Day Trip

An incredulous expression came onto Tom Mayden's face. "Who're you callin' a filthy colonist?" He cried.

Oxley instinctively ducked out of the way. "Don't think you'd best start fightin' here," he said, looking around at all the people who were around and taking a keen interest in what was going on. There were more of those strange bright flashes that came from the little boxes some of the people were holding.

Sam Mayden shook his head. "You're a colonist, then? Thought you sounded funny. Oh there'll be no fightin' here. That 'un ain't worth it. I don't care t'know his name, even."

He snorted derisively and turned away, offering a quick salute to the officers. There was more ship than this one deck and he wanted to explore it.

"Ignore him, mate," Thompson said, moving towards the man in the old-fashioned red coat with its white facings. "He's on'y a soldier, don't pay no heed to him." Though it was strange that he was there in such an old uniform - one that Thompson recognised, though just barely, from when he was a very young boy indeed.

"Oh I figure to," Tom Mayden said, sighing. "Gotta admit he looks fair familiar, though. Almost like my own da - and he says he's a Mayden too. Can't work it out, I can't!"

Thompson frowned. Old-fashioned uniform, same name, a colonist like the Rifleman said his dad was... This was just getting silly now, and couldn't be possible. He shrugged. "Let's go an' see summat else. I think the Tars said as how the Captain's cabin's open to folks to go an' look at."

"It ain't," Tom Mayden said in disbelief, forgetting momentarily the odd little argument. "There's no sentry on it at all? Ain't natural!"

"Oh aye," Chase piped up. "Laid wide open an' all laid out for a dinner, even. I've never seen the like!"

De Guarde remained silent, though willing to protest at the suggested punishment. Well, unless he was able to bribe his fellows with something to make it light and nearly a pleasure, the thought of them choosing, wasn't something he happily leaned to.

With the two Mayden's arguing whether it was possible or not to be a Mayden both, he wondered if they could have just imagined that there was a possibility there were more Mayden's in existence too. After all, there wasn't just the Thompson they saw here, but one completely unrelated to the man somewhere else.

Despite the outbreak of drumming and the ensuing chaos, Newbury managed to keep from instinctively reacting. This was not difficult, for he found himself pressed uncomfortably close to a wide-bellied man in the sudden shifting of bodies on the gundeck. He had lost sight of the scantily-clad woman he had been staring at, too.

It took some increasingly-desperate wriggling before he was able to squirm his way clear of the press of visitors. Finally! He was free of that awkward pack of people. Except for his shako, that was. It had been knocked from his head by one of the low deck beams and he could not see it.

"Anybody care to help a lad find his cap?"

"Lookit I found," Fingers announced, weaving expertly through the adults' legs with an oversized shako mashed onto his thick mess of curly hair.