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?”