“I see no reason not to purchase the entire amount. If preserved properly, it should last you and your crew several weeks, if not longer.”
“And we can afford it?” he added in a whisper.
Jalea nodded slightly, as she turned back to Tug. “We will take the entire amount. That would be ten thousand credits, correct?”
“That is correct. How are you to make payment?”
“We are currently engaged in harvesting operations in the ring. Once we sell some of the harvest in the market tomorrow morning, we will be able to pay you for your molo.”
“That will be fine, I’m sure. But I will have to hold delivery until payment has been made. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” Jalea agreed.
“I can deliver it to port, if you wish?”
“That will not be necessary,” Jalea assured him. “We will have it picked up by shuttle tomorrow.”
“If you prefer,” Tug agreed. “If you’d like, you’re all welcome to stay for dinner. I can have my wife prepare some of her delicious molo stew. Then you will taste for yourself the quality of the product you are purchasing. And for a few extra credits, I might even be able to convince her to bestow her recipe upon you.”
“We are honored by your invitation,” Jalea bowed. “Captain? I trust that would be acceptable?” Jalea flashed Nathan a look urging him to accept.
“An honor indeed,” Nathan stated graciously, trying to his best to speak in similar fashion.
“Wonderful,” Tug said. “I will inform my wife that we have guests for dinner.” Tug bowed his head before heading back to his house.
“Great,” Jessica commented. “Mushroom stew down on the farm. And to think, I joined the Fleet to get off the farm.”
“I thought you said you were from Florida?” Vladimir commented.
“What, you think Florida is all beaches and bikinis?” Jessica sniped.
“I’m not sure staying for dinner is such a great idea, Jalea,” Nathan said. “I’m not sure we should hang around that long.”
“Agreed,” Jessica added quickly, looking for any opportunity to avoid having to eat more molo.
“It would be quite rude to turn down the invitation, Captain,” Jalea warned. “And you did say that you wanted to learn more about this part of space. How did you put it, ‘take a look around’? Perhaps this might be such an opportunity.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Nathan nodded. “Sorry, Jess.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. She knew he was right, that it was a good opportunity to gather more intel. “Dinner hosts are usually chatty.”
“Jalea, will you contact Tobin and arrange for a pick-up later tonight?”
“As you wish,” she said as she stepped away.
“Jessica, set up the tight-beam mini-dish and try to make contact with the Aurora-I mean the Volander. Let them know what’s going on.”
Ensign Mendez watched as the workers carried trays of separated ores from the processor to the cargo shuttle. The workers were an odd mixture of different types of people, all men except for three women, all with no noticeable similarities between them. Although they seemed to be moving at a steady, relentless pace, the foreman continued to yell at them incessantly.
To his right, one of the flight crew for the harvesting team sat snacking on some dried substance. “Who are these people?” Mendez asked the flight technician.
“Just workers,” he replied.
“What do you mean, ‘just workers’?”
“They come from all over. Some of them come voluntarily. Others are purchased.”
“What? Like slaves?”
“Not slaves, really. They usually owe someone lots of money. They sell themselves into labor contracts in order to pay off their debt.”
“And how long are these contracts?”
“It depends on the size of their debt. Usually a few years, at least.”
Mendez shook his head as he walked away. He walked casually around the hangar bay, as he had done every so often since the harvesting operations had begun. He didn’t do it because it was necessary, but rather to give the appearance of being vigilant as a deterrent to anyone thinking of sneaking off the flight deck. But the workers had proven to be just that-workers. They appeared to have little interest in anything other than surviving their long, grueling shifts, which thus far appeared to be never-ending.
As he made his rounds, he decided to veer off his perimeter walk, instead turning inward and walking along the sorting line. A string of about ten workers stood along either side of a long conveyor belt that moved rubble from the hopper that had been unloaded from the harvester to a cargo container at the other end nearer the cargo shuttle. As the rubble passed by, the workers, who wore some type of special scanning eye-wear, picked out certain pieces, depositing them into containers at their sides. When one of the containers became full, another worker would replace it with an empty one and carry the full container off to the processor.
Mendez came to a stop at the far end of the conveyor line, standing next to the old foreman, Marcus. “What are they sorting?”
“They’re pickin’ out pieces with the highest concentrations of precious metals. You know, gold, silver-hell, there’s even diamonds in these rings. Theory is there used to be two stars in this system, but the first one went super-nova eons ago. Most of the ring is composed of a massive planet that was blown off of its orbit when the first star blew up, and the planet drifted to close to the gas giant and got pulled apart.”
“Don’t you have machines that can do the sorting?”
“Sure. But machines cost money. And machines breakdown. Workers are cheaper and more versatile.” He smiled, eyeing an attractive, although somewhat disheveled, young female worker on the sorting line.
Just then, one of the workers on the sorting line, a middle-aged man, leaned over on both hands on the edge of the conveyor. He was obviously exhausted, and was simply trying to rest for a moment. Nevertheless, his unauthorized respite quickly earned him the foreman’s wrath.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Marcus bellowed as he stormed off toward the exhausted worker. “Did you hear anyone call for a break?”
“Hey!” Mendez interrupted, grabbing the foreman’s arm to slow his progress. “Ease up! Can’t you see he’s just tired?”
“I don’t give a damn if he’s tired! He’s paid to work, not rest!”
“I said ease up!” Mendez insisted. This time, his tone made clear that it wasn’t a suggestion.
The foreman turned to confront the ensign, bound and determined not to let anyone tell him how to run his crew. The tired worker did not want to be the cause of the dispute, knowing that even if he avoided punishment now, it would surely come later.
“It’s okay,” the worker assured Mendez. “I’m okay. I can work.” The man straightened back up and started working again. “See, I’m working. I’m sorry, sir.”
Marcus turned back to Mendez, staring him cold in the eyes.
“You got something to say?” Mendez asked in a challenging tone.
The foreman looked the young ensign over, taking special notice of both his close-quarters weapon and his sidearm. The look of confidence in the ensign’s eyes told the foreman all he needed to know. This was not a man to be underestimated. With nothing more than a grunt, the foreman returned to his monitoring position at the end of the conveyor line.
— 5 -
“It smells wonderful,” Jalea insisted politely.
