Quarter Share: A Trader's Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper (19 page)

“Nice.” I congratulated him as they left.

“Thanks. She was an easy sell. She wasn’t going to leave without it.”

I could still see her walking away through the crowd. “Yeah, I don’t blame her.”

Diane came back with a beverage carrier of coffees and a bag of sandwiches. “Bev’s gone prowling. Was that one of the vests I just saw walking off?”

Francis smiled. “Yup, got a hundred and twenty for it.”

Diane grinned and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks.”

She smiled at me and winked. “Only paid twenty for that on Darbat.”

The coffee tasted muddy and bitter, and the sandwiches soaked through the paper napkins, but I was hungry and ate every bite. The steady trickle of people continued and we took turns putting down our sandwiches to talk to them. I sold another belt before Bev got back.

She sashayed up to the booth pretending to be a customer. “What darling belts. Too bad they don’t have buckles.”

We all laughed until she produced a silvery chunk of metal inlaid with a blue stone and tossed it on the table with a thunk. The oblong metal block, about the size of my palm, tottered on a slight convex curve across the front. I didn’t recognize it at first and then I realized it was a buckle.

Francis scooped it up before I could reach it. “Is this turquoise?”

Bev shook her head. “That’s what I thought when I saw it, but it’s lapis.”

Diane peered around Francis to look at it. “It’s gorgeous, that’s what it is.”

Bev nodded and fished one of her reserve belts out of the duffel. It only took a tick for her to connect it to the buckle and hold it up for display.

We all just stared at it. “Oh—my,” Diane summed up our collective reactions succinctly.

The combined product caught attention immediately. Several people stopped to admire it and Bev played the crowd. “Sorry, folks, this one’s not for sale, but my friend here has more belts he’d be happy to sell you and you can get the buckles from booth two sixteen. The gentleman there has a nice collection available at very reasonable prices.” About a third of the crowd headed off in that direction, another third stepped up to the table and began looking over the few belts I had left, and the rest wandered off.

When the group thinned out, I managed to get Bev to fill me in on the details.

“I was just wandering around after we hit the head and I ran across this booth. He has a big peg board of these buckles all about the same size and shape. Each is inlaid with different minerals. I don’t know how he makes them, but the results are spectacular.”

“No kidding.” Diane grinned at her, fingering the buckle.

Bev pulled a small bundle out of the pocket of her jacket. “I got four of them, one for each of my remaining belts. He gave me a good price on the proviso that I not sell them on-station.” She saw the look on my face and added, “I told him that you would be along shortly. He sold these to me for fifteen creds each. He’s asking twenty-five to thirty-five depending on the stone.”

Diane handed the buckle to Francis and he hefted it. “By the weight of this thing, the metal is probably worth that much.”

Bev nodded in agreement. “Yeah, the mass is going to be a problem for taking too many of these with us. I need to weigh them but I bet they weigh at least a hundred grams each.”

I did some quick math in my head. “Ten per kilo. I have mass for fifty and enough creds for about twenty.”

Bev grinned at me. “Depending on how well the belts sell, you’ll recover some of the mass, and a lot of the money.”

Diane raised an eyebrow in my direction. “How many do you have?”

“Pip and I got a deal on eighty of them back on Gugara.”

“Eighty, wow that’s quite a lot,” Diane said with a whistle.

“You guys should pay me a finder’s fee.” Bev teased, much to Francis and Diane’s amusement.

“Hey, I spotted the belts first.”

“Kids, if you’re gonna fight, please take it out of the booth, okay?” Francis grinned at us.

A new group of customers stepped up to the table and we had to behave, but I snapped a quick digital of the buckle with my tablet and flashed it over to Pip’s address before I started answering questions.

Customers paraded through the booth in a more or less steady stream for the rest of the afternoon. Francis and Diane sold all the scarves, almost all of the plates, and three more of the brocade vests. Francis only put one out at a time and after each sale he rummaged in his duffel and pulled out another.

After he put out the third one, I shook my head in amazement. “How many of those do you have?”

“Three more.” He grinned at me.

“Are you putting them out individually to make them seem more valuable? Like they are one of a kind or something?”

He shrugged. “They are one of a kind, just like the belts. I put them out that way so they’re easier to keep track of.”

I chuckled. “Never overlook the obvious.”

Late in the afternoon, an attractive woman in a smartly tailored blouse and slacks stepped up to the table and looked it over. “How are things going?”

“Very well, Captain.” Bev elbowed me discreetly.

I managed to suppress the gasp of recognition. “Yes, sar, very well. Thank you for setting this up for us.”

She turned to Francis and Diane. “What do you two think of the idea?”

Francis spoke first, “It’s been great. We’ve sold almost all our trade goods and it’s been fun to boot.”

Diane nodded as he spoke, “Yes, sar, I’ve been dragging those plates around for months. We’ve sold most of them and at good prices, too. My mass allotment will be wide open after today.”

The captain smiled. “Excellent.” She turned back to me and asked, “Is there anything you need?”

I shook my head. “We came in not knowing what to expect and the banner was a surprise. I’ve made some notes to myself to get some clips so we can hang it up on the drape behind us and to replace it with a tablecloth for tomorrow.”

The captain’s fingers strayed to the blue fabric and she stroked it gently. “Excellent plan, Mr. Wang. This has served as tablecloth more than once so you’re carrying on a proud tradition. Is there anything else?”

Bev spoke up, “More trade goods, Captain. At this rate, we’re going to run out. We need to let the rest of the crew know what we’re doing so they can take advantage of the booth.”

The captain nodded and smiled. “Mr. Carstairs has been recruiting all day. I think there will be enough to sell tomorrow.” She scanned our faces. “Anything else?”

We looked at each other and I answered, “No, Captain. You’ve done a lot for us already, thank you.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Wang. This is a good thing you and Mr. Carstairs are doing for the ship.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

She nodded to all of us and started on down the aisle after a few steps she turned back. “Oh, Mr. Wang, when you get aboard this evening, please collect Mr. Carstairs and report to my cabin? Around 20:00 would be good. I’d like a status report.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. My pleasure.”

She smiled and, with a jaunty wave, disappeared into the crowd.

As soon as she was gone, Bev slugged me on the shoulder. “You didn’t recognize the captain?”

“I’ve never seen her in civvies.” I rubbed my arm. “How was I to know she’d be here?”

“You’ve seen her practically naked in the sauna and you can’t spot her in civvies?” Diane laughed at me.

I looked to Francis for support but he shrugged in response.

“Well, if she’d come to the table in her towel, I might have.”

Bev punched me again.

We proceeded to sell the table bare as the last crowd of buyers came through looking for end of day bargains.

Around 16:45 the speakers gave a ping-ping-ping warning. The customers wrapped up whatever deals they were working on and began filing out. The big doors started slowly closing at 17:00 and when the pa-pong tone sounded again, most of the vendors had already taken down the booths, and pulled their grav-pallets and cargo totes toward the staff doors.

Diane and Francis helped by folding the banner neatly while I pulled the badge off the drape and Bev collapsed the table. We dropped it off at the office and headed down the lifts.

On the way down, Francis turned to Bev and me. “Diane and I are heading out to grab dinner. Either or both of you want to join us?”

I shook my head. “I need to get back to the ship. Pip is going to be chewing the bulkheads to find out how it went.”

Bev declined as well. “I’ve got the duty in the morning and my legs are killing me. I just want to get back and into the sauna.”

The banner and badge went into my duffel to pass off to Pip and we separated at level six. Bev and I headed for the ship while Diane and Frances went off to eat. We checked in with the officer of the watch and had our respective mass allowances adjusted. Mine went down but Bev’s went up because of the buckles. They did indeed mass a lot for their size. Curiously, the banner didn’t get charged to either of us, but instead was marked down to Lois McKendrick. I looked to Bev, but she didn’t seem surprised so I didn’t ask.

Back in the berthing area, Bev changed and headed for the sauna while I stowed my gear, took a quick shower, and jumped into a shipsuit before going to the mess deck to see Pip and Cookie. It had been a long day.

Chapter 21

Margary Station
2352-January-11

Just after 18:00 I stepped onto the mess deck and took advantage of mealtime by grabbing some pasta and bread from the buffet. Pip heard me and came out of the galley. Cookie followed right behind him.

Pip looked at me, anticipation radiating from his body. “Well? How’d it go?”

“Great. I sold everything I had, but I’m bushed. It’s hard standing there all day.”

Pip drew me a mug of coffee and delivered it to the table. “Okay, pleasantries over. Where’d you find that buckle?”

“I didn’t.” I swallowed a mouthful of pasta before continuing, “Bev did, booth two something. Two-eighteen, I think she said, or maybe it was two-sixteen. It shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Cookie smiled and stepped back into the galley, but Pip nodded. “So? Tell me everything.”

I ran through the day in roughly chronological order, starting with picking up the banner at the lock and returning it. “In the morning, you need to take the badge to the office and get a table. It’s already paid for. Somewhere we need to find some clips so you can hang the banner and you’ll also need some kind of cloth to put down on the table to cover the top. They’re in pretty rough shape.”

Pip nodded.

“Now, it’s your turn. The captain said you’ve been recruiting?”

He nodded again. “I’ve got a couple of people who are interested. Rhon Scham has a ton of stuff to sell and agreed to be my wingman for the day. She’s good at buying but hasn’t had a lot of success selling so she was really enthusiastic. Sean Grishan from the bridge crew and Biddy Murphy from cargo are coming along too.”

“Sounds like it’s going to be worthwhile again tomorrow. Oh, by the way, we have an appointment tonight at 20:00.”

“Yeah? Who with?”

“The captain. She wants a status report.”

Pip chuckled nervously. “Well, at least we’ve got something to report.”

I finished my dinner and took the dishes into the galley. Cookie smiled and waved to us as he left for his nightly card game. “You gentlemen don’t need me under foot. Well done today—both of you.” We waved to his back as he left. It was only a few ticks of work for us to clear away the dinner buffet, sweep, and swab.

We had a stan to spare before our meeting with the captain so we retired to the berthing area to compare notes. Bev was back from the sauna and got the packet of buckles out to show Pip. We spread them out on the berthing area’s table and he looked them all over.

Pip considered the buckles as he asked Bev, “What did you think of the day?”

She grinned. “It was a kick. Between the selling and the ogling—”

“Ogling?” Pip shot me a glance. “You didn’t say anything about that.”

I shrugged and he turned back to Bev. “What is this ogling of which you speak?”

She laughed at his expression. “Well, between the ones who came to see the tough bitch in leather and the others who wanted to look down Diane’s blouse, there was a lot of it. I might have even done a bit of it myself.” She winked with a sly grin. “There were a lot of tight butts walking around there today.” She looked at me. “Don’t you think?”

I coughed in surprise. “Um, I didn’t notice, actually. I was trying to figure out how the whole booth thing was going to work and then I got tied up in selling stuff and all.”

She pulled a long face at me. “Oh, Ish, you were too busy watching the merchandise. If you want to be a real seller, you need to learn to watch the customers. That last belt you could have gotten another five credits for. That lady liked you.”

“She was old enough to be my mother!”

“And your point is what?”

Pip rapped on the table. “Please, children, focus.”

Bev sat up straight and folded her hands playfully in front of her before continuing, “Anyway, the initial set up was rough. We looked like the amateurs we are. If we hadn’t had the banner, we would have been displaying the belts on that dinged up tabletop and that wouldn’t have been pretty.”

Pip nodded. “If we hang the banner, we’ll need a cloth or something for the table. Anything else?”

“Several of the vendors had grav-pallets with their booth already set up on it. They just towed the pallet into place, locked it down, and started selling.”

Pip nodded. “Yeah, I told you about Drus’ setup. She had something like that. I don’t know how we’d manage that. We can’t very well use one of the ship’s and we can’t afford the mass to buy one of our own.” He shrugged.

Bev thought for a moment. “A thermos of coffee would have been good. There’s a shop around the corner but the coffee was expensive.”

I chimed in with my two creds, “And muddy. The only other thing I really missed was a place to sit between sales. My feet and legs are killing me.”

Bev nodded. “Did you see those folding chairs what’s her name had in her booth?”

“Oh, you mean Virgil’s wife?”

Bev nodded. “Yeah. They had tubular frames with a mesh seat and back. They looked very light. When things got busy she just folded it up and stashed it under the table.”

“Yeah, I saw that, but I don’t know where to find them, or how we would stow them.”

Pip pondered. “I wonder if we can rent them.”

Bev and I both shrugged.

He turned his attention back to the buckles. “These are exquisite. What booth again?”

Bev spoke up, “Two sixteen. He’s expecting to see you. His only concern is that we take them off-station to sell so he’s not competing against himself in the flea market.”

“That was the same thing that Drus Martin was worried about on Gugara.” Pip turned to me. “How many of the belts should we try to fit with buckles and take to St. Cloud?”

I shrugged. “You know better than I do. We were selling the bare belts for thirty to forty creds each. The buckles should drive that up to fifty or sixty.”

Bev shook her head strenuously. “Oh, no. More than that.” She went to her locker and pulled out the belt she’d put the buckle on at the booth. “Look at this. It’s worth at least a hundred creds.” She strapped it on around her waist and let it ride low on her hips. She only wore a ship’s tee and boxers that made up the standard dress around the berthing area for men and women alike.

I found that I really didn’t breathe right all of a sudden and Pip’s voice came from a distance. “Well, if you model them like that, I think we can get a lot more.”

Bev looked down and laughed. She took the belt off then and laid it on the table. “You get my meaning, wise ass.”

Luckily, my tablet bipped to remind me that the captain was expecting us. Pip and I headed for officer country while Bev stowed the stuff back in her locker.

“Are you okay?” Pip looked at me as we headed down the passage.

“Yeah, why?”

He shrugged elaborately. “Oh, I don’t know. You just seemed like you were having trouble breathing there for a tick.”

I slugged him on the shoulder as we arrived at the captain’s door and I knocked before he could say anything else.

The captain acknowledged our knock with a single, terse word from the other side of the door, “Come.”

When we entered the cabin, we found her seated at her desk. We stood in the approved handbook fashion and I did the honors. “Carstairs and Wang reporting as ordered, sar.”

“Thank you for coming, gentlemen. Please, sit.” She nodded toward two chairs. “Make yourselves comfortable and tell me how the enterprise is fairing.”

I gave my recap and Pip gave his. We tried to be brief and succinct. When we finished she looked back and forth between the two of us.

“You’ll have enough to sell for the rest of our stay, then?” she asked.

Pip smiled. “It looks that way, Captain. Although it really depends if the pace can be repeated, and how many of the crew have goods to sell.”

“Of course.”

Pip grinned. “If we sell everything we have before we leave, I don’t think I’ll mind.”

The captain chuckled. “No doubt.” She turned serious. “Now, about this reimbursement to the ship?”

Pip glanced at me before going on. “Well, Captain, this isn’t, strictly speaking, ship’s business…”

She nodded. “Go on.”

“While it’s not a lot of creds in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem like a ship’s expense.”

I nodded. “Yes, Captain, I agree with him. I appreciate…we appreciate…the opportunity to sell our stuff and help the crew, but—”

Pip finished for me, “Well, actually, we had no idea what the right thing was, so we just split the cost to reimburse the ship.”

“Who is we?” The captain looked back and forth between us.

“Pip and I, Captain.”

“So you two are underwriting this, and the rest of the crew can just take advantage of you?”

Pip and I glanced at each other before he answered, “Well, I don’t know that we thought of it that way, but fundamentally, yes, Captain.”

She nodded. “Very altruistic of you— and also extremely short sighted.”

Pip looked startled. “Captain?”

“If this little hobby of yours takes off, the crew will be selling hundreds, if not thousands of creds in your booth. The booth you two will be paying good creds for.”

We shrugged almost in unison. Pip answered, “True, Captain, but we’ll benefit as well. The overhead is low and fixed. The cost doesn’t go up with more sales.”

She nodded. “That’s true, but I don’t think you’ve thought this through. Are you going to use up your personal mass allotments for the materials needed in the booth? Are you planning to continue this beyond Margary? Will you both use up all your liberty time for every port we visit?”

Pip started to object, but I could see where the captain was heading so I spoke first, “You’re right, sar, we haven’t considered these things. With your permission, we’ll finish Margary the way we’ve started, and we’ll have five weeks to St. Cloud to figure out a better plan. Can we come back after we’ve had a chance to put our heads together in the Deep Dark?”

The captain nodded. “Not a bad approach at all, Mr. Wang. Permission granted. Any time you want to talk with me about this, please bip me for an appointment. Anything else?”

Pip and I shared a glance before we both said, “No, sar.”

She smiled. “Very well then, gentlemen. Dismissed.”

As we made our escape down the passage, Pip turned to me. “She never did say what she was going to do about the forty creds for the booth rental.”

I shrugged. “It’s probably coming out of petty cash. If regs say we can’t rent the booth, then it will probably go on the books as a ship’s expense.”

He nodded as we continued down the passage. “Yeah, I can see that, but technically it’s not rented by the ship.”

I remembered then where the reservation confirmation had come from. “What is the McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative?”

He shrugged. “I thought I knew, but I’m not so sure now.”

“I just remembered something else odd.”

He looked over at me but we didn’t stop walking.

“When we came back aboard and made our mass adjustments, the banner was pretty heavy. I wondered where it would be charged…you, me, or Bev.”

“Where’d it come from?”

“Rhon had the watch this morning and said it came with the
captain’s compliments
.”

“So it was charged back to her?”

“No, it was charged to Lois McKendrick,” I answered.

“You mean the ship?”

I shook my head. “No, ship’s gear gets tagged as
ship
on the logs. This was the name, Lois McKendrick.”

Pip thought for a tick before speaking, “But…she’s dead, isn’t she?”

I slugged him on the shoulder. “Dead or not, she’s not a member of the crew, ya goof.”

We didn’t say any more until we’d made it to the gym for our nightly work out. I was in a fog from the exhaustion of the long day at the flea market and the confusing evening that followed. I wanted to run a few laps, steam my sore muscles in the sauna, and then take a cold shower to forget about how that belt had looked strapped low around Bev’s hips.

When I got back to my bunk, I started thinking about Lois McKendrick again. I remembered the captain’s comments about a proud tradition and the way her fingers had stroked the fabric of the banner under our trade goods. I took out my tablet and pulled up the ship’s records. Sure enough, I found an entry on the history from the ship’s origin. It was built in a Manchester yard over in the New Hebrides Quadrant. The ship itself wasn’t all that old, nineteen stanyers—just one more than me. It explained that the ship was named for one Lois Marie McKendrick, a trade organizer.

The entry said that stanyers ago McKendrick had changed the face of company owned planets. Back in the bad old days, they completely controlled all dirt-side production. At that time
everything
an employee did belonged to the company. So if you gardened for a hobby, or your spouse knitted sweaters, or you made anything at all, it belonged to the company who ran the planet you lived on. I remembered reading about this in history, but my schoolbooks didn’t really explain what happened to change the system. Mom often said the company texts didn’t always reflect the unvarnished truth.

If this blurb was correct, Lois Marie McKendrick organized an opposition against the New Anglican Planetary Development Company on New Edinburgh. She and her group won the right for people to make things that the company didn’t own. Her movement caught on and spread not just through the New Hebrides Quadrant, but throughout the organized galaxy. In many ways, she was responsible for the burst of trade that heralded the deployment of the big sailing freighters and prosperity of the trading houses that have grown ever since.

Apparently, Lois McKendrick died shortly before the ship was completed, but her great-granddaughter christened the vessel when it launched. The article featured a blurry digital of a young woman swinging a bottle of champagne against the airlock. I didn’t recognize her until I read the caption, “Cargo Second Alys McKendrick Giggone christens Federated Freight’s newest solar clipper, the forty-three thousand ton
Lois McKendrick
.” Under that was another digital of a group of people standing in front of a familiar blue banner with silver letters that read McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative. Front and center, was a straight-backed woman with a warm smile holding the shoulders of a young girl standing just in front of her. On either side of her were a half dozen folks of various ages and the caption read: “Lois McKendrick (center) stands with the members of the McKendrick Mercantile Cooperative outside the courthouse at New Edinburgh.” Judging from the looks, I guessed this was when the Galactic Circuit Court ruled in their favor. I also couldn’t be sure, but I was willing to bet that I recognized that little girl.