“But you’ll find she’s excellent at her job,” Xiao interjected. “Give her a wide berth, and she’ll give you the same.”
“How many crew are there on board?” I asked.
“We run a small, tight ship,” she said. “We have seven crew members, including you, plus Jessa, our sole civilian on board. So eight, total.”
“All this food is just for eight people?” I said incredulously, surveying no fewer than four platters of food, enough to feed four dozen aboard the Stalwart.
“Albert heard it was your inaugural breakfast and pulled out all the stops. The better for all of us,” Orion said, reaching for the platter of soy bacon and pushing several onto his plate. “Plus we have Sergei as a guest, right, Iris?”
I thought I saw spots of color rise to her cheeks, but when Xiao spoke, she was cool as a cucumber. “Orion, do you have Stella’s comms unit ready?”
“Incidentally, I have it right here.” He produced from his pocket the oddest piece of jewelry I’d ever clapped eyes on. The front piece was brushed chrome and shaped like a gently sloping letter S, with a long, curved plastic back. “It goes over your ear,” he explained, then helped me fit it on. The S part rested just inside my eardrum, while the back part molded comfortably to the slope of my skull.
“When I point to you, just say your name.” He recited a long string of numbers, then pointed, and I did as I was told. Two tones chirped in my ear. “Voice activation is all set.”
“We wear our comms at all times while on duty,” Officer Xiao said. “It’s the easiest way to communicate with one another while on board. Just use the ‘on’ and ‘off’ voice commands to speak to someone. For example: ‘Comms on. Paging Stella Ainsley.’”
There were two more chirps in my ear, followed by Rori’s voice announcing Officer Xiao. The ping repeated at intervals every five seconds.
“You have to accept the page,” Xiao said. “Respond with ‘Accept.’”
I did so, and next thing I knew, I was hearing her in my ear, like she was standing right next to me. Even though, of course, she was.
“Now our comm connection is open, and will remain so until one of us cuts the connection. Just say ‘Comms off’ to do so.” Her voice in my ear cut out. “You can page anyone on the ship this way, apart from the captain. He doesn’t accept comm hails from anyone except for me and Lieutenant Poole, though he can page any one of us as he pleases. If you have any issues, please contact me before speaking to the captain.”
“Is it true he’s coming back soon?” Orion asked.
“Yes, that is what he tells me, though he did not specify a timeline. He could be back in two days or two weeks. Who knows?”
“Have you told Jessa?”
“No, but I was going to, after I introduced Stella. If you’re done, I’ll take you down.”
I hastily finished chewing a piece of toast and sucked down a second glass of orange juice before following Xiao on our way.
“That’s the bridge to your right,” she said as we reached the front of the ship. I was starting to get a sense of the Rochester’s layout; like the bulkheads, it was circular. All points led either to the bridge or to the transport bay at the aft end of the ship. I peered through a wide doorway to a room not unlike Sergei’s cockpit but about four times its size. We stopped at a double-sided stairway and headed down on the left into a space likely originally intended as a crew recreation area. Now, however, it was a playroom-cum-schoolhouse. A girl of approximately ten with dark curly hair cropped short, framing her pale face, stood in the center of the room, hands held politely behind her back.
“You must be my new teacher,” she said, crossing the space between us and extending a hand to me.
“You must be Jessa.”
She gave a small nod. “So pleased to meet you.”
Uncanny. Even my best charges on board the Stalwart had never been so polite. Jessa bit her lip and looked to Xiao for approval. “Very good, Jessa,” she said. “Now Miss Ainsley won’t know what hit her when you transform into the handful that you are.” Xiao turned to me. “I’ve been teaching her since the last governess left, so there have been some gaps in her recent education, though I daresay her math and science have improved markedly.”
“Will I be watching her outside of school as well?” I asked. “Or do her parents do that? Her mother?” Though Xiao had mentioned only one civilian—Jessa—perhaps her mother was counted among the crew, like her father, the captain.
“My mother is dead,” Jessa informed me so matter-of-factly, I was taken aback.
“I’m so sorry,” I stuttered out, mentally kicking myself. I loathed meaningless platitudes like that myself, so why was I offering them to her? Jessa was unfazed.
“That’s okay; she died a long time ago. And I don’t need a babysitter anyway.”
Xiao expressed her disagreement on that point with a look, then said, “Orion and I take it in turns looking after Jessa after-hours. Orion gets her up in the morning, and I usually put her to bed. We’ll add you to our rotation.”
I nodded, concealing how sad I found it. A girl being raised by officers.
“Jessa’s a very quick study,” Xiao said, not missing a beat, and I caught a brief second of my charge looking inordinately pleased with herself. “With your experience, I’m sure you’ll know how best to catch her up and acclimate her.”
I felt a tug on my hand. “I’ve only ever been on the Rochester,” Jessa said. “Will you tell me about your other ships?”
“With that, I’ll leave you,” Xiao said, heading for the stairs. “Formal lessons start tomorrow. Stella, you’ll find your timetables on your personal tab in your quarters.”
I spent the day getting to know my pupil.
Jessa was, more precisely, ten and three-quarters. Her favorite subject was literature, followed by science. She excitedly asked me a thousand questions about the “rest of the world,” which I answered with as much detail and color as I could, sugarcoating more than a few things about the Empire and Stalwart, however. Jessa was rapt.
“How many people are aboard the Stalwart?” she asked, her eyes going wide when I told her over seven hundred.
“Most ships don’t have that many, though some, like the Mumbai, have far more,” I explained.
“The Rochester is boring,” Jessa said. “It’s the same five people all the time, plus Hugo when he’s here.” Her expression left Not enough unsaid.
“I’ve met Xiao, Poole, and Orion, but who are the other two?”
“Albert and Mari,” she said.
I remembered Albert was the cook. “Who’s Mari?”
“She’s our medical officer. She hates me.”
“I can’t imagine anyone hating you.”
“She didn’t like my last governess, either.” Jessa’s expression turned dark. “Mari’s weird. She never comes to meals, so you probably won’t see her much either.”
I didn’t push it, even though I really wanted to know more. Not just about this Mari character, but about Jessa’s last governess. Why had she left?