When they went to dinner that night Sirius took the bottle of Jack along with them. It was received with great enthusiasm. One man even stood up and started singing. The boat rocked from side to side along with his tune.
“Yo ho ho and a bottle of Jack, I once knew a sailor with a really nice *hic* rack.” He gestured to Amanda. He then reached for the bottle which Sirius swiftly removed from the table with a dark look.
“Everybody gets a shot except Dickie,” he told them.
“Awww,” Dickie looked disappointed. Evidently he’d already been drinking quite a bit.
Neko, who was sitting beside Dickie, grabbed his shirttails and tugged him sharply down onto the seat.
“Ow!” Dickie complained but he stayed seated.
From further down the table Thatch leaned forward to peer at the bottle. “Is that human whiskey?” he asked.
“It sure is,” Sirius replied as he and Amanda took a seat opposite Neko and Dickie.
“Where’d you get human whiskey from?” inquired Mathias as he reached out a hand for the bottle.
Sirius gave it to him.
Mathias, despite knowing rather a lot about alcoholic beverages actually seemed to stick to a more sensible level of consumption than the rest of the crew. Sirius trusted Mathias to do the pouring. Mathias studied the label as several men pushed vessels in his direction.
“From that red-head hooker in Cinnabelle,” called Shiv from the other end of the table.
That resulted in a chuckle from a few of the men. But Sirius shot him a look that was anything but playful. A line had been crossed. “That’s enough Shiv,” he warned.
The laughter died. Shiv said no more but he was watching Sirius with his sharp eyes while Sirius turned his attention back to those in his immediate vicinity.
Amanda wondered briefly at Shiv’s words. ‘Red-headed hooker’ had undoubtedly been mentioned for her benefit, perhaps to wedge a gap between her a Sirius by making her wonder at his past exploits. Given her own sordid history it hardly bothered her. Well perhaps the red-head bit did a little. It did imply a type. It was probably just a coincidence though, lots of people had red hair. She brushed the thought away. She wouldn’t let Shiv get between them, but as she looked down the table she noticed another divide. It almost seemed as if they were split into two groups. Shiv at one end with one group of men, including Crick, Crawly, and Alice. And Sirius at the other, with the likes of Neko and Benny. There were some men seated between them but they were not bunched together as tightly as at the ends. It worried her a little but Sirius didn’t seem to notice it.
She suddenly realised she hadn’t been paying attention to where Sirius had said he had actually gotten the bottle from. Shiv was whispering with the guys at his end anyway so Amanda turned her focus back toward their own end.
“The human stuff’s supposed to be real good,” remarked Benny.
Across the table, and seated next to Amanda, Mathias shook his head. “Not all of it. It depends on what you get. There’s always some bastard trying to flog off a bottle of bottom shelf stuff for 3 times the price of that made in the Rainbow Valley just because it’s human. It’s overpriced if you ask me, although this stuff’s not too bad.” He sniffed his glass several times before taking a small sip.
Less than a metre away Dickie slammed his rapidly emptied glass down on the table. “I fancy a second round me *hic* self.”
Mathias wisely ignored him and then waxed on for several more minutes about how it was that human liquor, especially wine, had come to be considered better, and what witches needed to do to reach the same standard, at least in the eye of the wine-loving public.
It was completely the wrong audience and it was more wine information in one sitting than Amanda had thought possibly existed. Eventually Thatch saved them from Mathias.
“But that’s just the old world humans,” he remarked. “And only cause their world weren’t the one that got spliced out. They got all that history. Witches had to start from scratch. The humans that live here in Absentia couldn’t brew their way out of a paper bag if you paid them to. Hell, half of them are so dumb they’d get lost the moment they stepped foot outside their stupid protected villages. No offense,” Thatch told Pete, the human who was sitting next to him. “Yer an exception.”
“None taken,” replied Pete seemingly without a care. Pete hardly ever spoke very much other than to grunt occasionally. He was young, in his late 20s but, he looked older than some of the crew who were in their 30s and even 40s. Humans aged much faster than witches once they reached maturity. Pete was a hard worker but easy-going and partial to a drink or two with breakfast, except on Sundays when he didn’t drink at all.
Thatch continued. “I don’t know why we keep stealing their shit when we could make our own just as good if we spent more time on actually doing something productive.”
“Ehh, I dunno. All the smart people become sorcerers and none of them want anything to do with human tech,” replied Benny.
“That’s what I’m saying though,” Thatch replied. “It wouldn’t be human tech if we were the ones making it.”
Benny shook his head. “I don’t think we could just reinvent everything from scratch though. At some point you have to branch off from what they’ve done right? Plus there’s more of them so they’d just overshoot us anyway. It’s more efficient if we keep using whatever they develop. Anyway we do develop some of our own stuff and improve their things sometimes.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Like what?” retorted Thatch.
Benny thought for a moment. “Airships.”
Thatch rolled his eyes. “Only cause we had to since dragons eat planes. Anyway, airships are stupidly slow.”
Amanda watched them with interest. Benny was normally quiet but she’d noticed that when he did speak it was usually something clever and thoughtful. Likewise, Thatch, despite his intimidating scar, was also fairly smart, much smarter than his brother Alice. Unlike, Benny though, Thatch loved to talk, about all sorts of shit, even the stuff he didn’t actually know that much about, so eventually if he was sitting next to Benny, the pair would end up in some sort of debate. Thatch had a tendency to draw Benny forth from his shell and make him forget his usual shyness.
“My uncle was one of the original engineers on the very first airship,” Benny told them all proudly.
“They’re basically just human hot air balloons anyway,” retorted Thatch, “So it’s still a human invention.”
“They are not,” Benny replied in an offended tone. “They’re much more advanced than that. They’re more like a ship but in the sky.”
“I don’t know how they stay up,” Sirius wondered aloud.
“What the airships?” asked Benny.
“No, the planes.” He had one of those faraway looks like he’d been thinking about it for awhile.
“Well, they… hmm.” Benny frowned, obviously not sure how they stayed up either. He perked up again. “Well, I know how the airships stay up. It’s all because the hot air rises and pushes them up see. Like a sail.”
“That makes no sense,” remarked Dickie. “A ship’s too heavy.”
“Well it’s not like a normal ship,” Benny tired to explain.
“See just like a hot air balloon,” interrupted Thatch.
Sirius was still lost in his own thoughts, stuck on the airplanes. “It doesn’t make sense that a solid hunk of mental just stays up in the air like that. I don’t know why anyone would build something like that.”
“Apparently they also went to the moon in one,” Amanda told him.
Sirius looked at her in surprise, now torn from whatever thoughts had been running around inside his head and completely focused his attention on her. “Wait they did? As in they landed on it? I knew they’d been up to space but...”
She nodded.
Across the table Thatch shook his head. “No way. I’ve heard that tale too but that’s a myth. They might have rockets that go into space but there’s no way a person actually landed on the moon, and a human at that. It’d be like sitting on the end of an explosive device and how would they even get down, or did they just leave him up there?”
Amanda shook her head. “They brought him back down, I think. It wasn’t even that recent. It was like 15 years ago.”
“Why couldn’t they do it?” Benny asked Thatch. “We put satellites up there and the humans are always a little ahead technologically speaking. And with computers it would be easy. They can make them pretty small now and when I was last at home my sister said they’re even selling some to regular people. Like you can get a computer in your own house.”
“Maybe if you’re an aristocrat,” remarked Neko with sudden inspiration, “A king on a pile of gold. A man of riches, or a thief very bold!” He pulled out a lyre he’d been hiding under the table and plucked some strings with dramatic flair.
“What would anyone want a computer in their house for?” asked a confused Bob-bee.
“My high school had some for keeping track of student’s grades and other office work,” Amanda told him. “And for a couple for the students to use too. They help with calculations and automated stuff. Plus you can chat with people on them. Anyone who’s wired up to the same network really, and play games. One of my friends has one in his house cause his dad’s really into them. He could dial into the school computers and look at and even alter people’s grades. He’s a technopath like his dad but you don’t need to be to do that. He showed me how and I don’t think most people know how easy it is. It’s completely not how I passed math class…” she trailed off as she realised that maybe she shouldn’t be telling Sirius things like that, especially since he seemed so smart and had said he’d actually liked math.
Sirius cocked an eyebrow at her.
Amanda shrugged sheepishly. “To be fair, I only bumped it up the one grade.”
She watched him gently press a fist to his mouth and look away to hide a smile.
“What the fuck’s a technopath?” asked Dickie.
Benny answered, “It’s what they’re calling electric elementals now. Apparently they can communicate with lot of electrical human tech, like not just cause power fluctuations but really alter complex behaviour.” Benny suddenly seemed to realise how excitable he was sounding and how everyone else was looking at him. He ducked his eyes back to the table and was quiet before glancing up again.
“Why do they keep changing all the damn names for everything,” exclaimed Bob-bee with a shake of the head. “It’s just confusing. There was nothing wrong with calling someone an electric elemental.”
“Well, it is shorter,” replied Neko before bursting into another song.
“There once was an electrical technical elemental,
Who talked to machines. He made a living like that.
They buzzed and they whirred and they purred and they served.
With the tap of one finger they would write all the words.
Until one night, quite late, to our dear friend they spoke.
With a beep and a ping, their speakers did ring.
Your name is too long. It takes to much time,
To sign all these documents so please hear our rhyme.
We’ve shortened it down. We’ve cut it in two.
And oh by the way, we no longer serve you. ”
As around them the chatter erupted and flowed. Sirius asked Amanda more questions about the man who went to the moon. She told him as much as she knew.
At some point Bruce brought them all some spicy chicken feet and roasted sun lizard. The latter of which Amanda knew to be delicious and hard to get. The quiet returned for a brief period while they all ate.
“If you guys eat like this every day you can sign me up,” Amanda remarked offhandedly.
“Actually,” Benny replied. “We hardly ever eat this good. Usually we eat a lot of fish but cause of the animals see, they didn’t come with supplies.”
“A technical oversight.” Thatch rolled his eyes.
“But,” added Neko with a slight slur, “Sirena paid extra to stock up on food for the crew so that the animals can eat the fish we would normally eat.”
Amanda frowned. “I see.” She was less enthused about eating fish for every meal. She glanced down the other end of the table and saw Shiv studying her reaction carefully. She was reminded of his words from earlier. ‘Months among stinky, sweaty, smelly, foul-mouth sailors eating the same food every day in and out.’ She carefully made her expression neutral.
Guessing at some of her thoughts Sirius said, “There’s plenty of variety in the sea though.” He then went on to tell her about all the different things they could catch in the sea and what some of them tasted like. By the time he was done talking none of it sounded quite so bad.
When the bottle of Jack got emptied a new bottle appeared at the click of Benny’s fingers. Apparently he was most partial to white rum. Soon that too was gone, replaced by a bottle of wine from Mathias’ personal stash. Amanda joined them in drinking more than she probably should have. Sirius had no more than his one shot from earlier but he did stay for the entertainment and conversation. Neko put on several musical performances and Amanda joined him for a few. After awhile she noticed that the gap between the two groups from earlier had closed and Shiv and the others seemed as friendly as ever. Perhaps she had just imagined the divide?