Business as usual

For having a small population, the Airship town managed to support two well attended taverns.  Or pubs.  Or bars.  Whatever you wanted to call them.  The larger and less rowdy of the two catered to the farmers, tradesmen, and general population of the town, while the smaller one catered to the Airship crews and the folks who supported them.  In truth, other than detail, the place would have been right at home nestled beside any of the smaller spaceports back home.

I’d spent a good deal of time in places like it over the years.  The Four Winds, they called it.  Often rowdy, with crowds that came and went across the course of the day, it was the sort of place a crew could settle in to to unwind, enjoy a drink, a meal, and some music.  And, probably, a good brawl now and again.  At least if the furniture and overall structure was any indication.  Not unlike, say, Fook Yoo’s back home, the Four Winds had seen its share of excitement.

It was also the sort of place where a Captain could get some business done.  There were a number of nooks around the edge of the main room where folk could get a bit of privacy and conduct business in relative quiet.  Not ideal, of course, but a common practice that probably predated the Exodus by a couple millennium.

Victoria’s captain met us in one of the small side nooks.  Palmer made the introductions, then stepped away to give us some privacy.  The Captain greeting me with an inclination of the head, sort of an abbreviated bow, rather than a proffered handshake, then pulled back the fur lined hood of her cloak.

Even if I hadn’t known ahead of time, I could tell Victoria’s captain was female simply from the profile.  But I hadn’t expected her to be quite so young.  Or pretty.  A cascade of curly red hair, fair skin, piercing sea green eyes, and an intensity that came through with just a gaze.  She was a few inches taller than I was, about ‘Brina’s height, though the hooded cloak concealed anything more.  Her voice, while soft and feminine, had an edge of hardness that sounded like she was used to giving orders and having them followed.  A bit like mine, actually.  

“I am called Angel,” she started, “You are their Captain, yes?”

“Well met, Angel.  Seana.  I lead the trade mission, but I’m not their Captain.”

A faint smirk crossed her face, then a nod.  “If you say so.  You would do well on deck though, I think.  The way you carry yourself.  How they address you.  Consider it a term of respect then, if nothing else.”  She looked past me then to one of the serving girls and gave her a hand gesture to order a round of drinks.  “To business.  You are here to confirm your Engineer’s trip, yes?”

I had to wonder immediately if she could she see through the cover that easily, or was she really just using it as a term of respect?  It was relatively easy for a trained operative to change their mannerisms to appear as something they weren’t, but considerably more difficult when you were an entire group trying to do the same thing.  More difficult still when half the group had no real covert operations experience.  Perhaps more of that was showing through than I liked.

“To business, yes,” I replied as the serving girl appeared with a round of drinks.  Some kind of sweet honey’d mead that I would have to be careful with.  “I understand the negotiations are basically done?  Just a matter of arranging payment and scheduling the flight?”

Angel took a sip of the mead then nodded in the general direction of the landing platforms where Victoria was berthed.  Docked?  Whatever.  “Yes.  We are leaving just after dawn tomorrow for a trip to a village down coast.  Weather holds, we will be back before supper.  Ten hours, perhaps twelve if there are delays with the cargo.  We’ll be shutting down the boilers for maintenance on the  when we return, and my Engineer’s eager to work with yours when they cool.  There is just the matter of some metal.”

Her price, in metal, was actually less than I’d payed for the Steelwood knives.  Given what I had heard for the cost of operating one of the airships, it was obvious Angel was putting far more weight on the help her Engineer expected then on the value of the metal.  On some level, of course, I was wondering just what sort of technical exchange my wife had promised these airship pilots.

“Agreed,” I said, smiling a bit, motioning Conner over to join us with the raw metal he was carrying by way of down payment on Sabrina’s flight, then measuring out a bit of steel and bronze to Angel’s satisfaction.

“I know you have other duties with your crew, but perhaps you could spare some time with me to explore other business opportunities?  I would like to think that we could do further mutually beneficial business on this mission and perhaps in the future.”

Angel nodded over her drink, motioning to the serving girl to bring a round to my crew and hers before settling back in the booth.  “Yes, Captain Seana.  I believe there is much we can discuss.”



(Author's note: My apology for the long delay here. I had this post started a couple weeks after the previous one, then hit a combination of writer's block and real life intrusions. Hopefully, the inertia is back.)