Her new roommate, or captain, Georgia wasn’t sure yet how to classify him, led her to the chandlery, and they arranged to leave right after lunch the next day. The man working behind the counter was a few years older than her, and as soon as she described her intention, he began grabbing items off various shelves and making a pile of them.
“I’ll throw in a spool of twine,” Kevin told her when his initial flurry of activity wound down. “I’m sure that Larry has his own, but he’ll appreciate the gesture.”
“What will I do with twine?”
“You’ll see when you’re in Zero-G,” he replied, and began enumerating the goods he’d piled up. “Magnetic cleats, a week’s supply of coffee at two boxes a day, a two week supply of water at six boxes a day, one week’s worth of mystery meals in squeeze tubes—you’re sure you don’t want to choose?”
“I’m a food writer. I eat weird stuff for a living.”
“Right. Well, I basically gave you one of everything I stock. A small sack of potatoes—”
“Are you sure I’ll need those?” she interrupted.
“Just in case the squeeze tubes don’t work out. Sharf two-man traders have a built-in microwave, and potatoes are foolproof and ideal for Zero-G cooking.”
“What else do people eat?”
“Foods that stick to a spoon, at least if you don’t move too fast. Baked beans in heavy sauce are popular, and some traders will eat anything from a can and just be careful about cleaning up after themselves. I gave you a half-dozen apples instead of the oranges you asked for. I don’t stock citrus because it’s surprisingly messy under weightless conditions.”
“How about orange juice?”
“Squeeze tubes or boxes?”
“Which is cheaper?”
“Tubes.”
“I’ll take seven. What’s in that yellow tube you already gave me?”
“Zero-G soap. Larry has a Dollnick shower installed.”
“I can’t use regular soap?”
“Gums up the filters. Your subtotal comes to forty-two creds and seventy centees. See anything else you want?”
“That’s less than I thought it would be. How about something I can share with my, uh…”
“Captain,” the chandler supplied the correct term. “Desserts and salty snacks are always popular, or if you want something that will last a long time, I just got in a shipment of rum-soaked fruitcakes.”
“Like the ones people send around at Christmas?”
“Exactly.”
“I think I’ll go with pretzels.”
Three
“Roland?” Walter addressed the chief editor of the freelance department, who looked up from his desk to see the paper’s managing editor accompanied by the publisher, Chastity Papamarkakis. “Do you have a minute?”
“For my boss and the owner? Always.” Roland made a swiping motion over his display desk to dismiss his current work into storage and stood so that he wouldn’t be the only one seated. “Is something wrong?”
“Have you been watching the Grenouthian news?” Chastity asked.
“I try to keep it to a minimum.”
“Put it on and select their top story today.”
Roland made a different gesture above his display desk, then selected an icon from the resulting hologram and dragged it to the right. A new holographic projection appeared, featuring a fair-haired teen dressed like the girl on the box lid of a popular brand of imported Swiss chocolates. She had a small microphone clipped to her collar and a press ID suspended on a lanyard around her neck.
“I’m Lena, for the Children’s News Network, here with Matteo Allaman, president of the Combined Insurers Group,” the girl began. “Matteo, I’m sure you already know what my first question will be, but for our viewers, can you explain what’s so special about the Swiss government bond that came due today?”
“Certainly, Lena,” the president said. “This unique hundred-year bond was issued shortly before the Stryx opened Earth and was the first of its kind to pay a negative nominal interest rate. Our company invested ten million francs in the issue for long-term planning.”
“But why would anybody ever purchase a bond that pays a negative interest rate? I suppose it’s not surprising that it was the only one of its kind.”
“Perhaps I need to clarify my statement,” Matteo said. “Government bonds with negative yields actually made up the majority of issuance at the time the Stryx opened Earth. The unique thing about this bond is that it was issued with a negative coupon, requiring purchasers to make regular interest payments to the Swiss treasury. At that time in Earth’s history, national governments were issuing new debt on a daily basis, but most of the maturities ran from two years to thirty years, with the ten-year bond serving as the benchmark. Switzerland enjoyed one of the few governments ever deemed creditworthy enough to issue a hundred-year bond.”
“Which guaranteed a loss for the purchaser,” Lena observed.
“The bond’s real value might have appreciated if Switzerland had experienced an extended period of deflation,” Matteo pointed out. “It’s true that investors with access to a vault would have done better to simply keep their savings in cash, but our money managers at the time had no way of knowing if interest rates would become even more negative in the future.”
“So you’re saying that your insurance company wanted to lock in a small loss for one hundred years rather than waiting and perhaps having the opportunity to lock in a bigger loss at a later date?”
“I wouldn’t have put it exactly like that,” the executive protested mildly. “You have to understand that our investment activity at all times is based on the prevailing economic theories.”
“There was an economic theory that said paying a government to borrow your money was a good idea?”
“Actually, the whole concept of negative interest rates and coupons was supposed to be impossible. If our predecessors had been paying closer attention, they might have detected the problem in the early 21st
