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

by Lowell, Nathan

  I had to get the data from Kazyanenko to find out what happened after that, but I wanted to create the most effective circuit for generating revenues. Zooming in, grabbing whatever paid best at the moment, and zooming out wasn’t a good long-term strategy. Particularly if it meant I missed out on a better cargo because I booked a load too early. I hoped to develop a kind of triangle trade, or perhaps some other route that would put us on a regular path around the quadrant and not the catch-as-catch-can route we had followed.

  A couple of stans worth of research gave me a lot of things to think about and, looking at the chrono, I realized I needed to get cleaned up. Dinner would be a stan later than I was used to, but I had reached the point where a hot shower sounded heavenly.

  I secured my console, and left my tablet on the desk while I stripped down and padded into the head. The shower soothed me, and I felt much more human when I finished getting cleaned up and climbed into one of my sets of civvies. I smiled as I thought of Mr. Herring’s upcoming experience, and I wondered if he was in a position to take advantage of it. The chrono clicked up to 1800 so I slipped into a pair of shoes, scooped up my tablet and IDs, and crossed to the galley where I found all three of my crew hunched over their own tablets and reading furiously. Before I could ask, my own tablet bipped and I opened to forty-eight unread messages.

  “What the—?”

  “You won’t believe it, Skipper,” Ms. Arellone called without looking up.

  I started scanning down through the messages, and everyone seemed to have the same base request—”when are you leaving and can I go?” A few mentioned a specific port but most didn’t seem to care what our next port of call might be so long as they could be aboard.

  I looked up to see that the crew had finished reading. They all stared at me. “My inbox seems to have suddenly overflowed with people wanting to take a trip with us. Does anyone here know why?” My tablet bipped again.

  “Room with a view, Skipper,” Ms. Arellone answered brightly.

  “I’m sure that means something in context, Ms. Arellone. Care to share?”

  She held up her tablet. “We got written up!”

  “I’ve been written up many times, Ms. Arellone, and it has never been a good thing before.” My tablet bipped twice more.

  Ms. Maloney took her hand from covering her mouth to explain. “A travelogue article featured us, Captain. Apparently one of our guests was on assignment after all.”

  My tablet bipped again.

  “The Wanderer rode with us, Captain,” Ms. Arellone crowed.

  I took a seat and looked around at them as my tablet bipped three more times. “Show me,” I said.

  Ms. Arellone flipped her tablet around, and scrolled to the top of the page. I picked it up and looked it over, leaving my own tablet to bip randomly on the table.

  The title read “A Room With A View: The trip you hope will never end by The Wanderer.” Some of what Ms. Arellone had been saying began to make sense. I scanned the rather glowing article briefly, noted that the author gave us four and half stars, and then looked around the table as my tablet bipped a few more times. In frustration, I reached over and clicked it off.

  “And...?” I asked. “I don’t get out much, Ms. Maloney. Who is this Wanderer, and what’s going on?”

  She grinned. “The local media outlet here has a semi-regular feature by-lined The Wanderer. Usually they visit resorts, hotels, liners, that sort of thing. The reviews are generally amusing, and very much in demand among a certain set. The Wanderer pulls no punches and if you look back through the archives, you’ll find that mostly he or she is very hard to please.”

  Ms. Arellone jumped back into the conversation. “I bet it was that Ms. Hawkshaw!”

  Mr. Herring looked up at the name. “This doesn’t sound like her.”

  “Oh, Perc, it has to be her. She makes it sound like a romantic get-away. I think it sounds just like her.”

  He shook his head. “All this atmosphere and cuisine and comfort and stuff. I bet it was that Muriel Lockhart. She sure had a romantic get-away.”

  Ms. Arellone gave him an exasperated look, and it felt good not being on the receiving end for a change. “She was here with her daughter! How romantic is that?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe, but you gotta admit it’s good cover if she’s The Wanderer.”

  While they nattered, I read in more depth. The article had just been published, according to the date-time stamp on it, and the author gave us a very nice review. Ms. Maloney got high praise, and was described as “a classically trained French chef lurking incognito in a restaurant with no fixed address.” I snickered to myself at that. The fast transit time, the large ports in the compartments, and the romantically charged atmosphere all got prominent billing.

  “I have to admit, if I didn’t know it was us? I’d want to go, too.” I told them, only half joking.

  “But who do you think it was, Captain?” Ms. Arellone pressed.

  I shrugged. “Coulda been any of them, including Sam Lockhart. She had plenty of time to observe, and nobody paid her too much attention except you, Ms. Arellone.”

  She shook her head. “I still think it was Barbra Hawkshaw.”

  I finished reading, and when I got to the end of the article, the last line gave it away.

  “It’s a small universe.”

  I grinned and let them argue for a while before I stood up and clapped my hands, rubbing them together. “Well, we have reservations for dinner. Shall we go?”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Diurnia Orbital:

  2373-March-25

  I had a 1000 appointment with William Simpson, and after a big to-do over bodyguards and security, I managed to convince Ms. Arellone that I didn’t really need her tagging along to make sure the throngs of potential passengers wouldn’t mug me along the way. Of course, I cheated by suggesting that she needed to standby in case Ms. Maloney needed help.

  The office looked much the same as it had the last time. I thought the receptionist was a new face, but I couldn’t be sure. The gabbling from the pit seemed just as loud and confusing as I remembered. It was a relief to close the door behind me and enter the cool, dim sanctuary of Mr. Simpson’s office.

  “Come in, my boy. Come in.” Mr. Simpson sat in his easy chair looking out at the ships, and didn’t look around when I entered, merely tilted his head a bit to send his words roughly in my direction.

  I walked around to the front of the empty chair and offered my hand to him. He smiled up at me and shook it warmly. “Good morning, Mr. Simpson. Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Not at all, not at all.” He patted the arm of the empty chair. “Sit! Sit. Tell me what’s been happening. You’ve made a very nice start, haven’t you?”

  For nearly half a stan I recalled all of our adventures. Mostly he sat and listened. Occasionally he asked a question about this or that. He seemed most interested in the Dubois incident, and seemed intrigued by my firing of Chief Bailey.

  “You’re stuck in port now, aren’t you, my boy?”

  “Yes, sir. Until I find a new engineer. But I can’t take that kind of chance with crew and passengers. There’s just too much I don’t know to risk it, and I had no confidence in Chief Bailey’s knowledge and abilities.”

  “Quite right, my boy. Quite right.” He glanced at me. “Tell me, was that a difficult decision?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. The difficult decision was making the run back from Greenfields with a chief engineer I didn’t trust.”

  “And why did you do that?”

  “Ultimately it came down to the contracts. The incremental risk of taking the expedient path seemed minimal, especially since I’d given the ship as thorough a going over as I could. We’d committed to getting the passengers and cargo to Diurnia. My base of support is here, and I reasoned that it would be easier to replace him from here than out on Greenfields.”

  “Assuming you all made it, eh?”

  I shrugged and gave a weak laugh
. “Well, yes. There is that. Every time you leave port there’s a chance you’ll die a horrible, lingering death out there. It’s small but it’s always there.” I shrugged again. “I did what I could and, rightly or wrongly, rolled the dice.”

  “I quite understand, my boy.” We sat then and gazed out. The slow dance of ships and tenders in the darkness offered a never-ending variety to the view. “So, how can I help you today, Captain?” Mr. Simpson asked with a small smile and a sidelong glance.

  “I’ve come about the note, sir. It’s due in a couple of days and the ship hasn’t earned enough in so short a time. I wondered if you’d found a buyer for the stock so that we might avoid default.”

  He reached over and patted my forearm with one bony hand. “Here’s what will happen on the twenty-sixth, my boy.” He laced his fingers together across his chest and continued. “Assuming you haven’t the liquid assets needed to repay the loan, you will default. Larks, Simpson, and Greene will take ownership of the single share of stock that you’ve assigned as collateral. Once that happens we’ll sell it to an investor, removing ourselves from ownership, and leaving you to deal with your board of directors.”

  “You already have an investor, sir?”

  “We do, my boy. We do.”

  “Then why not sell them a share of unencumbered stock, and let me pay off the loan without incurring the default?”

  He turned his head toward me. “If we did that, we’d forego the opportunity to earn a profit of two million credits.” He shook his head, and turned back to gaze out through the armorglass. “We’ve invested a great deal of time and money in getting you started up, Captain. You’ll walk away with an unencumbered company, and the opportunity to succeed or fail on your own without long-term liabilities. Please don’t deny us a modest profit on the transaction.”

  I steepled my hands in front of my face, resting my elbows on the arms of the chair and sorting through what he had said. When the transaction cleared, I would have my ship, he would have an extra two million that probably belonged to me. He was taking advantage of his position in what was probably an inappropriate manner, but I had to admit that he had done very well by me, lining up enough credits to finance my start-up and go into business. Granted he took a commission on each sale, and while the twenty percent profit from the sale of that single share seemed like a large amount, taken across the total of forty million, it seemed a modest amount.

  The reality was that I had no choice in the matter. William Simpson held the cards, and like it or not, they added up to a winning hand.

  “I understand, sir,” I said at last.

  He arched an eyebrow and cast a look in my direction. “Do you now?”

  “You took a risk on the note, and you deserve the reward. I’ve got a going concern, so while that extra capital would be welcome, lacking it is not going to interfere with my operation. It was a shrewd move on your part, sir. Well played.”

  The left side of this mouth twitched up in a small smile, and he turned to gaze out once more. “Thank you, my boy. I’ve learned a few tricks of the trade over the decades.” He paused. “How did you get The Wanderer to review your ship?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure but I suspect that it was as a result of the Dubois incident. It gave us a higher profile than we could have expected.”

  He smirked. “Silver linings and all that, eh?”

  “I don’t believe it was merely luck, sir, but it could have been nothing more than being at the right place at the right time. When I posted the passenger availability, it placed us at the top of any list sorted by arrival date.”

  “Well, you’ve done a very good job establishing your niche, my boy. Very good, indeed.”

  “Thank you, sir. The ship is a brilliant design, and I really don’t understand why it didn’t catch on.”

  He snickered. “Freight moves the money, Captain, and it doesn’t molest your crew.” He shot me a sidelong glance.

  Bitter experience forced me to grant him the point.

  He blew out a short breath. “Well? I think that’s it then.” He held out his hand and looked at me. “I’ll send you the name of your new board member after the transactions clear in a couple of days. In the meantime, I believe you’ve an engineer to find?”

  “I do, Mr. Simpson, and thank you for your time.”

  As I walked back to the ship, I considered the exchange and realized that I should be getting another ten million in my own right from the Chernyakova settlement. I snickered softly when I realized that the whole enterprise was founded based on a salvage claim that I hadn’t yet received. The reporter had been correct in his accusation that, without the settlement, I wouldn’t have founded Icarus. It just wasn’t in the way he had laid it out.

  I pondered the improbabilities involved all the way back to the ship. When I got back aboard, I found a grav trunk locked to the deck at the base of the ladder. I trotted up the ladder to the first deck, heading for the galley and some explanation.

  I rounded the corner and found Ms. Arellone and Ms. Maloney talking to a shipsuited figure sitting with her back to the door. As I opened my mouth to speak, she turned and stabbed me with a sapphire smile.

  “I heard you needed an engineer, Captain.” Even though her words were barely audible, Chief Gerheart’s voice seemed to echo in my head.

  “What are you doing here?” The inanity of the question made me wince.

  Her eyes danced, and the left corner of her mouth twitched in a wry smile. “Having coffee and catching up on the news with the crew.”

  I finally realized that I stood rooted to the deck just inside the galley door and moved, experimentally, just to see if I could. I managed to cross to the coffee pot, and pour a cup without tripping on my feet or breaking anything.

  When I turned back to look at them again, Ms. Arellone had a smug smile on her face while Ms. Maloney looked more amused than anything. Chief Gerheart’s expression was at once amused, resigned, and calculating.

  “Yes,” I said at last. “I need an engineer. You know of anyone who might be available?”

  She gave a little sideways bob of her head. “I might. Depends on the terms.” Her expression lost some of the amusement, and took on something a bit more determined.

  Before I could respond, Ms. Maloney rose smoothly from the table and turned to me. “Captain, I need to get lunch going. Perhaps you and Chief Gerheart could move your negotiations to the cabin?”

  Ms. Arellone muttered, “And it was just getting interesting.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Maitland. We’ll get out of your way. Chief?” I led the way out of the galley, and across the passage to the cabin. I held the door open for her, and then closed it behind us as she sauntered in and gave the room the once over.

  “Not exactly as spacious as your old cabin, is it, Ishmael?”

  I gave a small shrug. “It’s not much to look at but I don’t get to look at it much.” I waved her into a seat, and took the one across from her.

  She laughed and I almost forgot what we were doing. “So I heard. Ms. Arellone and Ms. Maloney have been quite entertaining.” She arched an eyebrow in my direction. “How’d it go with the money man?”

  “We’ll be sailing again. The old scallywag is getting an extra two million, but I’m getting the company back unencumbered.”

  “And you need a chief engineer.” Her words were statement, not question.

  “I do. The last one wasn’t exactly competent, or perhaps I’d just been spoiled.” I felt the smile on my face, weak, but there.

  “I’m interested in the job, Captain.” She sat back in her chair, and folded her hands together in front of her chest, elbows on the arms of her chair.

  “You mentioned terms?” I asked.

  “Yes. We need to get some things straight.”

  “Ok. That seems reasonable. What did you have in mind?”

  “Your attitude toward me, Captain. And I need to know a few things.”

  For a moment, I thought I
might need to check the grav plates because it felt like the whole ship twisted sideways.

  “My attitude?”

  She nodded and stood. The chairs weren’t that close together, but the step she took toward me brought her close enough that I could feel the warmth of her body.

  “Your attitude, Ishmael.” I looked up to where she looked down at me. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but at this moment, I’m not in your crew.”

  My mind wouldn’t keep up for some reason, but I managed a nod. “Yes. You’re not in my crew.”

  “I haven’t decided whether I’m going to work for you or not, so we have that understood?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” she said and reached down, grabbed the lapel of my shipsuit and tugged. She pulled me against her, stopping with her lips only centimeters away. “In that case, captain-my-captain,” her voice was a low growl. “You and I need to come to a little understanding about your attitude about fraternization.”

  Negotiations lasted a couple of stans but in the end, I believe we pounded out a lasting agreement.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Diurnia Orbital:

  2373-March-25

  “We’ve missed lunch,” she mumbled sleepily.

  “I know the cook,” I told her looking up from where my fingers stroked lazy circles on her skin.

  “You realize you have one of the richest women in the quadrant working in your galley?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “At the moment she’s as broke as any of us, but she has the advantage of a good education.”

  She grinned at me. “Are you ever serious?”

  I sighed in satisfaction, and thought about it. “Sometimes.” I refocused on her face. “She is broke. Jarvis froze her assets for the duration. She’s as broke as somebody with apartments on at least three separate orbitals and a string of her own art galleries can be.”