Free Free-Wrench, no. 1 by Joseph R. Lallo

had a habit of swinging her hammock so violently that at times
she was worried she would fall out. They’d provided a blanket, and
a second one to roll up as a pillow, but for someone so used to
tropical climes it was still a bit chilly even in her heavy work
gear. By far the worst part of those first few hours of rest,
though, was the time it gave her to think.
    There was no aspect of this journey that sat
well with her. It was uncomfortable, but that much she could stand.
The air had a strange smell to it, either from the fuel they burned
in the boiler, the gas they filled the envelope with, or the
particularly lax approach to hygiene shared by certain members of
the crew. Rather than the shower she’d unwittingly come to rely
upon to relieve the stresses of her day, the best this ship could
offer was a bucket of clean water, a cake of soap, and a sea
sponge, all tucked into a small room at the stern of the ship. The
added presence of a washboard suggested that the room doubled as
laundry facilities. In the opposite corner was the bathroom, or
“head” as they called it, though even that seemed to be too
extravagant a name for what turned out to be a bench mounted over a
hole in the bottom of the ship. Using it was an unpleasantly breezy
experience that made her feel sorry for any fishermen or sailors
who might be below. It also served to remind her of the one fact
she could never come to terms with; she was hundreds of feet in the
air in a none-too-sturdy vessel.
    Such thoughts had been churning in her head
for three or four hours, making sleep all but impossible, when a
tapping sound drew her attention. In the doorway was Wink, or
rather on the doorway. He was crawling up with ease, tapping
with his middle finger and cupping his ears toward the sound. Nita
tried to put him out of her mind and get back to sleep, but
something seemed odd. The tapping had slowed and stopped. She
turned, but as soon as she moved, Wink started tapping again with
renewed vigor. Twice more she looked away and twice more the
tapping trailed off. She pulled the goggles from her bag, buffed
the lenses a bit, and pretended to drift to sleep once more. When
the tapping began to slow, she tipped them enough to see Wink in
the reflection. He was staring at her.
    At that point, it became clear she would get
no more sleep today.
    As it turned out, it was just as well. Not a
minute after her brain finally gave up on being rested, the flared
tube beside the door echoed with a bellow that she could just
barely hear through the walls as well. It was Butch, shouting in
whatever language she spoke. Though she couldn’t understand the
announcement, she assumed a trip to the galley was called for. She
dislodged herself from the hammock and stumbled her way to the
nearest ladder. At the top, she encountered Lil.
    “There you are, Greenhorn. I was just coming
down to fetch you. Supper’s on the table. Or lunch. Or breakfast, I
reckon. Just depends how long you been awake. You sleep okay?”
    “Terrible.”
    “I did too, my first few days. Nowadays I
can’t hardly sleep without my hammock rocking in the breeze. Being
a greenhorn is rough. I guess that’s part of why most of you don’t
last more than a day.”
    “Why do you keep calling me that?”
    “What, a greenhorn? Because that’s what you
are! A newbie, a tenderfoot. Wet behind the ears and all that,” she
explained. “Better get used to being called that. Round here, everybody’s a greenhorn ’til the Cap’n decides otherwise.
Life on a ship ain’t all bad, though. Once you learn to look it in
the eye without feeding the ducks, the view’s a thing to see. Plus,
on this ship you get to eat what Butch makes, and that stuff’s fit
to make your tongue kick a hole through your teeth to get at the
spoon.”
    Nita grinned. There was something disarmingly
charming about the way these people spoke. In Caldera, the desire
to create ran so deep that people of distinction spoke with an
almost