Free The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter Page A

Bill.’
    ‘That’s what I hear. But, Captain, he has his damn nose in everything. He has to be there , at every component test, every routine tear-down, every watch briefing, every handover—’
    ‘Always there, in your engine room.’
    Harry was a big, bluff man, with hands the size of a troll’s, it looked like, that belied a delicacy of touch when it came to his precious engines. ‘That’s about the size of it, Captain. Look, I know what you’re thinking. I’m a territorial asshole. It’s just—’
    ‘Not at all. It’s your domain. I need you to run this place the way you want to. And if Commander Feng is interfering with that we both have a problem. But on the other hand, Harry, he’s flown with ships of these new designs across twenty million worlds – that’s on the missions we’ve heard about, maybe more covertly. He ought to be a useful resource. And, look – you know how things are on the Datum, still. You have family there. Everybody knows how much assistance the Chinese have been providing. Medical supplies, food, even winter clothing.’
    ‘So it’s all geopolitics. The Chinese give us handouts and we all have to kowtow?’
    ‘No,’ she said sternly, ‘and if you use language like that, Commander Ryan, I’ll bust you down to grease monkey, so help me. Harry, we have to be gracious. That doesn’t make us any less as Americans. This is still your engine room, just as much as it’s still my boat. Look, get back to work, sleep on it, and just keep smiling. These things have a way of working out.’
    He left, though not with particularly good grace.
    Dissatisfied, that night she made a point of hanging around the crew lounges, allowing herself to be bought a couple of beers, watching the dynamics of the Chinese guests with the rest of the crew. Of course they were all different as individuals, one from the other, as people always were. But it was evident that the atmosphere wasn’t right.
    The next morning she called in the senior Chinese officer on the ship, a Navy commander, and made a quiet suggestion.
    By the morning after that she was speaking to Lieutenant Wu Yue-Sai. Wu was a bright thirty-year-old who had aspirations to be an astronaut, had acquitted herself well on the Chinese ‘East Twenty Million’ expedition – and in particular had done a good job in liaising with English-speaking guests on that mission. By the afternoon Wu had begun new duties in an ‘interface’ role in Harry Ryan’s engine room.
    Maggie was gratified that she heard of no more tensions in engineering. And maybe the calm would spread out through the ship from that critical node.
    Maggie was the kind of commanding officer who believed in letting issues surface and be resolved as naturally as possible, rather than by her diktat. Mostly it worked out. If any individual didn’t get the message, he or she could always catch a slow boat back home for reassignment.
    But when Maggie’s Executive Officer, Commander Nathan Boss, asked to see her, it wasn’t anything to do with trolls, or relations with the Chinese. So Maggie’s cat warned her anyhow.
    ‘Then what?’
    ‘The most useful summary is – weaponry.’ Sitting on her desk in Maggie’s sea cabin, Shi-mi was ghost white. Her voice was liquid human feminine, though reduced in timbre by her small frame.
    Weaponry? Maggie wondered what she meant by that. There were plenty of weapons aboard the Armstrong and Cernan ; the two airships were military craft. She wanted to ask Shi-mi to expand – but time ran out, and Nathan’s soft knock sounded at the door.
    Executive Officer Nathan Boss was a competent, solid officer who’d been with her for several years and was overdue for promotion; Maggie suspected he lacked an edge to his ambition. Whatever, she was glad he was on board with her now. Even if he did look disconcerted when he sat down and Shi-mi jumped on to his lap, purring loudly.
    ‘You ham,’ Maggie said.
    ‘Sorry, Captain?’
    ‘Not you,