Read Online March: A Tale of Salmon and Swedes (The Glothic Tales Book 4) by Derek Haines - Free Book Online Page B

in deep thought in the sitting room, digesting his lunch, as well as the history of the Erdean Salmon Conglomerate, now that his Q’muniktor was securely connected via Glothcom to the Glothic Treasury Archive. From there, he could access the Global And Regional Bilateral Agreements Granting Entries, which contained the complete historical record of import and export transactions between Erde and Gloth. While salmon was clearly the main export from Erde over millions of years, he found the records pertaining to arms technology imports of more interest. In value, they marginally exceeded Erde’s total export revenue. By comparison, since the Erdean relocation to Earth, these technology imports had fallen to almost nothing.
    He made some notes as he read and cross-referenced, which helped him clarify his thinking. While the ancient force field remained in place, without viable entry ports, Glothic export of military technology could only be delivered in very limited quantity to Earth, as payment in kind for salmon and other imported produce from Earth. The fact that Earth was not able to pay via the EdErg Wealth Exchange was also another handicap. Yet to convince his father to finance these entry ports, he needed to be able to find a way to generate huge profits from Earth exports, which would be next to impossible to deliver to Gloth in the tonnage required to generate enough income, without new entry and exit ports in the force field. By his calculations, using the current shuttle transport, which could carry a payload of less than half a tonne, the maximum export potential was only around ten months by the EdErg index. Not even enough for one tenth of a small glass of Fozzoxly, let alone two entry ports. To make enough profit, he noted that he of course first needed to secure enough reliable supply of products, but also to have the availability of access ports for a fleet of fifty thousand tonne cargo shuttles.
    ‘You’re hard at work it seems,’ Trys said, when she arrived with a tray of afternoon tea.
    ‘But making little progress.’
    ‘It’s less than a day since you arrived, so I doubt you will find all the answers to your questions so soon. Relax for a while and wait. I'm sure that opportunities and pleasant surprises will come your way, as you come to understand better the way Earth works. It took me a year before I got a grasp of the ways on this odd little planet.’
    ‘I don't have that long.’
    ‘Don't fret. I'll fill in some of the gaps for you and speed things up,’ she laughed. ‘Now, it's afternoon tea time, so it’s officially time to stop work and stop worrying.
    ‘Officially?’
    ‘Oh yes. Everything here stops for tea. Even cricket.’
    ‘What's cricket?
    ‘Do some night time reading on THE. If I tried to explain cricket to you, we would be here for at least a year or more. It's so complicated that only a very small percentage of Earth’s population understand it. Enough to say that it's a sport, bordering on a religion, which is played over five whole days, and then very often in the end, neither side wins.’
    ‘Is that because they stop too often for tea?’
    ‘Ah! Yes, perhaps, March.’
    ‘Can I ask you if you have approached the subject of installing entry ports with the Grand Council, or perhaps, with my father?’ he asked, changing the subject in an instant.
    ‘You are fixed on your task here it would seem. But yes, of course I have. It isn’t possible though, as they are not only extremely expensive; but before they could be installed, the whole force field would need an extensive and costly upgrade. The total cost would far exceed any realistic estimate of the increased trade opportunities that could be created by them. The last costing forecast I prepared a few years ago for the Grand Council estimated that the total cost of new entry ports would be in the vicinity of four thousand times the anticipated return from the wholesaling of Earth exports, and income from Earth