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Not knowing what else to do with himself, Toby hid in the crew quarters. He hadn’t yet been assigned a bunk, so he sat down on one of the comfortable looking couches and stared at the Relay receiver. It wasn’t any different than the receivers they had in the Colonies, a small box, covered in knobs and dials and little square digital numbers, and a screen that attached to it through some plugs. Most people could use a Relay receiver with little trouble; it was simple enough to turn it on and tune to the major frequencies. Most Relay boxes had a large knob with numbers marked off, sometimes in half increments. People knew this is how they could find their national news, or local repeaters. The small, more plentiful knobs were for the the enthusiasts, the ones that could pluck transmissions out from over the horizon, ball game broadcasts and tide reports, and pirate sightings.
Toby and his friend once stayed up one night listening to a distant captain trying to outrun Captain Burian Lake: the infamous, notorious Burian Lake. The captain tried everything, dumping his cargo, pushing his boat as fast as he could go, checking in every 10 minutes or so, keeping in contact with military stations as he fled. He had almost reached The Grand Barbarros when Captain Lake caught up, and the transmissions fell silent, punctuated by bursts of static. Toby’s friend was one of the first people he had known who knew how to find data on the Relay. He had a printer and a small monitor, and he could reach out to the Relay and pull information back out. The day after the Burian Lake broadcast, Toby’s friend extracted an image of the captain’s wrecked ship, washed ashore on the Grand Barbarros shores. Toby didn’t sleep well for months afterwards.
Toby didn’t know how to coax information off the Relay. He turned the dials until they clicked onto broadcasts: the local New Haven station, the National Lat Broadcasting Trust, and a faint signal that may have been from some of the outer COS islands. In between the noise, he thought he heard Linian. After searching over the dial a dozen times, Toby stood, and started to scan the bookshelves.
A quick survey of the titles on the shelf caused his heart to wrenched in his chest. The Rose, he could see now, was a COS ship. He should have known that when Xiphos called him a Continental, but he hadn’t been paying attention. Sure, the COS and Lat, and the Colonies, all spoke the same language, but the COS wrote things with a different, almost readable alphabet. Traditional Lat, what he was used to, had 26 letters. COS Standard had 40 letters. Toby couldn’t read any of these books. Not knowing what else to do, he started to pace the perimeter of the crew area.
It was on his fiftieth lap around the little crew area that Toby realized he hadn’t seen anyone one aside from Xiphos and Nina for a while. The Travelers were not around. The rest of the crew was busy as well. And so he did laps.
His stomach grumbled at him, but he didn’t know if he was allowed to take food; Xiphos hadn’t said so. So he did laps. He went back to the book shelf, and still found he couldn’t read any of the books, just like an hour ago. So he did laps.
The Rose suddenly heaved. It had been rocking back and forth slightly, but most of it had been dampened out by counterweights in the ship. These were sudden, fierce, and it threw Toby off his balance. The intercom crackled.
“All crew, prepare for dive.” It was the captain.
Toby thought about what that meant. He sat down on one the couches and gripped the arm. Dive. Dive…
And then it struck him: the Rose was a submarine. It made sense, of course. They were diving because the weather had gone bad. The weather over the oceans always went bad; this was common knowledge in the Colonies. The only ways to get across the oceans safely were in Storm Runners, or subs.
The nose of the ship tilted down and almost as abruptly as it began, the heaving stopped, and the Rose was suddenly very quiet. He had heard the noise of the air passing by the boat, the sound of the waves crashing against its side. Now, there was the steady hum of the engines, and that was it.
Toby stayed on the couch. His stomach rumbled again. He thought about going up to the bridge to find Xiphos and ask her about the kitchen, but every time the thought crossed his mind, he tensed. Xiphos hadn’t been particularly friendly to him before, he couldn’t imagine she would be now. He whimpered, and then spun his head around to make sure no one had heard it. There was still no one around. He sat alone and played with his hands.
Footsteps plinked into the guest quarters, and Nina strode in, carrying a clipboard. She spotted him on the couch, and when Toby tried to hide down behind the back, it only seemed to interest her more.
She smiled at him. “Hi,” she said, giving a little wave. Toby turned away, feeling his face flush. He pulled his legs up to his chest and hugged them. Nina continued on until her mind caught up with her momentum. She stopped a few feet away from the hatch on the other side of the crew quarters. She turned around.
Toby watched her approach, her movements suddenly very slow and careful. She took a seat across from him, tilting her head, studying him. “You’re not okay,” she said after a moment. This was careful as well, each world soft and steady.
Toby shrank a little further.
“See,” Nina said. “That’s what I mean. You’re scared of me.”
Toby turned his eyes away from her, blushing furiously now.
“Huh. Not just me, though. Every one.”
“It’s not… I don’t…” Toby tried, but couldn’t get it out. His ears dropped.
“What can I do to convince you I’m not scary?”
Toby shook his head. “I don’t…” Again, nothing.
Nina sighed. She stood again. “How about this? I’m taking a break right now. You should come hang out with me.”
Toby didn’t move, his eyes rolled up to watch Nina move around. Nina’s shoulders dropped.
“OK,” she said, her voice lowering. “If you want, though, I’ll be up in the kitchen-”
Toby was next to her before she could finish. He pulled his mouth shut tight, but looked up at her, his tail wagging behind him.
“Well,” Nina said, “that was silly and terrifying all at once.” She brightened. “Let’s go get some lunch.”
—
The guest kitchen was enough to almost make Toby cry. There was enough food stored between the fridge and the freezer to last the Rose a few months at sea. Toby stood in front of it with the doors open, his mouth trying to form words but too occupied with what he was seeing to be coherent: fresh vegetables, some ready to eat, other getting close to being ripe enough, meats ready to be cut into sandwich slices, or served as an entree, fresh eggs, bread starter… he could have spent the whole day just standing and staring. He leaned back to look at Nina, who sat at one of the work counters and watched him, a mix of puzzlement and amusement on her face.
“Anything?” He asked.
“Well, within reason.”
Toby started to pull jars and containers out of the fridge. Nina could barely keep up. Before she realized what he was doing, he had a sandwich in front of him. He took a quick second to admire his work, and started to put things back. He even cleaned his utensils. Nina looked closer at what he had made.
“Toby, that looks… incredible.”
Toby’s ears dropped again. “Thanks,” he said, his voice lost somewhere inside him.
“I mean it. That’s like a restaurant-quality sandwich.”
Toby shrugged and started to eat.
Nina decided to take her own turn at the fridge, and as she prepared her lunch, she started to put the pieces of Toby together.
“Where are you going?” She asked.
Toby stopped eating. He turned to look at her, his ears dropping.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” She sat down in front of him, leaning forward. “You’re not lost. Well, maybe you’re lost, but if you are, you haven’t told Aunt Cait. You’re not a stowaway, because Cait knows where you are, and so does Xiphos, and she would have sold you out. But you’re not just a passenger. What are you?”
Toby looked down at his plate. He played with his hands again.
Nina leaned back. “Well, this isn’t exactly unheard of with Cait. I mean, Billy… we can’t really figure him out, either.” She stretched out. “I’m sorry. You should eat. You’re probably really hungry.”
Toby went back to his sandwich. Nina rolled her head back and, holding her hands behind her head, said softly, “Tre mistera…”
[g]
Hm. Perhaps The Rose has a new cook aboard? Toby’s got to make himself useful somehow!
typos:
“large nob” –> knob
“caused his heart wrenched in his chest” – need the infinitive, ‘to wrench’
Check on the typos. Thanks again.
Yes, cook would seem to be a good role for him. I like the way Nina’s playing this, so far.
That’s just Nina being Nina. She’s good with people.