Fool's War by Sarah Zettel Page A

switched off her pen and put it back in her pocket. “But you’ll be happy to know you won’t be bored. We need a check on all the valves in the water recycling tanks.” She gave him the film. “Don’t want anything compostable backing up.”
    Ianiai took the film and folded it away, waving at her in an imitation of an Arabic salute that Al Shei would never forgive Resit for teaching him. “In the meantime, however,” she climbed to her feet, “you have the joy of manning the big chair.” She bowed and swept her hand out towards it. “Relief.”
    “Relief active.” He settled into her chair, took out his pen and began tapping menus and writing orders to slave the other monitors to Station One and display all their output in front of him.
    Satisfied, Al Shei gave Shim’on a parting wave and headed for the stairs.
    Main Engineering was the only inhabited section in the bulb at the end of the drop shaft. The spiral stairs provided a clear view of the cabling, pumps, juncture boxes, and piping that kept the gases, fluids and power that made up the ship’s life blood flowing steadily. Work was mostly done right from the stairs or the sets of staples that served as foot-and-hand holds from the walls. There were obvious reason that the slang term for ship’s engineer was “shaft monkey.”
    Al Shei’s eyes scanned the walls of the shaft. She remembered when all of this had been a bewildering tangle. Now her eyes tracked individual lines and pipes to their junctures. Air, electricity, fuel, everything running like it should. The atmosphere around her practically purred.
    She smiled at the thought. Good kitty . She patted the stair railing.
    As she climbed, her gaze automatically picked out each of the display boards. Deck Four O2, green. Deck One main electric, green. Deck Three water, green. Deck Two nitrogen, blank.
    Al Shei stopped in front of the board and snapped open the cover. She swung it back and pried the light strip out with her thumbnail. She held it up to the light and saw the crystals had gone dark grey.
    She put the strip back and closed the cover. She took her pen out and wrote BURNED OUT STRIP on the display’s memory board and added the engineering seal so the message wouldn’t be wiped out accidentally. Ianiai would find it when he did his walk-about.
    On the way back to her berth, she stopped in at the galley for a hot-box full of Chandra’s curry and a thermos of tea to take back to her cabin.
    “Got to know our new Fool today, Al Shei,” said Chandra as she handed over the box.
    “Oh?” Al Shei picked up the thermos. “What do you think?”
    “I either love her or she’s going to be dead before the week’s out,” answered the Galley chief with a wink.
    “Oh, please don’t kill her off,” Al Shei waved the thermos. “The last thing we need is to be black-balled by the Fools.”
    Schyler was waiting in the corridor when she reached her cabin. His arms were folded against his chest and he was leaning his head and shoulders against the wall. Al Shei felt her good mood begin to drain away. This was not a posture Schyler adopted when things were going well.
    “What’s up, Tom?” she asked as she palmed the reader for her cabin hatch.
    “I’ve got to talk to you about Tully.”
    Al Shei’s mood fell straight into her boots. The cabin hatch cycled open. “Come on in.”
    Schyler followed her into her cabin and let the hatch shut behind them. Technically Al Shei was not supposed to do this. Although for centuries it was common practice for Islamic women to earn at least part of the household income outside the home, it was, by some interpretations of the law, haram , forbidden, for a married woman to be alone in a confined space with a man who was not her relative. She had gotten around the problem years ago by having Resit draw up adoption papers. Schyler was an orphan and Islamic law explicitly encouraged the adoption and maintenance of orphans. On paper, Schyler was Al Shei’s