." Mary Fogg asked.

Orville looked stunned for just a moment and then turned thoughtful,

"We could do that with our own resources. Nah! Still take three four weeks."

The conference broke up without further resolution except the offer to the Windsor Women stood and the access between decks was to go ahead.

Bet returned to sound out the Dancer Street employees with a view to setting up E deck whenever "Sundowner" returned to Gorgipest. The seniors listened and then asked questions — purely out of curiosity, mind. The seniors talked on about the offer after Bet had departed.

Bet had not fully understood the residents of the Stews as she had left to live in Sloane Square while five years old. Julie and Morg understood them and that is why Julie was not too surprised by the delegation of mothers who presented at Sloane Square to discuss employment opportunities for their offspring. Orville was in residence and found himself confronting a dozen or so mothers, uneducated, not the best dressed, not the most articulate, but determined to have their kids out of the Stews into a better life. With Julie mirthfully running interference for him, Orville was drawn into a reluctant discussion of the problems of constructing tube access between decks; the mothers didn't care that they knew nothing about the complexities of spacefaring construction, when an expert conceded it was possible, and a better life for their kids rested on it, they wanted to know why it couldn't have been built yesterday.

Orville conceded defeat and agreed that machinery was available which, where needed, could be purchased in Gorgipest now and parts similarly; he agreed to start on the project tomorrow — placating the hard looks at the delay by pointing out that he had to also plan things.

The mothers departed to meet with Bet at Dancer Street.

Orville wasn't quite panicking when he sought out TJ and Morg whose tendency to think it hilarious was dampened by Orville threatening to sool the mothers onto them if help was not forthcoming — yesterday. TJ and Orville worked on the engineering 'puter and Morg did the maths. By twenty one hours local that day plans were completed.

The four spiders leisurely spinning on E deck leapt into the enviro ducts, peering out nervously, when Bet led an inspection team of mothers onto E deck deciding what would go where. With the priority on the access tubes, the mothers accepted that the employees would have to sleep rough until crew like accommodation became available — Bet noted that the prospective employees were not consulted. Rations would also be 'courier' hard tack until ... Two experienced hands from Dancer Street, widows with no children young enough to be part of the scheme, would provide work supervision and accommodation chaperonage.

The four arachnids passed information about the decisions to the crew and reality bit; there were fifty people joining in just over a week who did not have any idea of what was going to happen to them. Clare and Dorothy hurriedly got together working on what would be needed.

First problem — selection. Easy! The Windsors (with assistance from the colony)! The colony pointed out the advantages of their being able to make subliminal contact. The humans could live with that. Morg dusted off his recruit induction tests (no one enquired as to just how they were on his PDA), and amended them to eliminate the service bias. While Morg was doing that, the Windsor Women organised a community hall and put out the call for applicants to write the entrance exam. The results of the exam weren't that critical but it allowed access by the colony. No upper age limit as this was to be a training scheme lasting two years.

There was a crush but with the yellow eyed Windsors invigilating, there were no disturbances. The results were 'puter marked, returned immediately and those selected named. The remainder were advised they could try again but the Windsors moved through the group offering advice to some that they would be better suited to a planetside occupation and occasional vacancies occurred at Dancer Street.

The successful candidates and their overseers were bussed off to the factory for skin suit measurements. TJ remembered his marching in and offered his services to obtain the initial issue of equipment. He commed the skin suit factory and got the measurements of the new intake. He commed ships' provedores until he found one that had basic work clothing for spacers and ordered the sets. The manager hesitated at the size of the order in the time frame but agreed the order could be ready in five days including footwear. That problem solved. Gabrielle informed.

Colin Bolem again made his contribution. His inveterate perusing of vid advertisements of maritime supplies of every possible utilisation by spacers had a large volume of mainly useless knowledge stored in his cranial vault — most of which was never recalled. He casually interrupted Clare and Dorothy earning him two blistering stares; no effect on Colin as he was immune to this reaction. He dropped the information into Clare's and Dorothy's laps that there were several firms in Gorgipest who fitted out space yachts with prefabricated interiors and having had a look at E deck, he thought Gorgipest Yacht Outfitters Inc with their "Gloriana" model would fit the bill — need a few changes like staterooms would be multi-bunked but other wise...

Clare didn't hesitate; she dragged Colin to Charles's suite and dropped this one in his lap. Charles didn't blink — commanding the Sundowners made him immune to shock — just commed the outfitters and agreed to meet their representative at the air bridge to E deck. Another problem solved — with round the clock shifts for three and a bit days. Gabrielle informed.

Lectures on working in space were conducted at Sloane Square for a day as introduction.

Thereafter the shuttle bus was used to transfer the trainees from Sloane Square to the orbitals and the passenger terminal. Herded like food bovines, the trainees were directed across the air bridge to their first look at a spaceship really close up. To keep them clear of the outfitters, the trainees were held aft and introduced to the machinery they would be working, the raw material and the end products from the weavers.

The next day was at Sloane Square for lectures on skin suits and that afternoon was spent becoming familiar with their personal suit.

Next day, shuttled to "Sundowner" almost at first nautical twilight, the trainees donned skin suits and were then introduced to the intricacies of air locks using the shuttle bus as the locked on vehicle. The training was rewarded by each group transferring to the shuttle bus, unlocking, then standing off allowing the occupants to get a view of the outside of "Sundowner" accompanied by a spell of no gravity then locking back onto the hull and exchanging groups.

By six afternoon, the trainees had the hang of airlocks and moving between shuttle and ship. The Outfitters had departed mid morning after cleaning up under the very watchful eyes of the XO and the Bosun who then took the trainees for the next airlock experience and turned them to work — the shuttle truck had locked on with the kits. Open air lock, form a work chain, pass the kits into the ship (don't worry about the names at this point just get the shuttle unloaded), return to ship and close airlock.