There was reason the small ships took to trading in the shadows, bypassing dock charges, maximizing profits.
“We hope,” the Old Man began his assault, “that we have a good deal in the offing. We’ve got a problem, and we’ve got a solution, and let me explain the making-money part of it before I get to the cost. It’s not going to be clear profit, but it’s going to be a guarantee Voyager stays in business; it’s going to mandate your ships keep their routes, as the ones that have kept Voyager solvent thus far. There’s also going to be a repair fund, meaning credit available for the short-haulers. Mariner’s backing it. So’s Pell. Voyager stationmaster will speak for himself. We have a list of twenty-five small haulers that stay within this reach. Those ships will see protection.”
“The cost.”
“You serve this reach and you make a profit doing it. You keep the trade only on the docks and you pay the tariff.”
“We pay the tariff,” Hannibal said.
“On all trades,” the Old Man said, and there was a little silence. The captains liked the one part of it. Salvation for the small operator, vulnerable to downtime charges and repair charges, was inextricably linked to cession of ship’s rights. Anathema.
“Who’s going to say our competition pays the same?” That from Jamaica, captain Wells, whose eyes darted quickly from one side to the other in arguments. “Who’s inspecting? Finity, arguing to let station inspectors on our decks?”
Difficult point, JR thought. Difficult answer, but the Old Man didn’t pull the punches.
“They’ll pay,” the Old Man said, “because there’ll be a watch on the jump points.”
“No,” Hannibal said.
“You’re supplying Mazian,” the Old Man said, more blunt and more weary than he’d been at Mariner, and the captain of Hannibal sat back as JR registered a moment of alarm. “Not necessarily by intent,” the Old Man said in the next second. “But that’s where the black market’s going, and that’s why there’s going to be a watch at those jump points. The money that’s not going to the stations will have to get to the stations. And this is where the profit will be for you.”
Totally different style with these hardbitten captains than the Old Man had used at Mariner. JR took mental notes.
“We have an agreement in principle by Voyager, and the stationmaster will be here within the hour to swear to it: there will be provision for ships that register Voyager as their home port. Uniform dock charges, to pump money into Voyager and do needed repair. More freight coming in, going out, more loads, more profitable goods…”
“Too good to be true,” Jacobite said. “What if we sign and we comply and here comes a big fancy ship, say, Finity’s size…”
“You get preference on cargo. You’re registered here. You load first.”
“Voyager’s going to agree to that?” Clear disbelief.
“Voyager has agreed to that.”
“Way too good to be true,” Jamaica said. “Say I got a vane dusted to hell and gone, and I’m going to borrow money, get it fixed and the Alliance is going to come across with the money.”
“In effect, yes.”
“I’m already in hock to the bank.” “The idea is to preserve the ships that preserve this station. The Alliance is not going to let a ship go, not yours, not any ship registered here. Fair charges, fair taxes, stations build up and modernize and so do the ships that serve them. You may have seen a Union ship go through here in the last few days. That did happen. The Union border is getting soft. Union trade will come through, possibly back through the Hinder Stars again.”
There was alarm. The smaller ships couldn’t make a jump like that. Then Jamaica said:
“They open and they shut and they open, I don’t ever bet on the Hinder Stars. Waste of money.”
“It’s getting to be a good bet, at least for the Earth trade. Chocolate. Tea. Coffee. Exotics of all sorts. Cyteen’s two accesses to trade are Mariner and Esperance. Voyager is right in the middle. If Esperance opened up a second access to the Hinder Stars and on to Earth, Voyager could be in a position to funnel goods along the corridor to Mariner, in a damned lucrative trade competing with Pell’s Earth route. If you survive the transition. That’s the plan. Shut down the black market, cut Mazian out of deals and the local merchanters in.”
There was consideration. There were thinking frowns, and a general pouring of real coffee, which Finity had provided for the meeting. JR moved to assist, and Bucklin set down a second pot to follow the first.
They were working as hard to sell three scruffy short-haulers on the plan as they’d worked to sell far larger ships on the concept.
But these ships were the black marketeers, the shadow traders. This was Mazian’s pipeline, among the others, and these captains were beginning to listen, and to run sums in their heads in the very shrewd way they’d dealt heretofore to keep their small ships going.
They wouldn’t say, aloud, we’ll try to do both, comply and maintain ties with Mazian. JR had the feeling that was exactly the thought in their heads.
But half compliance was better than no compliance, and half might become whole, if the system began to work.
He went outside to bring in another platter of doughnuts. Hannibal’s capacity for doughnuts was considerable, and Jacobite’s captain, in the habit of common spacers at buffet tables, had pocketed two.
“Loading’s going smoothly,” Bucklin found time to say. “We’ve moved ahead of schedule on that. But fueling’s going to take the time. The pump’s not that fast.”
“Figured,” JR said, and had. The high-speed pumps at Pell and Mariner were post-war. Practically nothing on Voyager was, except the missile defenses.
To a place like this, ships, if they would forego the shadow trade and pay standardized dock charges, offered more than a shot in the arm. Ships to follow them brought a transfusion of lifeblood to Voyager, which until now had seen ships just as soon trade in the dark of the jump-points as stay in its dingy sleepovers and spend money in its overpriced amusements. In the War, the honest trade had gotten thinner still, as Union had taken exception to merchanters supplying the Fleet and tried to cut off Voyager, as a pipeline to Mazian’s Fleet.
It had been one hell of a position for station and merchanters to be in, and one which Alliance merchanters resolved never to get into again. Abandon Voyager? Let Esperance slide into Cyteen’s control?
No. Starting from a blithe ignorance at Pell, JR had acquired a keen understanding of the reasons why small, moribund Voyager was a key piece in keeping Esperance in the Alliance, and keeping trade going between Mariner and Esperance inside Alliance space.
He knew now that Quen’s deal about the ship she wanted to build would put her in complete agreement with the position other Alliance captains had to take: new merchant ships were useless if all trade ebbed toward Cyteen; and shoring up Voyager would protect Pell’s territory more effectively than the launch of another Fleet.
That was why they’d agreed with her. The danger to the merchant trade now was in fact less the Fleet than a resurgence of Union shipbuilding with the clear aim of driving merchanters out of business.
So Voyager fish farms and an infusion of money to refurbish the Voyager docks were part and parcel of the new strategy. Voyager could become a market, a waystation: a station, given the wide gulf between itself and the Hinder Stars, that might revive the Hinder Stars for a third try at life, if they could establish a handful of ships capable of making that very long transit.