Chapter Six Hundred and Eleven

I really wanted to be on the first away team, but... I really couldn’t take that first spot every time, especially when there was work to do on the Beaver.

So, the first to depart were Guinivere, accompanied by Desiree, then Caprica and Bastion went on what was to one of them a date. I knew as much because Caprica wore her nicest dress and clung onto Bastion’s arm. He... didn’t seem to be aware, but that was probably fine. 

The next group out was led by Calamity. He took all three of the Scallywags with him on a quest to buy some supplies. Mostly that meant food. Howard had given us directions to a few places in the city where we could stock up, so that’s the way he went. I figured one decently levelled catboy and a trio of helpers was probably enough to stay safe, even in the seedier parts of the city. 

Since we didn’t exactly want strangers aboard the Beaver we settled on repairing whatever we could ourselves. Awen took the lead with a certain amount of gusto. “We’ll, ah, start with the decking,” she said.

“Do we have wood to replace the planks with?” I asked.

“No,” Awen said. “We don’t carry spare wood. Not very much. But we can probably buy some here? Um, I was mostly thinking we’d start by removing the planks that are there, then measuring out the hole. We can order pieces made to measure, I think. It’ll be an easy replacement job. Relatively.”

I nodded along, and when Awen brought out some crowbars and hammers, I jumped to help. “What kind of wood is this, anyway?” I asked as I picked up the end of a plank that had been blasted apart at the middle. The end bit was only a foot or so long and looked all frayed and messed up where it had broken.

“It’s spruce,” Amaryllis said. She wasn’t helping very much, and was rather just... sitting around and doing some work on a small fold-out table.

“Spruce?” I asked. “Huh.”

“It’s sourced from the very northern end of the Harpy Mountains,” she said. “Some of it is purchased and shipped in from the Snowlands, but we mostly grow our own.”

“You have tree farms?” I asked.

“We do,” Amaryllis said. “There was a time not so long ago where sourcing wood slowed down the entire airship industry. It’s why some modern ships have metal hulls despite the increased weight of iron. A good Arbologist with a decent number of levels to their name can double or triple the growth time of a tree. That makes a spruce reach full maturity in only nineteen or twenty years.”

“Still a long time,” I said.

“It’s why there’s a bottleneck,” Amaryllis. “It’s not so bad now, but the industry is still quite lucrative. The bracing and reinforcements are made from pine, I believe. Most of our ships are. Though the newest use partial-metal framing.”

I wiggled the bit of spruce I had around, then shrugged and tossed it onto the tarp that we had set down to collect the discarded bits. It was interesting to see that the wood wasn’t the same colour on both sides. It had definitely been treated with something. 

It took us a solid two hours of rather back-breaking work, but soon enough we had a big hole cut into the topdeck, letting us spy on the rooms below. 

Awen stole a piece of paper from Amarylls, and then took some detailed notes about the lengths of wood we’d need, and their thickness and such. “This is what we need?” I asked.

Awen nodded. “It is,” she said. “I have a few other things I’ll want. Ah, if we can budget for it?”

Amaryllis looked up from her work. “We probably can. Unless you’re looking to replace our engine and gravity engine I can’t imagine there being anything too far outside of our emergency repair budget.”

“We have an emergency repair budget?” I asked.

Amaryllis stared at me, then she sighed, stood, moved over several feet, and sat down cross-legged on the deck. “Sit,” she said.

“Huh?”

“You’re the captain. You need to know these things. I’m aware that your common-sense understanding of the value of things is entirely skewed, but that doesn’t matter. You need to have at least some idea of what things are worth and how much we have in our budget. What if I’m sick, or on shore leave, or if I’m simply not available? Will you trade the ship’s coffers for a pail and just enough rope to make a mess?”

“I’m not that bad,” I said, trying to defend myself. Sure, I had never had enough to have to budget before, but the concept wasn’t alien to me.

“Broccoli, how much is a loaf of bread worth?”

“Uh,” I said. “Like... one gold?”

She smacked the deck with a heavy tome, the one that held all of our accounting. “We’re starting from the top, then.”

I groaned, but didn’t complain too much. Amaryllis meant well, and she did do a lot of work to keep things orderly. That much was obvious when she opened the accounting book and showed off the pages and pages of notes written in her familiar scrawling handwriting.

I listened attentively as she explained how the ship’s accounting was done. We basically had small reserves of money for different things that all pulled from different ‘accounts’ and which were fed, in turn, by a central account. 

Accounting in general was... not exactly the most interesting thing to read through, but I supposed that Amaryllis wasn’t wrong. It was my job as Captain to know this kind of thing, especially stuff like payroll. My friends would be rather upset if they didn’t feel like they were being rewarded appropriately for their hard work! 

Fortunately for me, the lesson was interrupted soon enough when Calamity and the Scallywags returned from their trip out. That meant that we’d get a break too!

Only Amaryllis smashed my hopes apart. “No, that’s fine. Calamity, since you have an eye for the city, just leave the food there, we’ll put them away. Can you and the Scallywags escort Awen to the shops to buy some supplies? You might need to look around for a carpenter.”

“I can help!” I said.

“We’re not even halfway through the insurance contracts,” Amaryllis said with an added ‘you’re not getting out of this’ huff. “We have exceptionally favourable terms, it would behoove you to know just how good they are. We can take a break to put these things away, but then it’s back to studying.”

My shoulders and ears slumped, and Amaryllis rolled her eyes. It was maybe too late to pretend that I was still interested in accounting? Not that I’d chicken out of it! I just wanted to do anything else.

So, I maybe took my time putting the food away. Calamity had bought a lot of meat, dried, smoked and pickled. Not so many veggies. I shook my head as I made a mental note to send someone else on a second shopping trip. We all needed a bit of green in our diet. Besides, he hadn’t gotten many snacks, and both Caprica and Bastion had sweet tooths.

Eventually I had no excuses, so I returned to listening to Amaryllis as she explained things. I did pay attention and was able to answer her questions when she asked them. It did feel good to get her approval. 

Then Awen returned, the Scallywags behind her loaded down with several lengths of wood and Calamity holding a large back of supplies.

They settled things down on the deck, and Awen casually started to work with only a bit of help. 

It felt like a nice, quiet afternoon was in order.

Until Awen left to the other deck, going below to where I knew her little workshop was located and where she stored her tools. She returned empty handed, and just from the way she walked over to me, I knew that something was wrong.

“What is it?” I asked as I sat up.

Amaryllis frowned as I had cut her off mid-explanation about long-term loans and liabilities, but Awen looked concerned.

She leaned in close. “Um, Broccoli, there’s a door in the deck below.”

“Uh... yeah?” I said.

Awen shook her head. “Awa! No, I mean... it wasn’t there before.”

“Huh?”

She switched to nodding quickly. “Exactly. It’s... I opened it. There’s a closet that wasn’t there before. It’s empty, I think.”

Well, that made no sense at all. I turned to Amaryllis. “I think we’re going to have to put off the rest of the lesson,” I said. “Awen, want to show me this closet?”

Strangely, I couldn’t feel anything wrong from the Beaver. So, what was going on, then?

***