Captain's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper)

by Nathan Lowell

  Ms. Thomas reported first. “No proximity warnings, Captain.”

  “Good to know, Ms. Thomas. Thank you.”

  She straightened from the terminal and looked out the armor glass to space around us.

  Ahead was a pin head’s dot of light in the field of dark. It seemed slightly larger than the other points of light and carried a faint yellowish hue, even to the naked eye. It looked like Welliver to me, but Mr. Pall had not reported. I wasn’t worried.

  Yet.

  He spared a glance in my direction. “Sorry, Skipper. I’m used to landing about two weeks further out.”

  “Take your time, Mr. Pall, but remember Mr. Wyatt is holding lunch.”

  He snorted a laugh and punched the enter key. “Sorry, Skipper. I over shot by two percent. We’re in Welliver. Location updates completed. Course plot solution working, estimated new course in less than a tick.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pall. Try to do better next time.” I was smiling. A two percent jump error was as close to nothing as didn’t matter.

  “Course plots completed, Ms. Thomas.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pall. Helm, come to new target heading, port forty-two and yaw us down three points if you please Mr. Schubert.”

  “Aye, sar, port forty-two and down three.” The helm display showed the corrected course as the astrogation system updated both helm and autopilot.

  “Make all appropriate sail, Ms. Thomas. I hear they have good beer here. I’d like to find out as soon as possible.”

  She punched up the sails, but frowned at me sideways as she did it. “You’ve never been to Welliver, Skipper?”

  “Not this month, Ms. Thomas.”

  Ms. Thomas giggled. She actually giggled.

  That alone was almost worth the trip.

  It took next to no time at all for the final course and position updates to cascade through the systems. When we secured from navigation stations, we relieved the watch as well.

  We were at the familiar place in the watch cycle where I ate breakfast on the bridge, got to eat lunch with the crew, but I’d be back on the bridge for dinner. I stopped in the cabin on the way through officer country. I wanted to let the crew get ahead of me so I felt less like I was leading a parade and I usually stopped after watch for biological reasons.

  When I walked onto the mess deck, the off-watch crew were all standing around and the aromas of cooked food drew a wash of anticipation to my mouth. The ship did a good job of isolating the smells from the galley. I chalked it up to the over-engineered scrubbers. Mr. Wyatt had done himself proud with a roast of beefalo, white and sweet potatoes, a collection of green vegetables as well as a rich-looking tomato soup first course, and three pies for desert.

  I made a show of counting noses before calling loudly. “Mr. Wyatt, where are the other twelve people you intend to serve with this feast?”

  “Sorry, Captain. We’re all the help you’ll get, but I’m sure we’ll all do our best on this particular evolution.”

  There were general cheers all around, I took the ceremonial first plate, and lunch mess began. Over the days we’d been underway, I’d been gratified to see that my assumption of seating had been correct. Over the stanyers I’d noticed that people picked the places they felt they should be in and they stayed there. The arrangement of officers was only slightly skewed from what it might have been at a wardroom table, but with no Captain’s chair at the head, it made sense for senior department heads to sit where we could talk face to face. Mr. Pall, took the seat to my right when we dined together, and the ratings each seemed to have picked places and kept them, even to the point of leaving open space when a member was on watch.

  Over dessert we slowed our mass ingestion and began to be more social. With most of the crew present, and with some awareness that we’d soon dock in Welliver, it seemed a propitious time to raise an issue that we’d not yet discussed. “Mr. Schubert? We need to talk about the ship’s co-op.”

  None of the officers, except Mr. Wyatt, had been there when I’d made the arrangement with Mr. Schubert so they looked on with interest to see what rabbit I was about to pull out of my cap.

  “When would you like to do that, Captain?” Schubert asked.

  I looked at the assembled company. “Given that it involves at least some of the crew, Mr. Schubert, I’d suggest now to be a good time. Are you familiar with the long held and respected tradition of private trading, Mr. Schubert?”

  I was surprised to see him shoot a glance at Mr. Hill across the table before he answered. “Yes, Captain. I am.”

  The officers looked on with obvious interest but made no comment. Mr. Hill kept his fork moving, but I wasn’t sure he was actually moving food with it.

  “And do you engage in this practice, Mr. Schubert?”

  “I’ve been known to dabble a bit, Captain, yes.”

  “Mr. Hill?”

  He jumped as if I’d stuck a fork in him. “Captain?”

  “Private trade, Mr. Hill? Ever done any?”

  He smiled and nodded. “Skipper, I think every rating in the fleet has at one point or another.”

  “Good, then we have some current perspectives. Would it surprise any one to learn that I used to dabble a bit, as Mr. Schubert calls it?”

  Ms. Thomas looked fascinated and Chief Gerheart was in danger of losing her mask as she gazed at me with an intensity I wasn’t used to seeing. Mr. Wyatt enjoyed his second piece of pie and the floor show.

  Schubert and Hill exchanged those odd glances again. It was Mr. Hill who spoke. “When you were on the Lois McKendrick, Captain?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hill. I did pretty well at it, but that was a long time ago and a long way away.”

  This time the look they passed was more smug than concerned.

  “Really, Captain?” Mr. Schubert seemed almost amused.

  “Quite well, Mr. Schubert. The profits paid for my first two stanyers at the Academy.”

  The mess deck went still.

  It was Mr. Wyatt who asked. “Captain? You made enough from private trade to pay for … what?”

  I smiled into my mug. “My first two stanyers at Port Newmar. Books, board, tuition, fees, and uniforms.”

  I was sure the officers knew approximately how much money I was talking about but Hill and Schubert were probably only aware that it was a great deal of money. On a grand scale, it wasn’t really, but enough to give them pause.

  Ms. Thomas looked like she wasn’t sure if I was telling a tale or not. Chief Gerheart was holding back a laugh that I suspected she could only safely let out in Engineering, and Mr. Wyatt was practically slack-jawed. Oddly, the two on the end of the table were staring into each other’s eyes so intently I thought they may be working on some telepathic experiment.

  “I didn’t do it alone, Mr. Schubert.” At the mention of his name, the eye lock broke and they both turned to look up the table at me. “The Lois had a co-op, a co-operative selling arrangement, where all the ratings on the ship could put their private trade goods on consignment and the co-op brokered the goods and distributed the profits.”

  Mr. Hill was following this very intently. “Where did they do this brokerage, Captain? And how?”

  “They rented a table at the orbital’s flea market, Mr. Hill. All the crew’s trade goods would be available to the public who usually paid top credit for some of the more exotic goods. The co-op arranged for somebody to tend the table for as long as the market was open, and in exchange took a small share of the sales to fund their operation.”

  Ms. Thomas finally found a question that she needed answered. “Why did you form a co-op?”

  “More profitable. Many of the crew engaged in trading but the difficulties in finding buyers on short notice often meant that the goods went for only a fraction of their real worth, because buyers knew the crew had time limits. Being beaten up and robbed was also far from a theoretical happenstance.” I felt Mr. Hill stiffen, but didn’t look at him.

  Ms. Thomas pressed for more details. “S
o you–and I’d bet my next sandwich that it was you, Skipper–organized the crew to form this co-op and convinced the ship to go along?”

  “No bet, Ms. Thomas, but I had help. My friend was mugged and lost his trade. I just found a different way to do it where crew didn’t run the risk of being mugged and together we convinced enough people to go along with us that it just took off. Once people saw how well we did, we had plenty of participants.”

  Mr. Wyatt recovered by then. “Skipper, you did not make enough money doing private trades to pay for two stanyers at the Academy. You must have had something else.”

  I grinned and shrugged. “Okay, yes. That’s true.” There was a general air of relief around the table, as if they really didn’t believe I’d done it, and were just waiting for the truth to come out. “The private trading gave my buddy and I enough capital to begin buying and selling cargoes. That was really where most of the money came from.”

  Mr. Wyatt got the point immediately. It was his field after all. “Buying and selling cargoes, Captain? As in…containers of goods?”

  I smiled a little. It was rather insane when viewed in hindsight, but it seemed logical at the time. “Yes, exactly, Mr. Wyatt. The Lois was a Manchester-built freighter that carried the twelve meter canisters.”

  Mr. Schubert had lost the thread by then and struggled to regain it. “How much cargo can you put in only twelve meters, Captain?”

  Mr. Wyatt turned to him with the answer. “Six hundred metric tons, Mr. Schubert.”

  Mr. Schubert frowned. “That’s a lot of cargo, sar.”

  “We had to buy low value cargoes at first. It takes a lot of money to fill a twelve-meter container.”

  The group took a collective breath and then resumed eating. Chief Gerheart kept giving me furtive little glances from under her eyebrows and Ms. Thomas muttered, “No wonder they sent you to the Academy.”

  Mr. Hill laughed and almost choked on his pie trying to hold it back.

  “So, Mr. Schubert, I’d like you to take charge of starting the ship’s co-op. Organize it, see how it might work. We don’t have the crew that the Lois had, but there must be a way we can do it.”

  Schubert and Hill exchanged glances once more before Mr. Schubert turned back to me. “Aye, aye, sar.”

  “Do you have any trade goods aboard with which you might prime the pump to get started in Welliver, Mr. Schubert?”

  He gave a little sideways shrug. “I may have a few odds and ends, Skipper.”

  “Mr. Hill? Are you in?”

  I looked up the table at me and I couldn’t tell if he were enthusiastic or just acting that way. “Sound intriguing, Captain. Count me in.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll leave it in your hands, gentlemen. Please ask if you have any questions.”

  The two ratings answered as one. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Lunch ended pretty quickly after that. Just as well, really. It was getting on to 1300 and after that feast, I needed a nap. We all chipped in to help clear away the additional mess caused by the extra food. With all of us helping, the galley was shipshape again in no time. As I drifted off to sleep, I kept remembering those glances and wondering what the boys were up to.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Welliver System:

  2372-February-16

  We were still almost a couple of weeks out of Welliver when I found out why my two young gentlemen were so skittish around the subject of private trading. I’d finally caught up on the paperwork at the trailing end of an otherwise unremarkable midwatch. Welliver grew ahead of us and I knew I’d need to start picking cans soon.

  On a whim, I pulled up the available cargo list for Welliver. It was blank. “Mr. Hill? Have you any idea why the cargo availability list for Welliver is blank?”

  Bless his heart, he’d grown used to long stans of silence punctuated by odd questions from me. He looked over from the helm and shrugged. “It’s always blank until Mr. Wyatt gets the updates from the inner beacons, Skipper.”

  “That’ll be only a day or so before we dock.” Yes, I was stating the obvious.

  He shrugged again. “Not much we can do until then anyway, is there, Captain?”

  My disbelief must have shown on my face.

  “Captain?”

  “Mr. Hill, you do realize that we don’t need to actually be docked to buy and sell, correct?”

  “Of course, Captain, but I don’t get it. We don’t get up-to-date market data until we’re a lot closer in.”

  I sat there for a moment as the implication of what he said washed through my incredulous mind. I couldn’t even respond for a full tick. “Mr. Hill, after we get the breakfast mess secured, you and I and Mr. Wyatt need to have a serious talk about making money.”

  “We’re missing something, aren’t we, sar.”

  “I’d guess about ten to twenty percent on profit.”

  He goggled.

  I debated running the update myself, but the chronometer clicked past 0515 and a stan or two wouldn’t matter. Running Mr. Wyatt through the whole process from the beginning would expedite understanding.

  “After breakfast, Mr. Hill. We’ll talk.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” He smiled and settled back to his watch.

  Thinking of cargo reminded me of Schubert and the co-op. The gang of three hadn’t come up with a name. They were still debating on what the appropriate percentages should be. Mr. Schubert’s wit and good humor stood him in good stead as he chivvied the other two into position. I’d over heard them discussing it on more than one occasion and realized that the lack of personnel would make things more difficult than I first expected. Still, if they could cover even half a day on the tables, I was certain they’d do better than whatever they’d been able to scrape together on their own.

  My train of thought pulled into pooka station and I pulled up Agamemnon’s record on my screen. I’d almost forgotten about the extra mass but with the possibilities looming in the near future, I wanted to find out if the stuff was still aboard or if it were just accounting error.

  The main record was as I remembered, but when I clicked on the transaction details, I began to get an idea of why my two young colleagues were so uneasy about the idea of the captain becoming interested in their private trades. The most recent date corresponded to our next to last day in Diurnia. Mr. Schubert had logged a dozen kilos out of Agamemnon’s account. Scrolling back through the transaction details I saw postings in and out of the account by all three of my brow watch standers.

  “Did they get it all, Mr. Hill?”

  “Captain?”

  “The trade goods. Did they get it all when they rolled you in Diurnia?”

  He stiffened slightly, caught himself doing it, and tried to relax. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean, Captain.”

  I snorted. “Good man. Don’t admit to anything until you know what you’re accused of.” I had to smile and give him credit for that. “I’m looking at Agamemnon’s mass allotment transactions, Mr. Hill.”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “It shows that Mr. Schubert signed a dozen kilos of mass out at a time which might reasonably coincide with your leaving the ship. There is no corresponding record showing that mass–or any other–returning before we got underway. What I do recall is a rather worse-for-wear crewman being returned to me sometime the next morning, Mr. Hill.”

  He sighed but kept his attention on his helm. “Yes, Captain. They got it all.”

  “Is all this stuff yours, Mr. Hill?”

  He shook his head without looking at me. “No, Skipper. All three of us have some of it. I may have the most, but we don’t really keep track.”

  “Where do you store it, Mr. Hill?”

  “Here and there, Captain. Bottoms of lockers. Under the mattresses.”

  “Anything dangerous to the ship?”

  “Empty data cubes, some electronics parts, the odd bit of this and that. Nothing really too far out there.”

  “Entertainment cubes? Consumable
s?”

  “Entertainment, yes, Captain. Drugs or stuff like that? No. Chooch–Mr. Schubert–brought a few bottles of wine once and they broke in the bottom of his locker. We’ve tried to keep with durables since then.”

  “Alcoholic beverages are tricky to do well. You have to know what you’re doing, Mr. Hill.”

  He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, but I was staring at the transaction record on the screen. The lads had been very industrious, if the number of transactions were any indication. After a few ticks I sat back and looked at the side of his head. “How’s this worked out for you, Mr. Hill?”

  “Not great, Skipper.” Defeat hung heavy in his voice. “You nailed it during mess the other day. High risk, low yield.”

  I made a tsking sound in my teeth. “Been there, Mr. Hill.” I had a half baked idea that wasn’t quite ready to come out of the oven. “Let me ponder this a bit, Mr. Hill. Thank you for being forthcoming. Would you pass to your trading partners that the jig is up and that there’ll be a ruling soon?”

  He slumped. “Of course, Skipper.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hill.”

  The chronometer ticked toward the end of the watch and I turned to making sure my logs were up-to-date while I pondered. I couldn’t just let them add to the ship’s mass without some kind of oversight. On the other hand, the amount of mass they had accrued was lost in measurement error on the scale of things we worked in. I was also a leery about letting them deal in just anything. Having the co-op deal at the table would obviate some of that. Limiting trade goods to those things which would be sold by the light of day and not in some out-of-the-way corner of the orbital would relieve most of my worries. Still, there was a better solution lurking in my hind brain. I just needed to pretend I wasn’t looking for it so it would come out.

  Luckily, Ms. Thomas and Mr. Schubert came onto the bridge then and I was completely distracted from the issue by the watch change. While Ms. Thomas relieved me, Hill and Schubert had their heads together at the helm. I saw Schubert flinch once and stop himself from looking at me. He leaned in to say something and Mr. Hill shrugged.

  Formality served, I headed to the cabin for a quick splash of the face and then on to breakfast. Mr. Wyatt was turning into an extraordinarily good omelet maker and I felt the need for one of his sausage and mushroom masterpieces.