Quarter Share

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?”

Pip pulled out his own tablet. “I have a database, sar. I started it some time back. It has been a kind of hobby of mine. I keep it on a personal data cube.” Mr. Maxwell nodded for him to continue. “When we get the updated market reports from the jump point beacons and station data, I have a little routine that updates my galactic standard prices files. And I research ports on our projected flight path, plus level one alternatives.”

Mr. Maxwell concentrated intently on what Pip was saying, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Level one alternatives being…?”

“Oh, that’s what I call alternate ports on our flight plan. From Darbat, we’re scheduled for Gugara, but there are two other ports in jump range. We could have gone back to Neris, or we could have gone to Albert. Since we came from Neris, doubling back on our course is unlikely. We only do that every once in forever. We might, however, change course for Albert. We have last minute course changes about once every five jumps. So, Albert becomes a level one alternative and I tried to find out as much about Albert as about Gugara.”

Mr. Maxwell nodded. “But since we came from Gugara before Neris, you didn’t have that much to look up?”

“Yes, sar. Some minor market updates, but I got a good profile going into Gugara before. That cuts down on the amount of work I needed to do to leave Darbat with high probability goods.”

“And how did you determine that our route changes only once in five jumps?”

“Oh, that was easy, sar. The ship’s log has a complete record of all courses filed along with the actual paths taken. I just tracked the flight plans we’ve filed over the last five stanyers. Confederation regulations require us to project out four jumps, but we’re allowed to amend those plans based on-well, whatever we want, really. Every time we change one, it sets a flag in our records, sar. I just counted the numbers of flight plans with flags and compared that to the total number of flight plans filed. The tablet tracks that for me.”

Mr. Maxwell looked thoughtful. “So you research out four jumps along with possible alternate routes for every port we go to?”

Pip nodded. “Yes, sar.”

“Where are we going after Gugara?”

“Margary,” I answered without thinking.

Mr. Maxwell swiveled his gaze to me and said, “Et tu, Brute?”

I blushed. “Um, no, sar. We were just discussing it in the pantry this morning.”

Mr. Maxwell swiveled back to Pip. “Your assessment of Margary, Mr. Carstairs?”

Pip got a faraway look and started reciting as if he were reading off the inside of his own forehead. “Margary Station supports asteroid mining and ore refining operations. Proximity to raw materials attracted a branch of the Manchester Yards. High demand goods include quality foodstuffs, particularly frozen fish and canned vegetables since none of the direct jumps to Margary led to ports that export those goods. Luxury liquors, and explicit entertainment are also in demand. The shipyard provides a ready market for electronics, astronics, and engineering control systems and components because, while the raw ship manufacturing components are readily available in- system, the specialized clean rooms required to fab the guts of their ships are not.”

“What are we carrying to Margary, Mr. Carstairs?”

“We, sar? You mean the Lois or as part of the ship’s stores scheme?”

“Both.”

“Manifests for the Lois list four containers of machine parts, presumably for the new ship that Manchester is building, along with a container of paper goods and textiles. We’re scheduled to pick up two containers of rare earths bound for the smelters in Margary.” Pip rattled off the list without looking at his notes. “Stores trades are not final yet, but I think we’ll hold about a third of the cobia fillets and half the banapods for downstream trading. We also are planning on trading some of the cobia for extra coffee. Sarabanda Dark’s wholesale prices are low on Gugara right now. We don’t normally stock that in stores because it’s usually so expensive, but it would make an excellent trading stock and help break up the routine of only serving Djartmo Arabasti.” He seemed to surface as if from a kind of trance and added, “Sar,” to his recitation.

“I see.” Mr. Maxwell swiveled his gaze to Cookie, who merely shrugged a what-can-I-say sort of shrug. He swiveled back to Pip. “And your assessment for private trading?”

“I’m trying to find something we can buy in Gugara for the inbound run. I’ve had to start from scratch there because of my recent setback.”

Mr. Maxwell just nodded.

“The key to private trade on Margary is the uncut precious and semi-precious stones.”

“Explain, Mr. Carstairs.”

“The asteroid miners frequently come across deposits of stones while prospecting and extracting the raw ore. The deposits are too small and infrequent to make it worthwhile for any of the normal precious mineral cartels to set up there. So the miners collect and trade them for booze, porn, and other recreational goods. There’s a lively market on Margary Station that the authorities ignore because it helps keep the miners occupied and happy. For us, it’s a good place because we can buy as much or as little as we can afford. If we manage to find something to sell there while we’re in Gugara, good. That gives us more capital for buying up stones in Margary. But even if we don’t, we’ll have cash to buy a small number of stones which will serve to re-stock our trade goods for when we go to St. Cloud Orbital after that.”

“I see. It’s too bad you haven’t given this much thought.” A wry smile accompanied Mr. Maxwell’s comments. “This we you keep referring to is…?”

Pip didn’t respond immediately so I raised my hand. “That would be me, sar. Pip’s going to help me get started. With our pooled resources for cash and mass we have more options and I get to learn the ropes.”

Mr. Maxwell nodded once as if in confirmation. Obviously, he’d worked that much out for himself. He turned back to our boss. “Are you in on this unbridled capitalism, Cookie?”

“No, sar. I don’t trade anymore. My creds are invested with a broker on Stamar, and that’s good enough for me. Cooking takes up too much time.”

Mr. Maxwell turned to stare silently at Pip for almost a full tick. “Mr. Carstairs, would you consider playing a game with me?”

“A game, sar?”