The next few days were calm and allowed me to settle into the ship. I got my own cabin —or at least, Gemma had called it that. I think it was just a closet with a hammock in it— and got to wander the ship on my own without anyone watching over me. I had lunch and dinner with the crew, sometimes sitting alone, sometimes accosted by Gemma and some crew member friends of hers. Word of what I had done —though to me it was nothing, really— had spread among the crew. It seemed it was an uncommon sight to have a man help out the women with a… spell or whatever it was. I still didn’t understand the rules of this world. The world I was supposed to live in had shared most natural laws with the “real one”. In this one, people spawned out of thin air in the middle of the ocean and women raised walls of wind and water with their willpower. That raised some questions in my head, so I went looking one morning for Larann or whoever could answer them. Gemma had just shrugged and changed the topic when I asked her, so I would get no answers there.

I grabbed some bread and tea for breakfast and headed over to the upper deck. I was becoming a sea-lover. I had never cared for it and barely set foot on a sailboat once, but seeing the sunrises and sunsets from the Lightwind was an experience that would make any man a believer. I didn’t know if it was just this world’s seas —lush, green-blue foaming waves forming perfectly as in a Hokusai painting— or the sun, always warm but never scorching, that made it so pleasurable. The company isn’t bad either, I thought as I spotted Larann talking to the ash-blonde woman I had briefly compared to my wife when we had cast the spell. It wasn’t clear what her role was. She wasn’t dressed like a regular crew member or as an officer like Larann or Magda. She had a blue uniform and her hair was free flowing. Most of the crew had a ponytail or braid to keep the hair from catching in the ropes, and Larann did too. So this woman had to be an officer or someone not involved in the regular operations of the decks. Her hands, as I remembered her touch from the other day, were strong but delicate. Certainly not blistered from catching loose ropes.

I walked slowly up the deck to give them time to notice me and not interrupt their conversation abruptly. Larann saw me out of the corner of her eye and smiled upon noticing me. She turned toward the other woman.

“I don’t think you were introduced, did you?” she asked her.

“No, I don’t think so. Though we did shake hands, that must count, right?” said the ash-blonde woman with a smile.

“I’m Hank,” I said.

“Yes, I heard,” she said. “It’s easier to remember the name of the one man in the crew than it is to remember all our girl’s names, right?”

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I smiled too. The resemblance to my wife was there when she smiled, but just for a second. I wanted to get to know her and see if there was more there, though it would be painful every step of the way. I had to get it out of my system and see that she wasn’t like her. I didn’t want her to be. Though I wanted it, a little bit. It was the masochist in me that wanted to suffer.

“So what is it?” I asked. “Your name.”

“It’s Seryse,” she said.

I breathed out, relieved. I had feared she would share the name with my wife and that would haver made it much more difficult.

“It’s great to meet you. I want to get to know you better.”

“That’s very straightforward of you, Hank,” said Larann, teasing me.

“I just meant it in plural,” I replied defensively. “I want to get to know all the crew better. And see what I can do to help.”

“They mentioned you were some kind of engineer…?” asked Seryse.

“Kind of. It’s very complicated. I put rockets in space.”

The two of them turned toward each other and burst into laughter.

“What?” I asked.

“You launched fireworks for a living?” asked Larann.

“No, it’s not…”

“I think we overestimated the poor man.” said Ceryse.

“I wasn’t…”

“We’re just teasing. We don’t care about any of that. But you do know how to use black powder, gun powder, all powders?”

“Yes, along with liquid nitrogen, biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells, yes, but don’t you mind me, I’m just a rocket scientist trapped in a Pirate booty world…” I mumbled.

“Perfect! We’ll send you over to our head engineer later,” said Larann. “Ceryse here can probably use you too. She’s been looking into using chemical mixes to improve crew and ship performance. We have to stay on top and use any advantage. You saw how close we were to disaster the other day.”

“Sure. Anything I can do to avoid becoming shark lunch is fine by me.”

“Splendid!” said Ceryse. “Come look for me later. I'm in the lower decks, the small lab next to the kitchen.”

I nodded, and she smiled and put her hand on my shoulder as she passed by my side.

“Ceryse is our chemist and doctor by default,” said Larann. “She's brilliant. She used to be a drug dealer back in the isles.”

“Hmm. I would never have guessed that,” I said.

“I guess drug dealers in your world were less than savory?”

“Definitely less savory than her,” I said, and noticed a slight scowl in Larann’s face. Was she jealous? Just to be safe, I quickly added: “It's just that the small fish dealers were the dangerous looking, unsavory sort. And the big ones who controlled the legal drugs were the most dangerous, unethical ones. I guess things here work differently.”

Her smile came back, like it had never left.

“Drugs are not a big deal here. They're used for everything, like power-ups. You can get high, you can get fast, you can get smarter. Whatever you want.”

“And people don't get addicted?” I asked.

“A few. Mostly the new arrivals. But it's mostly a matter of not having the coin. Their suffering is from frustration that they can't get what they want. The drugs themselves don't hurt you. You can pop a hundred pills and you'd just waste your money. There's a limit to what they can do. But enough of that. You can chat about drugs with Ceryse later. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yes, I was looking for you. I had a few qu…”

“I meant, in private,” she said with a promising smile.