Quarter Share: A Trader's Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper (17 page)

Chapter 19

Gugara Orbital
2351-December-13

The next morning we left Gugara en route to Margary. To mark the occasion, Cookie brought out a bucket of the Sarabanda Dark and I made one urn with it when we set the normal watch. He even had those little signs on chains like you see in coffee bars, one read, “Djartmo Arabasti” and the other, “Sarabanda Dark.” He laughed in delight when I hung them on the valves.

It was a short trip, twenty-one standays out to the Burleson limit, but Margary Station was only seven more on the other side. Durations are dictated by the placement of the system’s primary station in relation to the system’s center of gravitational mass. We had to get far enough out of the system's gravity well to allow the jump drives to bend space. The calculations were complicated and based on the ship's mass, the system's mass, the power rating on the drives, the distance we planned to jump, and I wasn't sure what else. In effect, it meant we needed to sail right out to the edge of the Deep Dark.

Every system has a limited sphere where planets can support life. This habitable zone exists as a spherical shell around the primary star. Its location depends on the size and temperature of the star, but that area is usually deep in the system’s gravity well where the jump drives can’t operate. Normally, an orbital holds a geostationary orbit over a habitable planet, which means there is a long transit time between it and the jump point, twenty to thirty days was not uncommon.

Margary was an exception because there is no suitable planet in the habitable zone. Margary Station is out on the edge of the system because it orbits the star. The bulk of the population live in an asteroid belt just outside the orbit of the second of two gas giant planets and the station was positioned to serve them. We didn’t have to claw all the way into the gravity well to get there or out again. As a result the run from Gugara to Margary was a short one.

We were all in good spirits on the way out of Gugara. I felt relaxed and refreshed after my short excursions on the orbital, and enjoyed the new tasks in the galley working with Cookie. I found myself excited to start the food handler exam and thought about trying the ordinary spacer test as well. Pip still celebrated his deal on the belts and occasionally ribbed me with comments about boy toy, although never when Beverly was around. The stores accounting hadn’t been included on the trip into Gugara but the savings would be factored into the shares when we got to Margary. The total didn’t amount to much, but every little bit helped.

The second day out of Gugara, Pip looked up the Sarabanda Dark prices in Margary, trying to get a feel for whether they were rising or falling. Coffee is one of those volatile markets that operates as much on emotion as fact and he worried that reports of the bumper crop might drive the price down in Margary. The short run between the two systems counted against us on that score because it meant that information and goods moved easily between them. I was sweeping out the galley when Pip gave a strangled cry, “Aphrodite’s flimsy nighty!”

He startled me so much that I dropped the broom and turned. He was pointing at his tablet his mouth gaping in disbelief. I crossed to him so I could see what was wrong and saw that the spare container wasn’t empty any longer. We pulled up its contents and found it filled with the exact list of items that Pip had given to Mr. Maxwell.

Cookie came to look over our shoulders and simply gave a little, “Hmm,” before wandering off.

Pip looked up at me, the stricken expression still painted on his face. “I don’t know whether I should cheer or cry.”

I shrugged. “Well, your ideas are getting a good shake out, if nothing else.”

“Yeah, but what if I’m wrong?”

“Look, the ship has seventy-one other containers, right?”

He nodded.

“If this one had stayed empty, how many creds would it earn?”

“None.”

“Worst case is what?”

“None of this stuff sells in Margary and we need to dump it to take on scheduled cargo. That would be a ten kilocred loss.”

“I doubt that. Is that really likely?”

He stopped to think for half a tick before speaking. “No. In fact…” he pulled up another manifest, “we’re scheduled to have two more empty containers when we leave.”

“See. Okay, so then, the worst case is we drag it to St. Cloud. What are your projections there? Will that stuff sell if it doesn’t move on Margary?”

He tapped keys, first on his tablet and then on the portable. He was in zombie mode so I went back to sweeping. Finally he spoke, “Yeah, actually, the market is slightly better on St. Cloud.”

“Okay, so you see, it should be fine, and it’s not all riding on one throw of the dice, either.”

Pip’s color started returning and he stopped hyperventilating as he focused on refining the calculations for St. Cloud. “Okay, you’re right. It’s just that I’d made up my mind that Mr. Maxwell was just testing me and seeing that container showing up full surprised me.”

I nodded in response. “You ready for another shock?”

He looked at me hesitantly. “What?”

“If I were you, I’d start planning what you’d put in those other empties once we land in Margary, because I’ll bet Mr. Maxwell is down here the day after transition to give you that little assignment as well.”

“He wouldn’t,” Pip said, but the color started draining from his face once more.

“Well, maybe not, but you at least better figure out what to reload your container with, assuming it gets emptied in Margary and earns a bit of profit.”

Pip gulped and started hammering on the keys.

***

Ship board routine settled around us like a comfortable old sweater. The availability of the new stores worked wonders with the daily meals. For the first few days out of Gugara we had fresh greens and fruits. As they began to taper off, we still had an occasional urn of the nutty, rich Sarabanda to break up the monotony of the Arabasti. Cookie ordered a bunch of new canned fruit and he pulled a couple cases out of our trade goods to help me experiment with fruit crisps and cobblers. It was a lot of fun and livened up the luncheon preparation. The crew’s sweet tooth seemed to appreciate the desserts.

Evenings were spent in the gym and sauna. I soon realized that I was in the best physical condition of my life. I spent my afternoon breaks alternating between studying for the steward exam and hanging out in environmental. I really wanted to get my hands dirty with some of the routine activities in that department to see if I’d like them.

One day, about a week out of Gugara, I went down to find them dredging out sludge. The process wasn’t terribly physically difficult. It smelled a bit funky, but nothing like you might expect. All in all it was just messy. The sludge that came from the water treatment plant had been biologically stabilized to the point where it was practically sterile.

As a normal part of processing, the sludge settled into the bottom of the water treatment ponds and even after the water had been pumped out, it was still wet, sticky, and slimy. We used mechanical scoops to load the sludge deposits into shallow metal containers, what the environmental gang called,
loaf pans
. They were about a meter and a half long, a meter wide, and a half-meter deep. When full, we ran the pans through a combination freezer-vacuum compartment where the water sublimated out of it. After the loaves dried we knocked them out of the pans, wrapped each one in a sealant eerily similar to clingfilm, and stacked it in a storage space for disposition at the next port.

One pond yielded about five of these large loaves. The pans were incredibly heavy when wet, but once dry, the sludge cakes had about the same mass and consistency as polyfoam. One person could lift one, but handling it was awkward because of its size and shape. As we were finishing up, Diane told me they would do it one more time before hitting Margary, but on the other pond. I confess it wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be, just grubby. I left them loading the last pans in the dryer when I went to clean up before heading to the galley for the dinner mess.

As I got into the shower, the raspy buzz of the fire alarm went off followed by,
“THIS IS A DRILL. THIS IS A DRILL. FIRE IN THE ENGINEERING BERTHING AREA. ALL HANDS TO FIRE AND DAMAGE CONTROL STATIONS. FIRE IN THE ENGINEERING BERTHING AREA. ALL HANDS TO FIRE AND DAMAGE CONTROL STATIONS. THIS IS A DRILL. THIS IS A DRILL.”

I played the shower quickly over my head and zipped into a fresh shipsuit in less than a tick. In under two, I was trotting into the galley where I found Pip and Cookie working on dinner. Cookie called in and we continued with the preparations. I finally felt like I was getting the hang of it.

***

Nineteen standays out of Gugara, and two before the jump into Margary, Pip picked up the data beacon and downloaded the current market conditions. He spent almost the next whole day revising and refining his models. The longer he worked, the gloomier he seemed.

When we did the final jump prep, twenty-one standays out of Gugara, he sighed and threw down his stylus rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“Problems?”

“Maybe. The problem is I can’t tell really. It looks like the coffee prices have tanked. The market appears to be saturated with Sarabanda Dark and oddly, the wholesale price of Arabasti, which you can usually get for three creds a bucket is now twenty-two creds. If these prices are correct we can buy Sarabanda for less here than we just paid in Gugara. And there doesn’t appear to be any Arabasti for sale in the whole system. It’s crazy.”

Cookie listened to our conversation and smiled. “I’m glad I laid in extra Arabasti in Darbat, then.”

Pip laughed. “Good point.” He consulted the pantry inventories and said, “Okay, we have sixty-eight full buckets of Arabasti. We paid an average of three creds each. Net on one of the Arabasti would be nineteen creds. We paid an average of eight creds a piece for a hundred and fifty buckets of Sarabanda. Net on the Sarabanda is a loss of three as we can buy it here for five.”

This shocked me. “Wait, you’re telling me we’ll lose money if we sell the Sarabanda in Margary?”

Pip nodded. “Exactly. We’ve got that Sarabanda because we bought it to trade, not drink. How much Arabasti do we need to make St. Cloud?”

I considered the question. “We use about a bucket a day, more or less. How long is the Margary to St. Cloud run?”

Pip pulled up the schedule. “Eight standays to jump, and twenty-eight on the back side. St. Cloud has a weak sun and the orbital is a long way down the well.”

“Five weeks in roundish numbers. And we’re a week out of Margary?”

He nodded. “About that.”

“Call it six weeks. Between the rest of this run, the in port time, and the run to St. Cloud, we need forty-two, make it forty-five just to be safe. If we brew half Sarabanda, which the crew likes just fine, that means we only need twenty-two of each.”

Cookie spoke up, “Might I suggest that we keep just two buckets of Arabasti and plan to sell the rest in Margary. If we shift to Sarabanda now, and only use the Arabasti for special occasions, we can sell sixty-six of the more expensive brand and turn a nice profit. That will give us capital to buy more Sarabanda and lower our average cost.”

“Can we do that?”

Cookie shrugged. “Why not? The Sarabanda is actually a better quality coffee and the crew, as you so eloquently pointed out, young Ishmael, likes it just fine. Personally, I prefer it.”

Pip started tapping again and nodding. “Yes, this will work. The prices are holding on St. Cloud. They might even be a little better.”

Cookie nodded. “Very good, then. Yes, this is our best course. How are the mushroom prices looking?”

“They’re good.” Pip grinned. “Prices for fresh are holding steady but the dried have actually started dropping. Three varieties are available in commercial quantities and we can get two other artisan varieties in large enough bulk to make it worth stocking.”

“Mushrooms?” I looked back and forth between the two.

Cookie nodded. “It’s a kind of edible fungus.”

I huffed. “I know what mushrooms are. We’ve never had them on ship before, have we?”

Cookie shook his head. “Not in some time. They are difficult to procure and expensive when they’re available. Margary is one of the few sources in this end of the galaxy where they’re commonly raised.”

I rounded on Pip. “That’s what you meant,” I burst out.

He nodded with a cat-ate-the-canary grin. “Yup. Most people don’t know about the Margary mushrooms. Few consider them food so they get overlooked.”

“Any insight on the empty container?”

“Depends on budget. Freeze dried mushrooms would be best. They’re not very dense and they have a good upside potential. We can get container quantities of them but they’d cost upward of fifty kilocreds. The upside is that a container of good quality freeze dried mushrooms would net a hundred or hundred fifty on St. Cloud and even more at Dunsany Roads.”

I whistled. “Not bad for spare mass. What else could we get?”

Pip browsed through his sources for a moment and said, “Well, there’s no container sized lots, but there are several dozen pallets of minerals: quartz, beryl, jade, lapis, even some emeralds, and rubies. Those will be the bulk, industrial grade stuff, not the jewel grade. The prospectors and minors pick out the best pieces as they go. The minerals won’t take up as much volume because they’re a lot denser but the initial cost of the minerals is a lot higher and the profit potential on the other end isn’t as high.”

“What would you recommend to Mr. Maxwell if he were standing right behind you?” Cookie asked.

Pip blew out his breath noisily while he considered. “Sounds funny, but I’d leave the minerals and fill the container with mushrooms. While a kilo of mushrooms won’t fetch the same price as a kilo of rubies, you can put a lot more mushrooms in a container for the same investment. It’s not the mass that’s the issue, six hundred tons is six hundred tons, but there is a big difference in cost. We could probably fill a container with a fifty kilocred investment. Profit on the mushrooms would be somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty. The prices for mushrooms on St. Cloud and Dunsany are quite high. A container of mixed gems would cost three hundred kilocredits, maybe more depending on what you got. You’d be lucky to get four hundred kilocredits on the other end. In both cases, you’d make about the same, but the initial investment is a lot higher on the minerals. Profit ratio on the mushrooms is likely to exceed two hundred percent while the ratio on a similar container of minerals would be maybe twenty-five or thirty.”

From behind him Mr. Maxwell spoke, “Thank you, Mr. Carstairs, for that cogent and reasonable assessment. Please notify me if you identify any other opportunities.”

Pip just closed his eyes and didn’t appear to breathe for a long time.