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Authors: John Jackson Miller
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back.”
“How much?”
“A hundred
billion dollars.”
“Good luck with that,” Trovatelli said. She
looked at Bridget slyly. “Still, he’s kind of cute…for an imbecile.”
“I’m sure he thinks so,” Bridget
said. “He’s gonna have to hope the judge back on
Earth thinks so too, if this doesn’t work.”
***
This
isn’t going to work ,
Jamie thought. Here he was, 158 trillion kilometers from home and a hundred
billion dollars in the hole. Well, more than that, actually — he hadn’t told Falcone everything, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to.
And he was freezing his ass off.
Alone on one of the rotating
cargo decks, he sat in his space suit, helmet and gloves off. He only had the
one suit he’d worn to Altair, and that still smelled like guacamole. He’d asked
for more clothes, but they’d left Altair in such a hurry he could only get the
space suit. He was in his jockey shorts underneath, and the suit’s warmer
wasn’t doing its job.
The troopers had promised more
clothing was packed in the gear they’d shipped. He hoped it was true: at this
point, he was willing to make a turtleneck from one of Arbutus Dinner’s socks. The
entourage had brought a total of six ’boxes from Altair. That included two for
personnel and two for shuttle conversion, plus one more for supplies they weren’t
likely to find stationside. He hoped something his
size was in there.
And then there was the final
container, jokingly known as the “general store,” which had all any itinerant
trader needed to open negotiations with new species. The store would be married
to one or more of the personnel containers and an engine to make the trading
vessel. The smaller items had been unloaded, and he had been spending his time
studying up on his new job.
There was “the briefcase,” a
throwback to the traveling salesmen of the twentieth century. One side of the
case contained the handheld menu that operated the large fabricator in the
store. Up to a certain level of complexity, many products could be manufactured
on the scene: it made a lot more sense than shipping one of everything by the ’boxful.
So rather than bringing a sample of everything Quaestor
had for sale, the trader could use the briefcase to produce a small number of
items as examples, as long as all the component elements were in supply. After
a sale, Quaestor would bring in an entire factory to
produce the desired items in whatever quantity was demanded. Quaestor sold the fabricators, too, but in custom sizes
suited for the consuming species — and loaded with whatever patented recipes the
customers had bought licenses for. Jamie hoped someone had programmed it with
some tailored shirts from Ascot Chang. The Dragon’s Depot was a long way from
Manhattan.
On the other side was the
assayer, an isopanel that calculated market values
back home for goods found on the frontier. It was the same system Jamie was
working with on Ops and so the information was always a little out of date: its
data could only be updated when another traveler arrived through the whirlibang with more recent commodity quotes. But at least
it was a system he was familiar with.
And there was the badge, which identified
him as a representative of Quaestor, a trading firm
licensed by Earth, a member in good standing of the Signatory Systems. It was a
golden, gaudy thing, festooned with pins and beads and clockwork that moved; Quaestor’s designers had used a chelengk,
a decoration from the Ottoman Empire, as a model. Jamie thought the tacky thing
would have been rejected by even the flashiest of sultans.
The designers had crafted it to
be noticeable by aliens of all species, whatever their sensory capabilities:
they’d left nothing out. In addition to its garish looks, a jeweled section
spun for the motion sensitive and a small heater gave it a unique infrared
signature. It made a little squawking sound every minute, as well as emitting
signals beyond human hearing. It felt
“How much?”
“A hundred
billion dollars.”
“Good luck with that,” Trovatelli said. She
looked at Bridget slyly. “Still, he’s kind of cute…for an imbecile.”
“I’m sure he thinks so,” Bridget
said. “He’s gonna have to hope the judge back on
Earth thinks so too, if this doesn’t work.”
***
This
isn’t going to work ,
Jamie thought. Here he was, 158 trillion kilometers from home and a hundred
billion dollars in the hole. Well, more than that, actually — he hadn’t told Falcone everything, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to.
And he was freezing his ass off.
Alone on one of the rotating
cargo decks, he sat in his space suit, helmet and gloves off. He only had the
one suit he’d worn to Altair, and that still smelled like guacamole. He’d asked
for more clothes, but they’d left Altair in such a hurry he could only get the
space suit. He was in his jockey shorts underneath, and the suit’s warmer
wasn’t doing its job.
The troopers had promised more
clothing was packed in the gear they’d shipped. He hoped it was true: at this
point, he was willing to make a turtleneck from one of Arbutus Dinner’s socks. The
entourage had brought a total of six ’boxes from Altair. That included two for
personnel and two for shuttle conversion, plus one more for supplies they weren’t
likely to find stationside. He hoped something his
size was in there.
And then there was the final
container, jokingly known as the “general store,” which had all any itinerant
trader needed to open negotiations with new species. The store would be married
to one or more of the personnel containers and an engine to make the trading
vessel. The smaller items had been unloaded, and he had been spending his time
studying up on his new job.
There was “the briefcase,” a
throwback to the traveling salesmen of the twentieth century. One side of the
case contained the handheld menu that operated the large fabricator in the
store. Up to a certain level of complexity, many products could be manufactured
on the scene: it made a lot more sense than shipping one of everything by the ’boxful.
So rather than bringing a sample of everything Quaestor
had for sale, the trader could use the briefcase to produce a small number of
items as examples, as long as all the component elements were in supply. After
a sale, Quaestor would bring in an entire factory to
produce the desired items in whatever quantity was demanded. Quaestor sold the fabricators, too, but in custom sizes
suited for the consuming species — and loaded with whatever patented recipes the
customers had bought licenses for. Jamie hoped someone had programmed it with
some tailored shirts from Ascot Chang. The Dragon’s Depot was a long way from
Manhattan.
On the other side was the
assayer, an isopanel that calculated market values
back home for goods found on the frontier. It was the same system Jamie was
working with on Ops and so the information was always a little out of date: its
data could only be updated when another traveler arrived through the whirlibang with more recent commodity quotes. But at least
it was a system he was familiar with.
And there was the badge, which identified
him as a representative of Quaestor, a trading firm
licensed by Earth, a member in good standing of the Signatory Systems. It was a
golden, gaudy thing, festooned with pins and beads and clockwork that moved; Quaestor’s designers had used a chelengk,
a decoration from the Ottoman Empire, as a model. Jamie thought the tacky thing
would have been rejected by even the flashiest of sultans.
The designers had crafted it to
be noticeable by aliens of all species, whatever their sensory capabilities:
they’d left nothing out. In addition to its garish looks, a jeweled section
spun for the motion sensitive and a small heater gave it a unique infrared
signature. It made a little squawking sound every minute, as well as emitting
signals beyond human hearing. It felt
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