more expensive brand and turn a nice profit. That will give us capital to buy more Sarabanda and lower our average cost.”
“Can we do that?”
Cookie shrugged. “Why not? The Sarabanda is actually a better quality coffee and the crew, as you so eloquently pointed out, young Ishmael, likes it just fine. Personally, I prefer it.”
Pip started tapping again and nodding. “Yes, this will work. The prices are holding on St. Cloud. They might even be a little better.”
Cookie nodded. “Very good, then. Yes, this is our best course. How are the mushroom prices looking?”
“They’re good.” Pip grinned. “Prices for fresh are holding steady but the dried have actually started dropping. Three varieties are available in commercial quantities and we can get two other artisan varieties in large enough bulk to make it worth stocking.”
“Mushrooms?” I looked back and forth between the two.
Cookie nodded. “It’s a kind of edible fungus.”
I huffed. “I know what mushrooms are. We’ve never had them on ship before, have we?”
Cookie shook his head. “Not in some time. They are difficult to procure and expensive when they’re available. Margary is one of the few sources in this end of the galaxy where they’re commonly raised.”
I rounded on Pip. “That’s what you meant,” I burst out.
He nodded with a cat-ate-the-canary grin. “Yup. Most people don’t know about the Margary mushrooms. Few consider them food so they get overlooked.”
“Any insight on the empty container?”
“Depends on budget. Freeze dried mushrooms would be best. They’re not very dense and they have a good upside potential. We can get container quantities of them but they’d cost upward of fifty kilocreds. The upside is that a container of good quality freeze dried mushrooms would net a hundred or hundred fifty on St. Cloud and even more at Dunsany Roads.”
I whistled. “Not bad for spare mass. What else could we get?”
Pip browsed through his sources for a moment and said, “Well, there’s no container sized lots, but there are several dozen pallets of minerals: quartz, beryl, jade, lapis, even some emeralds, and rubies. Those will be the bulk, industrial grade stuff, not the jewel grade. The prospectors and minors pick out the best pieces as they go. The minerals won’t take up as much volume because they’re a lot denser but the initial cost of the minerals is a lot higher and the profit potential on the other end isn’t as high.”
“What would you recommend to Mr. Maxwell if he were standing right behind you?” Cookie asked.
Pip blew out his breath noisily while he considered. “Sounds funny, but I’d leave the minerals and fill the container with mushrooms. While a kilo of mushrooms won’t fetch the same price as a kilo of rubies, you can put a lot more mushrooms in a container for the same investment. It’s not the mass that’s the issue, six hundred tons is six hundred tons, but there is a big difference in cost. We could probably fill a container with a fifty kilocred investment. Profit on the mushrooms would be somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty. The prices for mushrooms on St. Cloud and Dunsany are quite high. A container of mixed gems would cost three hundred kilocredits, maybe more depending on what you got. You’d be lucky to get four hundred kilocredits on the other end. In both cases, you’d make about the same, but the initial investment is a lot higher on the minerals. Profit ratio on the mushrooms is likely to exceed two hundred percent while the ratio on a similar container of minerals would be maybe twenty-five or thirty.”
From behind him Mr. Maxwell spoke, “Thank you, Mr. Carstairs, for that cogent and reasonable assessment. Please notify me if you identify any other opportunities.”
Pip just closed his eyes and didn’t appear to breathe for a long time.
Chapter 20
Margary System
2352-January-05
The run into Margary station went quickly. The only interruption came in the middle of the night two days after the jump. The whoop-whoop of the environmental alarm woke me out of a sound sleep just before midnight. I scrambled out of my bunk and went to the suit locker as soon as I was able to find floor space for my feet. By the time I got there, Bev had the locker open and was handing out suits as people filed quickly past her. I took one and kept walking until I found a clear spot on the deck. I remembered where to grab the suit and how to shake it to get it opened up to wear. I had it on and the helmet sealed before the drill announcement finished. This time I wasn’t the last one by a long shot.
Everybody made it on time, and after the captain’s congratulatory message, I stripped off my suit, set the used tag, and crawled back into bed.
As we got closer to Margary, one question started to nag at me. Finally I decided to talk to Pip and approached him during the evening clean up. “How are we going to sell the belts?”
“We talk to people who retail similar stuff…anybody who has a clothing store, that kind of thing.”
I suppose I shouldn’t have worried that much, after all, Pip didn’t seem concerned and he’d been at it a lot longer. Being new to this whole thing, it still bothered me. His nebulous response left too much to chance for my comfort. Later, in the berthing area, I asked Bev about it. “How are you going to dispose of your belts?”
“I don’t know. I usually just find somebody who wants what I have and I sell it.”
“But how do you find them?”
“Me? I go to the flea market. Usually there’s somebody there who sells something similar to whatever I’ve got and is willing to pay for new stock.”
“Okay, that makes sense, but doesn’t that eat into your profit? I mean, you wind up selling at wholesale, right?”
“Yeah, but that’s the price of doing business.”
“Why don’t you rent a stall and sell retail?”
“It’s not worth the hassle for just a few belts. Stall rental would probably eat the difference and I’d have to stay there until they sold. Doing it my way, somebody else does all the work.”
“Sure, I can see that.” I thought a moment. “But doesn’t everybody have something to sell? What if we all got together, we could share the booth costs.”
Bev blinked at me several times. It was rather disconcerting, to be truthful. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she muttered.
Pip came in and crawled into his bunk just then. “Who you calling a babe?”
Bev just shook her head. “Not that kind of babe. But you’re brilliant.”
“Thanks,” Pip said. “But what did I do now?”
Bev poked him playfully. “Not you, silly, I meant Ish. He’s a genius, did you know that?” She jerked a thumb in my direction.
“What’d he say?”
“That we should all share a booth on Margary.”
Pip turned all owly and blinky himself for a tick before saying, “Yup, I taught him everything he knows.”
The next day Bev started circulating the idea around the ship looking for others who might want to go in on the booth. Not knowing what it would cost hampered the effort a bit, but several of the crew agreed, so long as they didn’t have to hang around selling the whole time.
I mentioned it to Sandy Belterson when I ran into her on the track that evening.
“If you have any trade goods, Pip, Bev, and I are thinking about renting a booth at the flea market on Margary Station to sell our stuff. You’re welcome to add yours if you like.”
“Do you think it will work out?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know but it seems worth a shot. We’re trying to find out the costs now. That should give
