“And a crew?” Steen Wilcox asked that.
Jellico ran a fingertip down his burn scar. “Mail run is easy—”
“Easy,” thought Dane, but did not say it aloud.
“We stagger our own men for a while. You lift her the first time, Steen, with Kamil for your engineer, Weekes as jet man. We hire on a local for steward. And, Thorson, since Van Ryke is on his way in to join us on the Queen, you can take cargo master. Next time around, Shannon can take astrogator—we change back and forth. We’ll be short-handed, but an inner-system run is easy, and you can get by with robos and a limited crew. Is it agreed?”
Dane looked from one face to the next. He could see the advantages Jellico had mentioned. That there would be difficulties the captain had not mentioned, he could well guess. But when his turn came, he added his assent to the others’.
They would bid on the spacer, begin a solar run from Trewsworld to her neighbor, spread their crew thin over two ships and hope for the best, be ready to face the worst as Free Traders so often had to. And what was the worst going to be next time? No use in allowing his imagination the chance to paint a dismal picture, Dane decided. The Queen had survived much in the past. Her new sister ship would have to learn to do the same.