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Pip said, “Oh my, look at the time! We’ve both got duty in the morning, we better head back.”

It surprised me when Aunt P didn’t argue. She just stood and walked with us to the lock. While Uncle Q was saying goodnight to Pip, she managed to get between Pip and I. “He’s an idiot, but he’s our idiot. Watch out for him, Ishmael. It’s been a pleasure to meet you. Please give my regards to Captain Giggone.”

“Thank you, Penny, I will.” I shook her hand and then Uncle Q’s on the way out of the lock. Pip and I walked quickly back down the docks toward the
Lois
.

I laughed all the way. Pip just looked miserable.

I had the day off and I wanted to shop, but I also needed to take Bev with me. I hadn’t spoken to her at any length in weeks, and I missed her. I set my tablet for 05:45, knowing she would be getting off watch and heading for breakfast or bed around then. I intended to catch her at one or the other. As it was I caught her in the passage outside deck berthing and we arranged to meet at 13:00.

Pip was at the omelet station on the mess deck and still looked upset. I grabbed some coffee and a plate.

“Good morning, Phillip,” I said with a grin.

“Please, Ish,” he said, throwing some onion and mushroom into the pan.

“Then talk to me. As much as I’m enjoying this, what in the universe were you thinking?”

He did a little left shoulder shrug but didn’t look up from the pan. “I just didn’t want to be shunted off to the academy without any say is all,” he said after a few heartbeats.

“What? They were holding a gun to your head?”

“You’ve met Aunt P and Uncle Q. Mom and Dad are at least as bad. Dad’s the bulldozer in the group and Mom is good at making you like being bulldozed.”

“When you said you came from a trader family, you weren’t kidding. Aunt Annie, now Aunt Q and an uncle. Are there any more?”

“Well, not counting the various cousins, there’s another aunt on my mother’s side and my father has two sisters. I have an older sister and a younger brother.”

“They all trade?”

“One way or another. My father’s older sister is a broker on Sargass Orbital. She handles the import-export end of the trades there. She’s not a spacer as such, although she’s rated spec three in ship handling. My big sister is third mate on Dad’s new ship and baby brother is still living at home and standing helm watches.”

“Do all of them have little flying living rooms?”

“What?” He looked confused. “Oh, the
Penny
? Yeah, actually, that’s pretty typical on the smaller ships. The
Penny
’s rated at eight metric kilotons. She carries palletized freight and bulk cargo, not like the
Lois
with the containers. The
Penny
has four big holds amidships instead of the spine.”

“How can she turn a profit carrying that little?” This whole conversation had taken an odd turn in my brain and I had no idea where it was going.

Pip slipped the omelet out of the pan and into my plate. He added a couple of biscuits to keep it company. “Well, to begin with, the salaries are low, and they’re fast as hell. The
Penny
probably only needs seven days to get out of the well here, maybe less depending how heavy she’s running. She can jump to Barsi and be back on station here before we could make it out to the Burleson limit. She’s under ten metric kilotons so she only needs a captain and a certified small ship engineer. Aunt P has both of those. Uncle Q has first mate and system/comm papers. Cousin Roger passed some level of engineering papers—I’m not sure what he’s rated these days—but he likes living at home so they let him stay aboard and help out.”

“They’re all academy?” I asked as what he said sunk in.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, and followed me out to sit at a table while I ate.

“The living room?” I asked. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t a Berkman-Neuman conversational grouping with optional bar just inside the lock.”

“How did you know it was Berkman-Neuman?” he asked.

I sighed. “I didn’t. It’s the only brand I know. Focus, Pip.”

“I told you, that’s home. They have a living room and a big eat-in galley. The whole thing isn’t as big as the galley here, but they only have to feed a half dozen people most of the time, if that. Aunt P and Uncle Q share the captain’s cabin of course, and that’s almost as big as the one here, the kids shared the staterooms. There’s no berthing area at all to speak of.”

“It was so—homey.”

“Ish? It is home! What did you expect it to be?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. A little
Lois
, I guess. Is that the kind of ship you grew up on?”

“Oh, yeah. The
Bad Penny
and the
Epiphany
are sister ships, almost identical. We even sailed the same routes sometimes. It was a big treat to trade rooms with a cousin. I flew on the
Penny
a lot as a kid actually.”

“What? You’d swap kids?”

“Basically. It was great fun to run a leg with Aunt P and Uncle Q. I don’t know why. Just different, I guess.”

Salina Matteo came in for breakfast and Pip got up to fix her an omelet. They both came to sit with me after he was done. “Morning, Ish,” she said. “You’re up early, too, I see.”

“Pip and I went out to dinner. Ran into his aunt and uncle for a drink and came back early.” I hoped to get a response out of Salina to add to Pip’s embarrassment.

“How nice!” She turned to Pip. “Did you expect to find them here or was it just coincidence?”

“Coincidence. They’re running an indie on the triangle trade around the Umber-Barsi-Niol loop.”

“How pleasant that must be for them.”

“They like it. Put my cousins through the academy.”

The surrealism of the conversation was making me feel very off-balance. It didn’t match the image of the lonely spacer that I had formed since coming aboard.

Salina nodded. “I kinda wish I’d gone when I had the chance, but with Roberto and the kids, it made more sense to specialize in astrogation.”

“Roberto and the kids?” I asked, feeling my universe slip just a bit further off axis.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling and tucking into her omelet. “Roberto, my husband. We have two kids.”

“You have a husband and two kids?” I repeated.

“Yup. Married into the family business. His father thought I was after his money, but I really only wanted his tight little buns.” She winked.

I almost choked on my coffee.

“What business?” Pip asked.

“Oh, the family runs the
Barca Roja
—it’s a thirty kilotonner over in the New Caledonia quadrant.”

“Family co-op?” Pip asked.

“Yup,” she said, beaming with pride.

“Isn’t that hard?” I asked.

“What? Running the
Barca Roja
?”

“No, being away from your family.”

“Oh, ’Berto and I see each other a couple times a year. We’ve been married a long time, but the reunions are something special, let me tell you!” She winked again.

Jennifer Agotto, a machinist from the power section came in then, and Pip went to fix her some breakfast.

“I’m sorry if I seem particularly stupid this morning, Salina. Meeting Pip’s aunt and uncle and visiting their ship—I don’t know. It was so different from what I expected.”

“You’re a land rat, aren’t you? You don’t come from a spacer family?” she asked, chasing a bit of egg around her plate with a fork.

“Right. Mom was a university professor. We lived on Neris almost my entire life.”

She chuckled. “So you expected their ship to be like this?” She flourished her biscuit to indicate the mess deck.

“Well, I had nothing else to go on.”

“The
Lois
is pretty typical for a big corporate carrier, but there’s ten indies for every ship like this.”

“So, why are you here when you could be with your husband and kids on the
Barca Roja
?”

“I needed some space. Working for the family can be a little claustrophobic at times. Besides, my daughter wanted to see what it was like working on a corporate carrier.” She shrugged. “It just worked out. We’ll probably head back when our contracts are up.”

“Your daughter?” I asked.

“Yeah, my daughter.”

Pip had finished fixing Jennifer’s breakfast by then and they both sat down with us.

“Morning, Mom,” Jennifer said, and gave Salina a little peck on the cheek.

Pip must have seen the look on my face. “What? You didn’t know?”

Jennifer looked around and asked, “What’s going on?”

Salina smiled. “I think our young Mr. Wang here is getting an education in spacer life.”

Jennifer turned to me. “You’re not a spacer?”

“My mom was a lit professor. The
Lois
is my first ship.”

“You’ve got to be kidding?”

Pip shook his head. “Nope, he’s serious.”

Salina looked up from her plate. “He thought all ships were like the
Lois
until he saw Pip’s aunt and uncle’s ship last night.”

“You have family in-port, Pip?” Jennifer asked. “How nice!”

Her comment wasn’t any kind of
oh-my-god-that-is-so-amazing nice
. It was more like
nice haircut
nice.

Pip grumbled, “Yeah, well.” But he didn’t offer anything more.

“What ship?” Jennifer asked.

Pip sighed. “
Bad Penny
, eight tonner out of Deeb.”

“Oh cool, one of the Unwin-eight hulls?” Jennifer asked.

“No, Manchester-built Damien.”

“Ooh, fast ship! Is there any more darberry jam?”

Pip got up to fetch a jar of jam while Salina continued to be amused over her coffee cup and Jennifer dug into her sausage and eggs.

“You’ve done pretty well for a land-rat,” Jennifer commented, looking up from her plate. “You always wanted to run away to space?”

“Actually, I had to get off planet or be deported when my mother died,” I said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She looked to her mother—my gooey gray matter was still trying to absorb that one, her mother—for support.

“Thanks, but it’s okay. It’s been almost a stanyer now. It was a shock, and I’ve had to adapt fast.”

Salina smiled. “You’ve done very well for yourself, Ishmael. I’m sure she would have been proud of you.” She reached over and patted the back of my hand. I almost teared up right there at the table.

I kept my head down and said, “Thanks,” into my coffee cup.

Luckily Pip came back with the jam and we got distracted.

“Is everybody aboard a spacer?” I asked, trying to get back on even footing.

“I think you and Sarah are the only two people aboard who don’t come from some kind of spacer family,” Salina said.

“Francis,” Pip added. “He was a scientist.”

“Okay, and Francis. There’s probably a few more.”

“You’re kidding!” I said.

She shrugged. “Who do you think isn’t spacer born? Besides you three?”

I had never considered the question before. “Bev?” I asked.

“Her parents are members of a merchanter co-op running the Siren to St. Cloud loop. Her mother is first mate and her father works systems, I think.”

“Brill?”

“Her father runs an orbital somewhere. I forget which system, but she’ll tell you if you ask. Her mother is third mate on one of the system shuttles there.”

“Rebecca Saltzman?”

“Are you kidding?” Pip asked.

“What?”

“The Saltzman’s are one of the oldest trading families in the business. I think they have a fleet almost as big as Federated Freight’s now and every single crewman is family.”

“Why is she here then?”

“You never worked for family, have you?” he asked with a bitter little smile.

“The whole crew?”

Salina shrugged. “Well, except for you, Sarah, and Francis. There’s probably a few more that I don’t know about. It’s not like I pay that much attention. It’s just not that big a deal. Most of us just have some connection in the business. It’s how it works.”

Jennifer asked, “If you’d never wanted to be a spacer, how’d you get here?”

“Jennifer?” Salina said in that rising-tone-warning.

“What?” She said. “I’m just asking.”

“It’s okay. My mother was killed in a flitter crash. The company was going to deport me because I didn’t have enough creds to buy passage off planet and I couldn’t stay without being an employee. I didn’t want to be a marine, so I went to the Union Hall on Neris and waited for a quarter-share berth.”

“Somebody musta liked you.”

I shrugged. “The manager said I reminded her of her nephew.” I shot a quick glance at Pip, who was studying the inside of his coffee mug. “She helped me pack a duffel and when the
Lois
came in and unloaded what’s his name last year, I got his slot.”

“And the rest is history,” Pip said. I think he was trying to break it up before any more of his family tree got dragged into the story. Or that his parents thought he was starting his third year at the academy.