Chapter 4 Purser
Fredo's Story: Memoirs of a Mad Scientist Three
“I know you’ve got a lot of questions, Fredo. I do, too. Might get some answers today. But I’m betting we’ll end up with even more questions, just different ones.” Uncle Antu bit into another patti samosa.
I chewed on my ros omelette while I thought, my nose and mouth filled with the aromas of onions and spices. It was nice to have some tastes of home. The breakfast buffet in the officer’s mess of the Steinmetz offered a lot of my favorites. I’d gone for seconds already. The other officers had eaten and left. Uncle Antu and I had the room to ourselves.
All the questions bouncing around in my head. Answers’d be good. But who’d be asking questions of me, about me?
Antu watched my face. I guess I was easy to read, because he said, “You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to. But the more answers you can give us, the better you’ll fit in here.”
“Fit in? How?” I noticed he said us, putting himself on the side of the crew and me on the other side. Huh.
Antu took a deep breath and wiped his hands on his napkin. Stalled for a second or two. Chose his words carefully. “This ship, this fleet, has a lot of moving parts, but no more people than we need to get the work done.” He looked me in the eye. “You get that?”
I nodded and took another bite.
“This crew has top people, no blank files, nobody just marking time.”
I chewed and swallowed and thought for a moment. Nodded again.
“We don’t have anyone to spare to babysit you. You’ll almost certainly have a lot of unsupervised time on your hands.”
That sounded good. I perked up.
“That freedom—and it could be the freedom of the entire ship, if you play your cards right—comes with responsibilities. You’ll have to prove you can be trusted, that you can take orders, and that you can carry out your duties without someone hovering over you.”
Freedom of the entire ship sounded good, too.
“The most important thing is that you have to demonstrate common sense. If you’re one of those people who flips switches or turns valves just to see what happens, you could get us all killed. So we can’t have you on this ship. Understand?”
That set me back. Get people killed? Off the ship? I was looking forward to more time in my bunk with a book. Was this ship that dangerous? I hadn’t seen any big red buttons labeled ‘Self-Destruct’—yet. I measured my words. “I think I have common sense. I won’t mess with things like that.”
“Glad to hear it. But note I said ‘demonstrate.’ You’ll have to prove by your behavior, over time, that you can be trusted. That means whatever path you choose for yourself on this ship, you’ll be on probation in each new job. And if you fail to demonstrate that you have common sense, and the habit of applying it at all times, you’ll be taken off the job.”
“What’s that mean?”
“If you can’t be trusted to do work here, you’ll be treated as a child until you’re 18. That means constantly supervised, most of your time in the children’s playspace, and not left on your own as you were while I was working last night. And at 18, you’ll have to leave.”
