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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 45: Cooper 87
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 270
As Cooper retreated to the interior of the ship and the odor he would ordinarily have called a stench had he not been on the pirate ship briefly, he was tired and a bit sore from moving cargo, and looking forward to getting some rest before swallowing the nutrition pills that constituted supper. Most of his friends were in the first group to take shore leave, and the second officer had gone with them, so he thought it was a good opportunity to rest.
He could not have been more wrong.
“All right, you swabs,” the first officer shouted, “let’s get to swabbing. I want this ship to smell as fresh on the inside as the the world out there smells, and I want it to smell that way before I let any of you go on shore leave tomorrow at noon.”
There was a collective groan among the men who were still there, and although Brian stifled his own, he empathized with their complaint. Still, he followed the others to the closets where the cleaning supplies and equipment were kept.
“I’ll activate the vents,” someone said, and disappeared up the corridor. It struck Cooper that replacing all the air in the ship would probably make a significant difference, and given that he had spent many hours washing and otherwise cleaning decks and bulkheads and other surfaces throughout the ship, he decided that the job was not so formidable as it might have sounded. He grabbed something like rags and a spray bottle that he had used on surfaces before.
“Anyone care where I start?”
“Yeah,” someone said. “You can do the heads.”
It occurred to him that had he not asked no one would have given a second thought to whatever he decided to clean, and that the heads--the lavatories, the bathrooms, the facilities--were undoubtedly the dirtiest rooms on the ship. However, he had asked, so now he felt the obligation to comply with the suggestion. He took his gear and headed that direction.
He had cleaned this room before, of course. Waste disposal facilities were high on the list of places that had to be regularly decontaminated for the health and safety of the crew. That meant it wasn’t as bad as one expects. He took a deep breath and released it, and then tackled the room from top down, beginning as near the ceiling as he could reach. Had he planned this, he would have brought one of those brushes that scrub ceilings, but for the moment he would start with what he had and see how far he could get.
Someone entered behind him.
“I was only kidding, you know,” the unfamiliar alien said. “I’m not an officer, and I don’t think I outrank you. You don’t have to do this.”
Brian turned and looked at him, and was gratified to see that the creature had brought one of those ceiling brushes with him. He smiled.
“Well, someone has to do it, and your joke did make point: no one else wants this job. So I might as well tackle it.”
He thought that the alien’s motion constituted a nod, and as he turned back to his work he was aware that it was starting on the ceiling.
“Can’t argue with that,” the alien said, and the two worked together in silence until they had finished everything down to the deck.
“I guess you’d better let me finish the deck,” the alien said. “This is a much better tool than that.”
“Have you any suggestions for what I should do next?”
“I’m willing to bet that no one has done anything in the other heads, so unless you want to work in the galley, those are probably the toughest jobs that remain.”
Cooper nodded. “Galley. Hadn’t thought of that. I think I need to replenish my supplies, but I’ll head for the galley next. By the way, I’m called Barrelmaster, or sometimes Cooper, means the same thing.”
The alien repeated it, “Barrelmaster. Or Cooper. I’m Brimble. Maybe I’ll catch up with you when I’m done here.”
“I’d like that,” Cooper said, and headed back toward the supplies closet.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
