Quarter Share: A Trader's Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper (12 page)

Chapter 13

Darbat Orbital
2351-October-24

The rest of our stay at Darbat Orbital was fairly quiet. Pip wrote up a description of the guys that jumped him, including the model number of the digital imager and a rough sketch of a tattoo one of them had on his arm. Mr. Maxwell sent a copy to station security, our crew, and the Union Hall Representative on Darbat. Pip, Mr. Maxwell, and a couple of the cargo gang strolled through the station a couple of times before we got underway, but they didn’t find anything. Darbat is a busy station. The culprits were probably lying low until any recently docked ships headed out. Typical port time for a union trader was seldom more than five days. I couldn’t help but wonder just how many people were involved. Pip had only seen three, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others covering the other hatches. We speculated on it endlessly during port-duty in the galley. For me, it underscored Sandy’s prophetic words on the track that night.

***

Over the next couple of days, the new stores came aboard and Pip watched me stow them in the spaces I’d emptied while he was busy getting mugged. I teased him about people who were willing to do anything to get out of shifting stores around, but it was all in good fun. We didn’t talk about the fact that he was back to zero on his private trading. The deal on entertainment cubes fell through because without the creds from the Grishom, he couldn’t afford them.

We were down in the pantry, when I offered to bankroll him. “If you can get a line on something good, I got paid and still have the money. It’s not much, but…”

“Thanks, Ish. I still have a bit of cash from the last run, but between us I doubt we have the five hundred and fifty creds to follow up on the cubes.”

I agreed. My pay, even with the quarter share, only came to a little over two hundred and fifty creds. From one perspective that didn’t seem like a lot, but if I added in what it would have cost me for food, housing, clothing, transportation, and all the other expenses of being planet-side, I was actually making out pretty well. I know our budget on Neris was tight even with Mom being a relatively senior professor. Of course, there had only been two of us, but we had to watch our spending.

“I’ve been looking for some kind of deal, but I haven’t found anything worth pursuing. The turnaround is just too short. Sometimes you luck out, but…” He shrugged and only winced a little. The ready-knit had nearly repaired most of the rib damage, leaving only the residual muscle tissue trauma.

“Got a line on anything in Gugara? If we pool our resources that’ll give us a bigger bankroll and more mass quota to work with.”

He gaped at me. “After this, you’d be willing to team up?”

I nodded and shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? You’ve got the connections and the know-how. I still need to learn more about trading, frankly, I don’t have a clue. I might as well learn from the master.” I grinned at him.

He gave a winced chuckle. “Well, I don’t know about being the master, but thanks. I’d be happy to show you what I know, and there was something interesting on Gugara…” His voice trailed off. He whipped out his tablet and pulled up a file. “Yes, I thought I remembered this. I gave it a pass originally. Price is right, good profit potential, but too much mass. I didn’t have the quota to cover it.”

I grinned. “I have about ten kilos, maybe eleven. Is that enough?”

He did some quick calculations and nodded slowly, looking at the tablet. “Yeah, It’s plenty. The deal masses fifteen kilos. Cost would be two hundred creds.” He consulted the ship’s schedule. “We’re going to Margary Station after that.” He grinned broadly. “Excellent. We can sell almost anything there.”

“Why’s that?” I tossed the last case of canned banapod on the stack and strapped it down.

“Because, young Ishmael,” he did a wicked impression of Cookie, “it’s an isolated station. They support an asteroid mining operation and there’s little in-system production, except for the refined metals and some large-scale fabrication.” He consulted his tablet again before continuing, “Interesting. There’s a Manchester yard there.”

“That’s significant?”

He shrugged. “Dunno, but the
Lois
is Manchester-built. I wonder…” he began punching up data on his tablet but refused to comment further, absorbed in his research. I left him sitting on a stack of creamed spinach and went back to the galley to get ready for the lunch service.

***

The pull back was routine and getting underway felt good. I don’t know if it was Pip’s getting beaten up, having the crew aboard again, or merely the resumption of the normal routine, but it felt like I was somehow coming home as we started the long crawl out of Darbat. This was
normal
compared to the less demanding and, by now, less familiar, time in port. It was comforting in an odd way. That night I started my last passes through the instructional materials for the half share tests. Mr. von Ickles would administer them in eight days. I had cargo nailed down, along with the power and propulsion sections of the engineman exam, but I thought I’d better spend some time with Brill down in environmental before the test.

Two standays out of Darbat, right after lunch mess, Mr. Maxwell just happened to stop by the galley during cleaning up. Ominously, he was smiling. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’ve been going over those figures, Cookie. I wonder if you have a few moments to spare to discuss them?”

Cookie shrugged. “Of course, Mr. Maxwell. Here?”

He nodded and laid a tablet down on the work counter. “Mr. Carstairs and Mr. Wang should join us.”

Pip looked a bit guilty to me, although it could have been a projection on my part. Mr. Maxwell was obviously enjoying himself, and I’d been aboard long enough to know that the next stan or so would be interesting although not necessarily in a good way.

When we gathered around, Mr. Maxwell indicated his tablet. “I’ve noticed some things on these tables. For example, this column labeled
demand probability
and this one marked
possible margin
. These don’t appear to be based on anything I know about. How were they derived?”

Cookie looked over the columns in question. “Oh, those are estimates based on the port-of-call and the current galactic average wholesale price, sar. These are for Gugara, they would change if we were to go back to Neris. We run them based on a specific pair of ports.”

“You
run them
where?”

“On Mr. Carstairs’ portable.”

Mr. Maxwell nodded. “I see. That would explain why I didn’t find this data except in my in-box.” He swiveled his gaze to Pip. “And where did you get this portable, Mr. Carstairs?”

I broke in before he could answer, “From me, sar. It was my mother’s and I brought it aboard in my quota. I was planning on using it to study, but I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time.”

Mr. Maxwell nodded. “We’ll come back to the question of your studies another day, but I surmised as much.” He turned back to Cookie. “I think I know the answer to this next question as well, but humor me. Where did you get these
simulations
that produce this kind of information.”

“We built them, sar,” Cookie replied.

“We?”
Mr. Maxwell did not look at Pip.

Cookie and Pip nodded. “Yes, sar. Mr. Carstairs and I created them. We’ve been refining them for a few weeks now.”

“This implies that you have considerable knowledge of the market conditions for a lot of ports.” He looked pointedly at Pip. “Care to tell me how this works?”

Pip pulled out his own tablet. “I have a database, sar. I started it some time back. It has been a kind of hobby of mine. I keep it on a personal data cube.” Mr. Maxwell nodded for him to continue. “When we get the updated market reports from the jump point beacons and station data, I have a little routine that updates my galactic standard prices files. And I research ports on our projected flight path, plus level one alternatives.”

Mr. Maxwell concentrated intently on what Pip was saying, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Level one alternatives being…?”

“Oh, that’s what I call alternate ports on our flight plan. From Darbat, we’re scheduled for Gugara, but there are two other ports in jump range. We could have gone back to Neris, or we could have gone to Albert. Since we came from Neris, doubling back on our course is unlikely. We only do that every once in forever. We might, however, change course for Albert. We have last minute course changes about once every five jumps. So, Albert becomes a level one alternative and I tried to find out as much about Albert as about Gugara.”

Mr. Maxwell nodded. “But since we came from Gugara before Neris, you didn’t have that much to look up?”

“Yes, sar. Some minor market updates, but I got a good profile going into Gugara before. That cuts down on the amount of work I needed to do to leave Darbat with high probability goods.”

“And how did you determine that our route changes only once in five jumps?”

“Oh, that was easy, sar. The ship’s log has a complete record of all courses filed along with the actual paths taken. I just tracked the flight plans we’ve filed over the last five stanyers. Confederation regulations require us to project out four jumps, but we’re allowed to amend those plans based on—well, whatever we want, really. Every time we change one, it sets a flag in our records, sar. I just counted the numbers of flight plans with flags and compared that to the total number of flight plans filed. The tablet tracks that for me.”

Mr. Maxwell looked thoughtful. “So you research out four jumps along with possible alternate routes for every port we go to?”

Pip nodded. “Yes, sar.”

“Where are we going after Gugara?”

“Margary,” I answered without thinking.

Mr. Maxwell swiveled his gaze to me and said, “Et tu, Brute?”

I blushed. “Um, no, sar. We were just discussing it in the pantry this morning.”

Mr. Maxwell swiveled back to Pip. “Your assessment of Margary, Mr. Carstairs?”

Pip got a faraway look and started reciting as if he were reading off the inside of his own forehead. “Margary Station supports asteroid mining and ore refining operations. Proximity to raw materials attracted a branch of the Manchester Yards. High demand goods include quality foodstuffs, particularly frozen fish and canned vegetables since none of the direct jumps to Margary led to ports that export those goods. Luxury liquors, and explicit entertainment are also in demand. The shipyard provides a ready market for electronics, astronics, and engineering control systems and components because, while the raw ship manufacturing components are readily available in-system, the specialized clean rooms required to fab the guts of their ships are not.”

“What are we carrying to Margary, Mr. Carstairs?”

“We, sar? You mean the
Lois
or as part of the ship’s stores scheme?”

“Both.”

“Manifests for the
Lois
list four containers of machine parts, presumably for the new ship that Manchester is building, along with a container of paper goods and textiles. We’re scheduled to pick up two containers of rare earths bound for the smelters in Margary.” Pip rattled off the list without looking at his notes. “Stores trades are not final yet, but I think we’ll hold about a third of the cobia fillets and half the banapods for downstream trading. We also are planning on trading some of the cobia for extra coffee. Sarabanda Dark’s wholesale prices are low on Gugara right now. We don’t normally stock that in stores because it’s usually so expensive, but it would make an excellent trading stock and help break up the routine of only serving Djartmo Arabasti.” He seemed to surface as if from a kind of trance and added, “Sar,” to his recitation.

“I see.” Mr. Maxwell swiveled his gaze to Cookie, who merely shrugged a what-can-I-say sort of shrug. He swiveled back to Pip. “And your assessment for private trading?”

“I’m trying to find something we can buy in Gugara for the inbound run. I’ve had to start from scratch there because of my recent setback.”

Mr. Maxwell just nodded.

“The key to private trade on Margary is the uncut precious and semi-precious stones.”

“Explain, Mr. Carstairs.”

“The asteroid miners frequently come across deposits of stones while prospecting and extracting the raw ore. The deposits are too small and infrequent to make it worthwhile for any of the normal precious mineral cartels to set up there. So the miners collect and trade them for booze, porn, and other recreational goods. There’s a lively market on Margary Station that the authorities ignore because it helps keep the miners occupied and happy. For us, it’s a good place because we can buy as much or as little as we can afford. If we manage to find something to sell there while we’re in Gugara, good. That gives us more capital for buying up stones in Margary. But even if we don’t, we’ll have cash to buy a small number of stones which will serve to re-stock our trade goods for when we go to St. Cloud Orbital after that.”

“I see. It’s too bad you haven’t given this much thought.” A wry smile accompanied Mr. Maxwell’s comments. “This
we
you keep referring to is…?”

Pip didn’t respond immediately so I raised my hand. “That would be me, sar. Pip’s going to help me get started. With our pooled resources for cash and mass we have more options and I get to learn the ropes.”

Mr. Maxwell nodded once as if in confirmation. Obviously, he’d worked that much out for himself. He turned back to our boss. “Are you in on this unbridled capitalism, Cookie?”

“No, sar. I don’t trade anymore. My creds are invested with a broker on Stamar, and that’s good enough for me. Cooking takes up too much time.”

Mr. Maxwell turned to stare silently at Pip for almost a full tick. “Mr. Carstairs, would you consider playing a game with me?”

“A game, sar?”

“A game, Mr. Carstairs. Use your research database and propose for me one container’s worth of mixed cargo. Assuming an empty container is available in Gugara, what would you put in it to take to Margary?”

Pip slid into his calculating mode. “Budget parameters, sar?”

Mr. Maxwell considered for a moment. “Give me minimum required investment and maximum potential profit.”

“So cheapest full container and maximum probable return, sar?”

“Precisely, Mr. Carstairs.”

“Aye, aye, sar. Let me see what I can do. I’ll have a preliminary by midwatch. But our best information will be at the jump point beacon. We can adjust at that point, if that would be acceptable, sar?”

“Quite acceptable, Mr. Carstairs. Thank you. One more thing, gentlemen.” Mr. Maxwell swiveled his steely gaze in my direction. “Mr. Wang, please see to it that Mr. Carstairs passes the cargo handler exam in six days.”

“Aye, aye, sar,” I answered briskly. There didn’t seem to be an option.

Cookie had that funny look on his face. The one he gets when he’s trying not to laugh. Pip just looked like he was choking on something.

Mr. Maxwell nodded one last time and left the galley.

I turned to Cookie. “Is it just me or does he seem to be spending a lot of time here lately?”