Finwell Bay (Shaman's Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 3)

  This book and parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by the United States of America copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Visit us on the web at: www.solarclipper.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Nathan Lowell

  Cover Art Alexandre Rito

  Second Printing: October, 2020

  For anyone who thinks it's the end of the world.

  Keep breathing.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Aram’s Inlet: April 7, 2352

  Jimmy Pirano stared out over the bay for what must have been the ten thousandth time. “I can’t believe the Ole Man is gonna pull me off St. Cloud.”

  “You don’t have ta go.”

  Jimmy snorted his reply and turned to face his friend and sometime fishing partner. “You know better.”

  Tony Spinelli shrugged one shoulder and lifted a heavy china mug of coffee to his lips. “Who’re they sending to replace ya?” he asked over the rim before taking a loud slurp.

  “What makes ya think he’s not going to stick you with it?” Jimmy turned back to the gleaming green sea that stretched between the headlands at the mouth of the cove and on out to the horizon.

  “I know better.” Tony’s voice held an amused lilt.

  Jimmy was silent for a long moment. He gazed out the window. “Forty standard years, Tony.”

  “Forty-five, but who’s countin’.”

  “I’m still young.” Jimmy sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. “I’ve got stuff I still wanna do here.”

  “You’re still young, but this ain’t about you, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy pulled a breath slowly through his nose and deep into his lungs before letting it out with a sigh. “Yeah. It’s about the Ole Man.”

  “It’s always about the Ole Man. Always will be. Right up to the day you’re the Ole Man.”

  Jimmy felt his forehead wrinkle into a scowl and took a moment to relax his face before turning back to Tony again. “You think that’s it?”

  Tony gave another one-shouldered shrug. “What else?”

  Jimmy slouched back to his desk and threw himself into the chair. “Maybe he’s not happy with our catches.”

  Tony’s eyebrows twitched once. He snorted.

  “What?” Jimmy asked.

  “We’re over quota for the last six seasons running. Opening up the mid-ocean ridge with those floating platforms gave us an enormous new fishery. Adding in the crab fleets? Spreading out the season and increasing the product lines?”

  Jimmy shrugged and reached for a steel bolt lying on his desk. Scowling, he flipped it around in his fingers. His hands weren’t as tanned as they’d been back then.

  “We had some fun on the old Sea Horse, didn’t we?” he said, musing aloud as much as asking the question.

  “That Keefe kid kept us honest.”

  “Casey?” Jimmy smiled as he remembered the lithe blonde scampering around the deck keeping Tony Spinelli from falling overboard—or worse. “Never thought she’d settle down and get married.”

  “Happens,” Tony said. “The numbers out of Fairfax are good. I’m betting she’s got a lot to do with it.”

  Jimmy grunted in agreement. “Spark plug, she is, and a good one. Doesn’t matter what motor she’s in, it’ll run better.”

  A breeze whispered through the eaves as the wind quartered. “Front’s comin’ in,” Tony said, sipping from his mug again.

  Jimmy looked over at the broad windows overlooking the inlet, where a solid line of clouds was edging in from the west. He glanced at the chronometer on the wall. “Right on time. Having the orbital up there makes it hard for weather to sneak up on us.”

  “The satellite network don’t hurt.”

  Jimmy gave a low chuckle. “Yeah, that too.”

  The old-style comms console on Jimmy’s desk bipped once. Jimmy glanced at it out of the corner of his eyes. The new-message light glowed.

  “You shoulda upgraded that a decade ago, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy raised his eyebrows at his old friend. “What? And lose the only excuse I got? You have no idea how often this thing loses messages.”

  Tony snorted and stuck his beak back into the mug. “I got a good idea. I think half of them are from me.”

  “Not even close. Most of them are from legal, complaining about the number of non-company employees on planet.” Jimmy chewed his lower lip and glared at the glowing icon.

  “If you lost ‘em, how’d ya know?”

  “I didn’t say I lost ‘em. I said I had an excuse.” He nodded at the battered device crouched on the corner of his desk. “Nobody doubts when you blame the machines.”

  “You know that won’t work on me anymore, right?” Tony said, a smirk twisting his lips.

  Jimmy slapped a key and the new message opened. He read it twice to make sure he had it right and then turned to gaze out over the inlet again.

  “What is it?” Tony asked.

  “Won’t have to work on you anymore, Tony.” Jimmy swiveled back to smile across the desk. “My replacement’s here.”

  “What?” Tony asked, sitting upright in his chair so fast he almost slopped his coffee. “At the inlet?”

  Jimmy tilted his head back and cast a glance at the ceiling. “Upstairs in the orbital. Be down on the next shuttle.”

  “Who is it?” Tony asked. “Do you know yet?”

  Jimmy grimaced. “Yeah. I’ve known for a while.”

  The connecting door to his assistant’s office opened and Maisie stuck her head in. “Sorry to interrupt, Jimmy. I have a message from an Angela Pirano asking for accommodations and transportation from the shuttle port at Starvey Bay this afternoon.”

  “Your sister?” Tony asked

  “My half-sister.” He nodded to Maisie. “Have Aram House prep the penthouse and send the company flitter over to Starvey to pick her up, if you would?”

  Maisie glanced back and forth between them for a moment before nodding. A frown puckered her brow. “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  The sun hung low over the western horizon. A few puffy clouds added their picturesque touch. Down in the harbor, the last fishing boat of the day chugged back to dock, her gunwales near the water and her bow rolling a heavy white wave.

  “Looks like Davy got into ’em good today,” Tony said with a nod at the laden vessel.

  Jimmy nodded and grunted. “He’s haulin’ back three times a day. Most of them are hittin’ quota on two haul-backs.”

  “Davy’s breakin’ quota almost every day.”

  “New wife,” Jimmy said. “She likes new things.”

  Tony snorted. “More like he’s puttin’ some aside for when the kid is born.”

  Jimmy eyed him with a raise brow. “Ya think?”

  “Davy’s married to Janet Humphrey. She ain’t exactly the prissy kind that likes all her appliances to match.” Tony glanced at Jimmy and shrugged. “I grew up with her father over in Cape Heron. Kept in touch.”

  The whooshing of flitter fans drew their focus back to the landing field as the vehicle flared up before leveling off to settle on its skids. The engines whined down to silence and the passenger hatch popped open.

  Nothing happened
after that. Jimmy and Tony had time to share a look before a dark-haired woman emerged and walked down the short steps onto the pavement. Although she carried a smart shoulder bag, her cropped hair, tanned face, and no-nonsense boots marked her more as a fisherman than one of the company executives.

  Jimmy raised a hand in greeting.

  She smiled at him and her teeth flashed white against the tan. She crossed to where the men waited and held her arms out for a hug.

  “Hello, Angie. It’s been ages. You look great,” Jimmy said.

  Angela stepped back, holding Jimmy at arms’ length and looking him up and down. “I look like the bottom fathom of anchor rode, but I try to keep up. You look like you haven’t been getting out much.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Haven’t been out at all. The office needed me too much for us to get out.”

  “Us?” Angela’s gaze flicked to Tony.

  “This is Tony Spinelli. Head bean counter and pretty decent deckhand.”

  Angela held out a hand.

  Tony shook it and murmured, “Good ta meet ya.”

  “Pop’s been telling me about you. You never went out before this lummox made you go as deckhand?”

  Tony shrugged and examined the tarmac near the toes of his shoes. “Never had much need to until then.”

  Angela shot Jimmy a look.

  Jimmy just shrugged.

  The flitter’s engines powered up and the vehicle lifted into the sky again.

  “Where’s your luggage?” Jimmy asked, looking back and forth between his sister and the departing limo.

  Angela patted the body of the bag slung over her shoulder. “Right here. What’s not there, I can buy. Don’t need much.”

  Tony looked up at that and Jimmy frowned.

  “Why? What’s the matter?” Angela asked.

  “What’d the Old Man tell you about this trip?” Jimmy asked by way of answer.

  “Said he needed me here to help get the mid-ocean ridge developed. Why? What’d he tell you?”

  “He’s pulling me back to corp. You’re the new Pirano on planet.”

  Angela cocked her head to the left a few degrees. “He’s pulling you back to corp.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “And I’m supposed to run this show while you’re gone?” Her gaze flipped back and forth between Jimmy and Tony. “Seriously? How long is this supposed to last?” Her brow furrowed in a scowl and her entire body seemed to vibrate.

  “Indefinitely, as far as I know. The Ole Man told me to pack my stuff and be ready to get off planet as soon as you arrived.”

  Angela opened her mouth but closed it again without saying a word. She folded her arms as if to hug herself and turned to stare out over the inlet. Jimmy watched her eyes blink several times in rapid succession.

  “The bastard,” she said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the afternoon breeze and the growing rumble of engine noise from the bay.

  “Come on. No sense standing out here getting windblown and giving the employees too much to talk about. Let’s get up to Aram House and get you settled. You musta had a long trip,” Jimmy said, turning toward the terminal building.

  Angela seemed to shake herself and nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. We need to get under cover and get our heads together.”

  “Under cover?” Tony asked.

  Angela nodded at a low cloud bank forming in the northwest. “Storm’s comin’.”

  Tony smiled at her. “You been here five ticks and you’re already readin’ the weather?”

  She chuckled and her face lit up in a smile. “Been in-system for six weeks and I can read the weather reports as well as anybody.”

  Jimmy snickered. “You gotta watch her, Tony. She’s smarter than me. You won’t be gettin’ anything past her.”

  Tony smiled and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, I hate to break it to ya, boss, but I’ve got a desk chair that might be smarter than you.”

  Jimmy turned to his sister with a wounded expression on his face. “See? This is what I have to work with. It’s impossible.”

  Angela grinned at Jimmy. “Well, I don’t know about his desk chair but you never were the brightest Pirano in the family.”

  Jimmy blew out his breath in a mock sigh. “From my own family. There’s no justice in this world.”

  Angela patted him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, baby brother. If family won’t tell ya, nobody will.”

  They all laughed and headed for the hotel. As they walked Jimmy kept glancing at Angela. Her brow stayed furrowed the entire time. He could practically see the wheels turning behind her forehead. By the looks of the wrinkles there, it was an expression she used a lot.

  He shook his head and sighed. The Ole Man was famous for putting his foot into things. Looked like the family dynamic wasn’t immune.

  Jimmy caught Tony glancing at Angela out of the corners of his eyes. He made a mental note to ask his longtime companion what the silly grin was for.

  * * *

  Angela stood on the roof and let the sea breeze rake through her hair. “This view is spectacular, Jimmy.”

  “Yeah.” He stepped up beside her and offered a mug of tea, handle first. “You can see everything from here.” He pointed at a pair of gantries. “Boat yard over there. Behind them is the fish dock.”

  She sipped the tea and nodded. “You’ve got something here I haven’t see in decades.”

  “Shoreline?” Jimmy asked.

  She turned her back on the view and leaned against the patio rail. “Yeah. Not much shoreline on Umber.”

  “You’ve been there—what? Fifty stanyers?”

  Tony stepped out of the residence and joined them on the patio. His gaze went to Angela and he smiled.

  Angela felt a flush rising up her neck and reached back to smooth her hair. “You make it sound like such a long time,” she said shrugging it off.

  Jimmy glanced at Tony before looking to his sister. “Yeah. Sorry.” He coughed once.

  “How’d you get those pads to float?” Tony asked, settling in a lounger and putting his feet up. “I’ve seen pictures. Those things are huge.”

  “It’s all about the displacement,” Angela said, a small grin trying to work its way into the corner of her mouth. “They’re big, but they have a huge displacement and sea water’s heavy.”

  Jimmy grinned at Tony. “If you’d spend more time on the water and less steering that desk, you’d know that.”

  Tony grinned back. “Somebody’s gotta keep your assets above water. I can’t do that out there.”

  “It’s all in the mix and design,” Angela said, her face toward Tony but her gaze turned inward. “We use a mix that includes Styrofoam beads as well as aggregate and a binder. The binder has a bit of flex in it, just a bit more than standard concrete, but it lets us make the pads larger and when we foam it, it floats quite nicely.” She turned to look at Jimmy. “Who you got working the construction?”

  “Some outfit the Ole Man sent in. CoFoam.”

  “Don’t know them,” she said. “Lemme guess. Low bidder?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “It’s the Ole Man.”

  “Low bidder,” Angela said. The words sounded like a curse

  “Well, you can run out to the banks and see what we’ve got going on. We’ve been working with barge-mounted equipment until now. It’s worked out and it scales as we expand.”

  “But they’re bumpy in rough weather and nobody wants to live on them?” Angela asked.

  Jimmy nodded and took a pull from his mug.

  “How many of these sites you got running now? Briefing documents said eight.”

  “Still eight, but Deep Sea Three is our test bed for building the floats.”

  “Meaning, nobody’s fishing out of there at the moment?”

  “Yeah.”

  Angela looked at Tony and found him staring at her. “What?”

  He shook his head and looked down at his hands like a schoolboy caught with a cookie. “Nothing.” His
ears turned red.

  Angela held back a giggle, clearing her throat to keep from laughing. “So, what’re the landings?”

  Tony didn’t look up before speaking. “A bit ahead of quota. Deep Sea Five and Eight are making up for what Three isn’t pulling. The shoreside fisheries are recovering nicely and landings there are up about five percent over last year at this time.”

  Angela grunted and glanced back at Jimmy. “So, the Old Man’s footing the bill for this?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “We are. The Old Man put out the RFPs and sent us the company. It’s coming out of our hides. Capital expense.”

  “Cash flows holding up?”

  Tony said, “Thin but holding. We had a bit of reserve built up and the Deeps are all sunk costs at this point.”

  “When can I get out there?”

  Jimmy glanced at the cloud deck closing off the sky. “Soon’s that blows past. Maisie can arrange a pilot to fly you out.”

  She nodded. “Good enough. When are you taking off?”

  Jimmy grimaced and sighed. “I’m supposed to be on the next shuttle. I’m leaving on the same ship you arrived in.”

  Angela snorted. “He’s not wastin’ any time, is he?”

  “Nope. He’s not.” Jimmy sighed. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell you.”

  “Yeah, well.” Angela took a deep breath and blew it out through her nose. The smell of the ocean felt wrong in her nose, but the wind off the bay cut in an all too familiar way. “It’s the Old Man.”

  Jimmy stood and crossed to his sister. “Hang in there, Angie. You’re getting the short end of this deal, but I’ll make it up to you if I can.”

  She wrapped an arm around him in an awkward hug. “Don’t let the bastard make you forget.”

  “Forget? Forget what?”

  She turned to cast her gaze out over the harbor and the ocean beyond. She flourished her mug. “That,” she said. “That’s where we belong. That’s where he belongs, if he’d only just remember it.”

  Jimmy’s chuckle sounded low in his chest. “Thanks. I’ll do my best.”

  He turned to go, holding out his hand for Tony’s as he passed. “Keep her steady,” he said.