A Certain Kind of Life - 2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Routines

The frantic beeping of David's comm-dev woke him for the umpteenth time of his first week aboard the Life's Pride. By now he knew not to grumble or attempt to shut out the sound as he had done the first few times, raising James’s ire. Instead he merely slid out of bed and tapped the button on the device to inform his boss that he was indeed now awake. He was already dressed as he had learnt that taking the time to put clothes on was not acceptable, and it was sleep clothed or work naked if he didn’t want to get given a lecture on punctuality and the potential lethality of a few seconds if the power core is about to go critical.

That was a bit of a joke, really, David thought wryly, shaking his head. It’s not as if he was ever given anything important to do, nor was he allowed to touch anything that could possibly endanger the crew. Sure, he was getting given a little bit of extra responsibility each day, but as he had morosely noted to himself, at the rate he was being given ‘extra responsibility’, by the time his apprenticeship month with the Pride was up, he might be able to open a toolkit by himself. Part of him wondered if this was all some plan by James to wear him down. If so, it was working.

The device beeped again, and David grumbled quietly. "Yes, yes, I'm coming," he said softly, making sure he didn't hit the transmit button by mistake. He'd already done that a few times, airing his sleepy comments to James and once the entire crew, much to their amusement and the engineer’s aggravation.

"Better get there fast," remarked a woman's voice from behind him, tinged with amusement.

David knew without turning that it belonged to the five foot nothing pilot, Amelia Strongheart. It wasn't an impressive divination, as she was the only woman on the crew. She had reached her sixtieth year the week before David had joined the crew and her rapidly graying hair was always immaculately curled. Despite her age she was filled with a boundless energy and seemed to have a tendency to act rather motherly towards the rest of the crew, but none more than David.

“I know,” sighed the young apprentice, a light frown settling on his brow. “If I don’t, he’ll just make me clean out the filters again.”

“You’ve not done anything like the last guy,” Amelia noted softly, her voice gently soothing. “Which is a gold star in my book, you know?”

“No one will tell me what happened with him,” David pointed out, letting a little bit of his annoyance at this fact seep into his tone. It was true, every time he asked he’d get a slight shake of the head and whomever he was talking to would swiftly change the subject.

Amelia’s response didn’t differ much, a furrowed brow, a slight shake of her head. “That’s James’s business and his business alone. You might find out when he’s ready to tell you. Besides, you’ve been here a week now, I think he actually likes you.”

“Yeah, likes me so much that he gives me all the crappy work to do,” David snorted, shaking his head in exasperation. “You have a strange definition of ‘like’.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. But he’s not tried to get rid of you either,” Amelia notes, “and that’s quite special, coming from him. You must be doing something right.”

“Oh, I think he’s trying to get rid of me,” David returned sullenly, shaking his head. “Why else would he give me so many horrible jobs if not to try and drive me off?” He frowned slightly as he realised that Amelia’s focus had shifted a little, eyes filling with mirth as she stared over his shoulder.

“If I was trying to drive you off, I wouldn’t have been calling you to engineering for the last five minutes, would I?” came the voice of James from behind David. The young apprentice winced, eyes shutting. “If there was a critical malfunction we’d all be dead by now, especially if I’d had to spend time coming to get you.” A hand came down, gripping David’s shoulder and beginning to steer him away from Amelia, a hundred and eighty degrees towards the door.

“Not like you’d let me touch anything anyway,” David muttered under his breath.

James responded coolly. “What was that you said?” The apprentice fancied that he could feel the harsh glare on the back of his neck as Amelia just smirked to herself and began moving away towards the little kitchen that was attached to the crew quarters.

“That I’m very sorry and it won’t happen again?” David responded, his voice quietly hopeful that he wasn’t going to get yelled at for this one.

“Exactly what I thought you said,” James said, voice approving. “Oh, that reminds me, the reserve fuel tank has gunk at the bottom of it. It needs cleaning out.”

The first thought that flashed through the apprentice’s mind is that he’d have rather been yelled at. Three more weeks to go.

* * *

Several hours later, an exceptionally filthy David dragged himself out of engineering, heading for the small shower room that was just off the crew quarters. Along the way he passed by the ship’s small but functional medical room. The captain kept it well stocked in case of emergency, even though the point was largely moot. During his week on the ship he’d learnt that the previous doctor - an elderly gentleman by the name of Christian G’yamba - had died of an aortic aneurism a month ago, and they’d not been able to replace him yet. The ship earned only just enough to get by, and decent doctors rarely wanted to work for the wages it was able to offer.

Damn lot of good all that medical equipment had done with no one to operate it, David thought morbidly, stopping for a moment to peer in to the bay. He’d never taken the time to do so, leaning against the frame, though careful not to touch it with his grime-blackened hands, forearms, torso, or anything except for the single clean patch left on his shoulder.

“Not thinking of becoming a doctor, are you?” Michael’s voice broke into the young man’s thoughts, the apprentice instinctively straightening. He liked the captain most of all the men on the ship. He was genuinely concerned about David, though like everyone else seemed to accept James’s attitude, only stepping in once when the engineer had made some comment over dinner regarding pushing David out of an airlock the next time he misaligned the convertor array. In comparison to the captain, Tom was distant and tended to gently rebuff any attempt at conversation, usually focused on his own training, or keeping a sharp eye on the local waifs and strays whenever the Pride came into port.

“No, sir,” chuckled David quietly, turning to look up to the taller man. To his surprise, the captain looked tired, dark rings around his eyes. It threw him for a moment, continuing in a slightly more subdued voice. “Just thinking, that’s all.”

Michael smiled down to the young man, offering a light nod of his head. “Nothing wrong with thinking, son. But I’m thinking your thinking would be best done in the shower.” A long arm extended, finger pointing towards the crew quarters. “Go on. Before you get my ship all mucky.” His warm smile belied his words however, and David chuckled again.

“Yes sir,” the apprentice agreed, pulling away from the medical bay and heading towards the crew quarters with care not to leave trails in his wake, his spirits lifted slightly.

* * *

Slipping into the shower room, David sighed to himself. His clothes were already off and in the laundry chute for the ‘night’, exposing a slightly underdeveloped musculature. It was obvious from the apprentice’s body that he was still young, and whilst the work of the last week had started building muscle and burning off baby fat, he had a long way to go before he could hope to equal the same lean-muscled figure that James had revealed far too often for David’s liking.

The shower room was a communal structure, offering three small showers in a plasti-tiled room. A small grate on the ever-so-faintly angled floor lead the waste water to the recycling unit, where it was processed and fed back into the main water tank for the ship, from which it could be used for drinking, cooking, and of course, showering. Some people squirmed at the idea of drinking their own recycled waste water, but for the ship-bound it was a way of life. Not every recyc-unit was created equal however, and David had drunk some brackish water in his time; fortunately the Pride’s was of decent quality and outputted fairly tasteless water.

No one else was in the shower room, a fairly common occurrence aboard the ship, affording a measure of privacy to the crew. Whilst it wasn’t a strict policy, out of respect the men generally gave Amelia the shower to herself on the occasions that schedules clashed.

David let out a long exhalation as he flipped on one of the showers, the furthest from the door, and moved under its welcomingly warm spray. His eyes shut, he rested his forehead against the wall as he let the water carry the accumulated grime down the drain. Reaching for the cheap brand of soap that he used - all he could afford on his meagre apprentice’s salary - he snapped open the top of the bottle and began lathering himself up.

There was a click from the door, announcing the entrance of another. Without turning or opening his eyes, David just grunted a greeting, consumed in the task of coaxing his tired muscles into smothering himself under a heavy application of soap. There was a grunt in response before the shower closest to the door started up with a hissing sound. The pressure of his own shower eased slightly with the drain of two on the system, but it was still more than enough to complete his laborious task.

“You look exhausted.” When the unknown person spoke after several minutes of silence, their voice and words combined were enough to startle David out of his single-minded obsession with cleaning, his eyes opening to outright stare at the man beside him. It was James, giving the apprentice a pensively appraising look, his voice offering a quiet note of concern.

“I’m fine,” David said softly, turning away as his cheeks coloured slightly at the idea that he was betraying weakness in front of the man who was making his life so hard. He pushed himself off the wall with a grunt of effort before continuing the cleansing of his body, moving under the full force of the shower’s spray.

Silence from the engineer for a long moment before a quietly disputing: “No you’re not,” was voiced, and before David could argue as he wanted to, it was followed by a tone that brooked no objection. “Amie won’t be cooking dinner for another six or seven hours. Go get some sleep. Your comm won’t go off.”

Shocked into silence by what was frankly the nicest thing James had ever said to him, David merely continued to rinse himself off. The soap was all gone now, and he started reaching for the tap. Before he reached it there was one last statement from the engineer that left the younger man frozen in place, surprise etched on his face.

“You’re doing fine, Dave.” That was it. Four words, softly spoken, but they were no less powerful for it. Before David had a chance to respond, James had shut off his own shower and disappeared out in search of a towel, leaving a trail of suds that were rapidly rinsed down the grate by the remaining water of David’s own shower. The words he’d left were less quick to be washed from the apprentice’s thoughts, though his first musings were - rather ridiculously, as he later noted wryly to himself - that he wasn’t sure he liked being called ‘Dave’.