More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
May 13 - May 13, 2024
headed home to figure out what to take with me. How do you fit a whole life into twenty kilos?
“Hi,” I replied. “Call me Ishmael.”
Pip took me to the berthing area. I’d braced myself for some horror out of Hornblower with hammocks crammed together in dark squalor,
“Shipshape and Bristol fashion,” I mumbled. “What?” asked Pip. “Nothing, just something my mother used to say.” I smiled as I remembered my introduction to C. S. Forester.
sailing out of the system on nothing more than pressure from the sun on an electronically generated field.
“We run a restaurant, gentlemen,” he reminded us regularly. “The customers don’t have any other choice, but we owe them our best just the same.”
What you did was take responsibility. You showed pride in a job well done and addressed the problems systematically. When you knew the solution, you acted. When you didn’t, you sought help. Your contributions have made the ship a better place.”
you have knowledge he did not. And he knows things you don’t. The difference is you use yours to help us all. That is what I look for in a shipmate.”
It might be wiser to select a branch before one is thrust upon you by circumstance.”
“Ishmael, my boy, it’s all about the journey. In this business, you never get there, wherever there is, so you better enjoy the trip. As an allegory for life, I kinda like it.”
Cargo handlers packed it in, made sure it didn’t move while we were underway, and unpacked it on the other end. I vowed never to complain about mess duty again as I tried to envision forty days in a row of: yup, it’s still there.
“Very funny, Mr. Carstairs. Now would you care to show young Ishmael how to do it correctly?” Pip had the decency to look abashed as he had me turn the suit around. “You had me trying to put it on backward for the last two stans?” He nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. Entertainment is in short supply out in the Deep Dark.”
“Filter the water and scrub the air down, mix water and algae to make it all brown.” She chanted it in sing-song with a smile.
Cookie nodded. “Let this be a lesson to you, too, young Ishmael. Never trade alone.” I thought about what Sandy had said and added, “And don’t let your friends go by themselves either.”
Lois is the ship’s pooka—a kind of spirit. There’s always an honorary berth for the person that the ship is named for.
Diane laughed. “You want to make money on sewage?” I shrugged. “The more money the ship makes, the more money I make. I don’t care what it starts life as, so long as it ends as a cred in my account.”
When we got to the Lois’ lock, I turned to Diane. “Come on, I’ll buy ya a coffee.” “Coffee’s free, ya cheapskate.” “Okay, then you buy.”
“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky. And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,”
“I don’t know about you, but I have a proud history of being pretty stupid.”
