Sayl-master

Varvara Madoshi https://author.today/u/madoshi1

Sergey Alexandrovich Plotnikov https://author.today/u/SergeyPlotnikov

The sales master

Chapter 1, about the unemployed and employers

Sashka Belobrysov, twenty-five years old, is a navigator of the highest clearance, and at the same time, characteristically, a midshipman of the reserve (A navigator of the highest clearance cannot be less than a third lieutenant, more often a second.) He was absentmindedly strumming the last coins in his pocket and wondering if he should go to the lighthouse and play the viola there. He desperately wanted buns with jam-the tantalizing smell of muffins floated in the air-but he held back.

Then Sasha remembered that he had left the viola on the bed in the dorm room. However, I still wanted to go to the white lighthouse tower with a blue roof: there is a cold wind from the sea, and the water is noisy, and colorful stones, and sand on which you can walk barefoot, and shells... A far, far horizon, which Sasha missed every time on the air.

He looked, calculating the route, along the long Kuznechnaya Street, which sloped gently down the hill, flaunting the newly-laid cobblestones. Then Sasha cast a longing glance over his shoulder at the building he had just left. Above the double doors, which were covered in peeling brown paint, was a faded but still clearly legible plaque in three languages:

Employment Office

Arbeitsvermittlung

Центр занятости

Thrusting his arms into his sleeves, the young man with the most independent look, ignoring the afternoon heat — the spit hissed on the cobblestones, evaporating — headed down the street. Deliberately right in the middle. They'll go around if anything.

The Aetherians, accustomed to the relative freedom of winds and currents, took quite liberties with urban transport.

And then the phone rang in the booth he was passing by.

"Here you go!" the navigator thought in surprise. "What kind of clairvoyant is looking for me?"

His mother's relatives (who are still bloodsuckers) could have found him. Creditors could have done it, too-Sasha learned from the age of sixteen that just because you don't know about your debts doesn't mean you don't have them. Finally, the phone could ring by accident. In this case, it was better not to pay attention, but curiosity overcame. He squeezed into a tiny booth with dirty, scratched windows and grabbed the phone.

"Belobrysov is listening."

"Sasha!" a familiar, excited voice sounded on the phone. "There's no time at all, the start is tomorrow morning, and the navigator told us to fuck off! If you value your life and health, by no means be in the Small Port in two hours, at pier 3-45."

"Stop!" Sasha automatically raised his hand, although the interlocutor, of course, could not see him. "Where are you calling from anyway? Did you know that I'm in Pierce Arden?"

"You're my golden sun, I know everything, everything about you: that you were kicked out of the navy, why you were kicked out, and that you've been looking for a job for the third month now.... Well, be gentle, will you show up?"

"Sanka, three yards in your..." Sasha coughed in embarrassment: a swarthy kid on a scooter was staring at him from behind the glass of a phone booth. "Why the hell didn't you call me earlier?! Another friend is called..."

"Damn it, you have no idea what's going on here! I got kicked out too, you know? With such a scandal, sparks to the stars, I'm surprised you haven't seen about it in the newspapers! It's too long to tell, and I haven't even taken the crystals yet, the Ogre will eat me alive. In short, I got out of prison, and I didn't have a second to contact you... come on, let's talk! You are destined to become our navigator! Moreover, you are a sale-man."

At the word "sale master," Sasha clearly imagined a cloud of blue-green sails, lighter than fluff and stronger than metal, unfolding directly above his head and dragging him down the Forge, banging his back against every slightly protruding cobblestone.

"Me?! Sanka, the abyss is with you, I've set sail once or twice at the Academy... and what kind of prison?! Sandra!"

"That's it, there's no time to chat! In short, in two hours, pier three-forty-five, Small Port, in case you forget, brigantine "Blick", the skipper's name is Ball, with two "L"."

After this patter, during which Sasha despaired of getting a word in, beeps poured into the phone like a generous river. Sasha stared in amazement at the innocent tree of the phone, wondering if he should send him an eight-fold Sled for a change. Quite deservedly sent, by the way. However, Sasha could never resist women, even if they were practically his brothers.

He sighed again, hung up the phone, and began to figure out if he had enough time and money to get from Kuznechnaya to Duke Richelieu Square in an hour: there were direct flying carpets from there to both ports. It turned out that he could even catch one of the flights if he pushed hard — and if he remembered the location of the stop correctly. Or he could have been wrong: being a born navigator and well-versed in the World Beyond the moon, Sasha felt some consternation in front of ordinary three-dimensional space.

The usual hustle and bustle reigned in the port, to which Sasha was accustomed from a young age, and which he would not have exchanged for anything, even with an additional payment. He listened with delight to the multilingual abuse, the smell of tar, paint, heated wood and metal, and practically did not stumble over the coils of rope scattered over the vast area of the dock.

"Scher dich hinaus, Schweineschlacke!.. Links!" (Get out of here, pig gut!.. To the left!)

two guys, it seems, carpenters from someone's deck crew, were dragging a hefty plank and almost hit Sasha on the back of the head with it.

One of them added a few stronger epithets in Dutch. Belobrysov did not understand them. "You're schweinen yourself..." the navigator replied good-naturedly: the carpenters' abuse was considered friendly by port standards. Sashka struggled through the cargo area to the finish line: the grand curve of the Sukhoi pier, from which long, complex berths branched off — each ended in a huge chute, called a PSU in Russian. (Landing and launching device) in English — launching-gun in the vernacular, "cannon", but in the vernacular it is obscene. Ahead and far below, the sea moved lazily, rolling waves onto the golden beach of the "wet" pier. Global injustice in action for Pier Arden: almost the entire coast within the city is rocky, and the only decent strip of sand has been occupied by the security zone of the spaceport. The entire long, gentle hillside was free of buildings and deserted, as dictated by safety regulations, However, near the water, Sashka still discerned several risky bathers who had seeped through the metal fence.

In fact, swimming there was not so dangerous — Sasha and his classmates often ran to the Gulf of Finland during his academic years, in the area of the St. Petersburg etheric port. Tons of water (and maybe tons of the enchanted tree of the ethereal vessel) threatened to fall on the beachgoers' heads only in the event of a cannon failure or, for example, an idle purge of the guns. Obviously, the residents of Pier Arden had studied the statistics of their home port well and were not afraid. But a little to the right, where the landing area began, there were significantly fewer people, from which Sasha concluded that the spells of the soft hand that extinguish the waves were still malfunctioning here.

"Berth three-forty-five... three-forty-five..." he muttered to himself. The berths followed at a distance of about a hundred meters from each other, but soon the young man discovered that he was following the second arc, not the third, and even in the opposite direction. I had to return to the jumble of the cargo area and hurry up — time was running out. Despite his troubles with numbers, he got to the pier almost on time and stopped in disbelief: at first glance, it seemed to him that the "cannon" was empty: not even the tip of the mainmast peeked out of the gutter. Had he made a mistake?..

It was only then that Sasha realized: the "cannon" was much larger in diameter than it should have been for a brigantine, so if the ship itself was slightly smaller than average for its class, then the edges of the chute could cover it with a cloth.

After all, Pier Arden is one of the largest ports in the southern Russian Principalities, and perhaps in all of Eastern Europe. Dry docking, the best charms, additional maintenance, more than forty "guns". They can allow the ship to stay at the launch site for several days. Sasha graduated in the top five of his course (which was very surprising to everyone who knew him at least a little), so from the very beginning he went no less than frigates and battleships. Thinking about the size of the ship on which he was now to serve... no, not to serve, to work... for some reason, the young man felt an unpleasant, cold feeling in his stomach.

"Okay," he said to himself, "let your stomach tremble, but when it's empty for a few days, it's worse. Sasha would give half the kingdom just not to be stuck on the planet."

"Alexander Ivanovich Belobrysov?" Nervous people don't survive in the navy, so he didn't jump at the sound of a calm, boring voice behind him, but just turned around.

"That's right," the answer was automatic, and Sasha almost saluted: the figure standing behind him literally radiated captain's emanations. This... lady?.. He would have obeyed willingly even in his semi-violent teenage years, when he had no idea about naval discipline.

Sasha's hesitation about gender was not accidental. Ball's voice wasn't too deep, but it had an odd timbre;

His height was rather average (however, compared to Sasha, almost everyone seemed dwarfed), and his build was thin. Go figure out if there are breasts or not under the captain's wide cape! A tanned, high-cheekboned face would pass for beautiful for a man, a woman would seem so-so. However, a braid twisted like a pretzel on the back of his head... And what about the braid? You never know who wears their hair long. Here is Sasha himself, for example... However, it's shorter.

"My name is Marina Fyodorovna Ball, I am the skipper of this beauty," said the woman (after all, a woman!), waving a white-gloved hand towards the cannon. "Sandra recommended you. She said that you have a good skill, a friendly character, and you love the airwaves."

At the same time, the captain looked in such a way that Sasha decided: she doubts all this.

"Well... yes, it seems to be true. This is the first time I've heard that Sandra has left the merchants... and what do you do, Captain? A private carrier?"

"A special courier and postman," Ball nodded. "It's been ten years now. Mostly. By coincidence, almost the entire crew is new on this flight: I've accepted your friend, a new pilot... now I need a new navigator."

"And why did the old one leave?" Sasha asked.

"Got sick. The last time I talked to him, he was considering whether to sign off for shore duty. So we definitely need someone for this flight, and then we'll see. Do you mind being hired temporarily?"

"I am ready to consider this possibility," Sasha said, trying not to show that he didn't know how to pay for the dorm for the next week. A little more, and him would have to bow to his relatives. "In general, it should be easy to get used to the postal service: I had to work on a military mail carrier."

"This is mainly my and my treasurer's concern." Ball shrugged her shoulders. "As a navigator, you will hardly have to deal with the specifics...." she suddenly emphasized the word in her voice, forcing Sasha to think for two seconds about what it could mean. "If you are worried about the payment, then I can say that it is slightly higher than the average for post offices." The woman named a figure significantly higher than the salary of a senior lieutenant in the Navy. "As a rule, there is no less per flight: special deliveries are specially paid for. Are you satisfied with such conditions?"

"Quite," Sasha nodded, glad that the employer himself had raised the issue of payment. He had never been employed before and was unsure how to approach such things.

"Getting back to your skills..." Sasha thought that the pause was very well thought out. "Sandra told me that you're also a salesman?"

"Well, yes, I have the ability," Sasha fiddled with the earring. "I set sail at the Academy, in training, and then a couple of times... for myself. That's not required on warships, you know."

"But basically, can you do it?" The captain looked up at him very intently, with narrowed black eyes, and her gaze was surprisingly penetrating.

"My God, she's a vampire!" Sasha realized. "Hence the voice, and the gender ambiguity..."

Realizing this, Sasha relaxed: he was used to vampires.

"I've dealt with sails..." he said. "But I want to say right away: if you need a salesman, it's better to hire an experienced person."

Just in case, he mentally said goodbye to the opportunity to resume his fading independence and work with Sanka for a change. Most vampires really appreciate sincerity, because they themselves are not good at evasion, but there is always a chance to run into the original.

"Then I would be looking for a salesman, not a navigator," Sasha thought that Ball smiled. "But they gave you a category?"

"Like any beginner. The fifth."

"Great. Further. Sandra told me why you left the Navy, but although I have no reason to distrust her visionary skills, I would like to hear your version."

"I punched the captain in the jaw," Sasha steeled himself inwardly, even stiffened. This was the very reason why he had already started looking for work on the planet: disciplinarians were not favored even by merchants, of course.

"That's how?" Ball raised her eyebrows. "And you weren't court-martialed?"..

"It happened in the harbor, Skipper. Outside the ship. A quarrel... of a personal nature. So they limited themselves to dismissal."

"Of a personal nature? Because of a woman?"

Sasha nodded reluctantly.

"Can you open up the circumstances to me?"

"I'm afraid not," Sasha replied. "I'm sorry, but..."

"Okay, let's leave it for now. Do you have any records of your transitions? Identification cards?.."

Sasha had identification cards, and they were even quite neat. Lately, he always carried them with him, although the hope that one day he would have to present them was gradually fading. Captain Ball studied his papers to the end, raising her eyebrows again at one point: it must have been that raid on Vasat. In the end, she said:

"Well, despite your youth, you have plenty of experience. I dare to express my regret that such a promising military broadcasting career was interrupted at the very start.... But the private fleet in my person may have acquired another talented navigator. You are accepted. You can go get your things, but you need to be on the ship before sunset. We leave at dawn tomorrow."