Parhelia: Side Jobs

This page is going to be a collection of drabbles and short stories that I write about the characters found in Not All Who Wander.

How The Upper Third Lives (Dividual Episode) Weekly 208: Shower Thoughts

"So this is how the aristocrats have it," Quatch thought.

This freighter, the Parhelia, was said to be the racing yacht of a long-dead merchant prince, and it showed. The ship and all of its parts were the best that money could buy, if far more tasteful and refined than a Kig-Yar like Quatch would have commissioned. What this mostly worked out to was plenty of wood paneling and indirect lighting, but true quality showed through in places.

The engines, for example, were still cutting edge, and Quatch despaired of affording replacement parts for them. The display screens in the cockpit were so full in resolution that they looked crisp and smooth, even to a Kig-Yar's eyes. But true quality was found here, in the captain's quarters.

At the press of a button, a blue barrier field erupted from the floor, forming a teardrop-shaped enclosure with enough internal volume for a crouching Mgalekgolo. Standing inside the field, where the base of the teardrop met the bulkhead, Quatch had a moment to be alarmed.

That alarm only got worse when louvers on the bulkhead popped open. There came a chuff of decades-stagnant air, and in the void behind the louvers, Quatch saw a soft blue glow and a hum like a great engine roaring to life. Now on the verge of panic, Quatch lunged for the controls.

Then the deluge struck.

It wasn't a steady stream of water. It was a downpour, borne on a gale of hot humid air. Quatch wouldn't be any less soaked if he was the bowsprit of an old maritime schooner tossed about by a tropical storm. With his hands up to shield his eyes, Quatch spied the controls through one clenched eyelid. The holographic panel was red, and options rimmed the central controls like petals around a flower.

Every shower that Quatch had known used tricks of hydraulics to make a little water ration seem like a lot. They forced water into narrow jets that struck so hard, nobody would notice that the water was lukewarm. This was because Quatch was a working man, and always had been. His father had owned tenement blocks, but he didn't have real wealth, nothing to protect him and his family when the political machine of Erstral City sucked his business dry and threw them out on the streets. Quatch had only known the weak, underpowered shower head, and it got worse when he became a spacer. Half of the work had to be done with a damp cloth.

He had never dreamed of a shower that could replicate a tropical monsoon, let alone envied the rich for having them. But now he owned one, and the freighter-cum-yacht that came with it.

Quatch still didn't envy the rich.

He remembered how his fellow Kig-Yar of the working class lived on favors. One Kig-Yar would ask to borrow another's water ration so she could double up on a shower, with the promise that the favor would be repaid later. So it went for food and smokes and rides. It was the worst for the very poor, who seemed to live in an endless pool of credit, charity, and resentment.

It was probably true for the very rich as well, or so Quatch decided from an early age. When one was so rich that money didn't matter at all, all that did matter was favors and boons and networks of obligations. And the very rich, unlike the very poor, kept track of what they owed and were owed.

Perhaps that's what attracted Quatch to the life of a merchant. In between the extremes of the rich and the poor was a life where everything had a price, but that price was openly displayed and could be negotiated down in a pinch.

Except Quatch didn't live in that world anymore. Perhaps in granting him the Parhelia in exchange for a small favor, Kuotasim 'Umtalla had catapulted Quatch to the level were obligations mattered more than cash flow. It was terrifying to think about, but Quatch wanted this ship, and he didn't know how else to pay for the engines.

So he relaxed, and he let the water wash over him like sea spray.

Author's Note:

I wrote this in a single night before I saw Distant Tide's correction that "Shower Thoughts" didn't necessarily mean thoughts in the shower, but the wandering thoughts and surprising insights you usually see on r/showerthoughts. I still think this drabble fits the criteria, though I might write another that fits better.

And yes, that second drabble will be set in the shower.