We continued through the flea market, eventually passing by slot four seventy-eight, empty since we hadn’t set up, and walked by Virgil’s wife with a nod, a smile, and a wave. Bev and I did our best not to crack up but we did admire her chair.
A few booths farther down a display of necklaces caught my eye. The seller had pinned them to a fabric backing for display. Each was unique. Bev saw me looking and said, “I gotta give you credit, Ish. You’ve got one hell of an eye.” She turned back to look for Diane and Francis and nodded discreetly at the necklaces. I could see Diane’s eyes widen from where I was standing but she and Francis sauntered over nonchalantly. We all wandered over to the display.
The fellow behind the counter introduced himself as we approached, “Good day, gentle people. My name is Franz Neubert. These fine necklaces were created by my wife, Nerile, from only the finest local materials. May I show you anything in particular?”
The pieces consisted of small, highly polished beads with an accent stone or pendant hanging from each. Franz pointed out that they were strung on a slightly elastic thread that helped prevent breakage. He spent some time pointing out the durability of the workmanship. There was an excellent variety some were strung in a monochromatic pattern while others were brilliant explosions of color.
Diane saw the one I was focusing on and shook her head slightly. “It’s pretty, but you would have to be wearing just white or black for that one.”
I reconsidered the necklace and had to agree. Diane had style. If she said it was a problem, I wasn’t going to argue. There were enough other pieces in blacks, whites, blues, and soft yellows.
I was standing there considering another one when I realized that I was being crazy. The prices were good, but I tried to think about selling these in a flea market on St. Cloud. The necklace I was focusing on was made of dozens of small black beads with a gold colored vein running through it. The accent bead was a natural nugget of a gold colored mineral that I assumed was iron pyrite. The price on the display said five hundred creds. Even assuming that I could talk Franz down to something like three hundred, I had a hard time imagining that I would find a flea market buyer on St. Cloud who’d pay the kind of money it would take for a decent margin. I sighed and put the necklace down.
I bowed slightly to Franz and slipped from the booth to see what else I might be able to find. Beverly, Diane, and Francis followed. “What’s the matter?” Bev looked at me curiously when we had stepped out of earshot. Franz was busy with another set of customers at any rate.
I shook my head. “Those were beautiful, no question. The prices were good and the mass was ok.”
Francis raised an eyebrow. “I hear a but coming.”
“But I can’t afford to buy more than one or two of them and the prices I’d have to charge on St. Cloud I’m not sure I would make a good profit.”
We stood there, silent for a full tick. Diane finally spoke, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Bev sighed and shook her head. “Pity. He has some beautiful pieces.”
Francis nodded. “I knew I heard a but in there.”
We continued our shopping trip, eventually wandering to the loose gem dealers at the back of the hall. Francis, Diane, and Bev all bought a few things here and there.
Soon we heard the signal for the end of day and we joined the throng leaving the market.
On the way down in the lift, Francis asked, “You didn’t buy anything but the buckle?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t see anything except it and the necklaces that reached out to me. It wasn’t like the belts on Gugara. Pip’s handling the buckle deal and we’re probably going to buy ten, one each to go with the ones we have left.”
Diane nodded. “Some days are like that. You walk through and don’t see anything.”
Bev smiled at me. “Keep shopping. You’ve got good instincts.” The others nodded. “When you find something you like, let me know. I wanna buy some, too.”
We all had a good laugh. I looked around at them. “Can we find some dinner? I’m starved.”
Francis stopped the lift at level eight and led us to a nice place that specialized in pasta dishes. We spent the next two stans getting stuffed and just slightly tipsy on one too many bottles of wine. By the time we got back to the ship, the heavy food and unaccustomed alcohol took its toll on me and I had to call it a night.
Pip was going over some cargo data in his bunk when Bev and I wandered into the berthing area. “How was it?”
I shrugged. “Good, but I didn’t buy anything. The mass or the price—”
Bev cut in, “Or both.”
I nodded my agreement. “Or both, were too high. I didn’t see anything that grabbed me. There were some gem dealers but I don’t know anything about gems. I think they’re supposed to be clear and everything I saw was kinda cloudy and inconsistent.”
Bev finished for me, “So we went out to dinner and came home to sleep it off.”
I headed for my locker. “How’s by you?”
He gave a half shrug. “Quiet night. Got my manifest exercise in order. We’ve lined up some fresh produce on St. Cloud to swap the mushrooms for.”
By then I had slipped out of my civvies and into my ship-tee and boxers. I went to hang up my jacket and the buckle fell out. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot this.” I showed it to Pip. “I met Ingo and bought a buckle for my belt.”
He grinned. “The one Drus made for you?”
I nodded and pulled it out of my locker. I fumbled with it for a bit but finally got the thing attached. The ivy pattern and the knobbly gold colored finish of the buckle looked like they were made for each other. I strapped it on to see how it fit, just as Bev came out of the san. She froze and stared. I realized that I was standing there with my belt riding low around my hips wearing nothing but my ship-tee and boxers, just as she had been. I blushed furiously, I’m sure, and scrabbled the belt off.
Bev raised an eyebrow. “So that’s the one you were talking about?”
I nodded and she held out a hand. “Lemme see.”
I gave it to her, knowing I was going to regret it, but helpless to stop myself.
She ran it through her hands and fingered the ivy vines and leaves. She flexed it a couple of time and then handed it back. “Yeah, Drus knows her leather. That’s a real keepsake, Ish.”
I took it back from her and hung it in my locker. Pip was smirking behind his tablet, peeking out every so often to see my red face. Beverly, for her part, likewise in ship-tee and boxers crawled into her bunk with a groan. “Oh gods, duty tomorrow.”
Pip contributed a cheerful, “Ha-ha, I’m off.”
Bev and I both chuckled.
I reached up and clicked off my reading light. “I’ve got breakfast duty in the morning. Good night.”
“Night, Ish. Sleep well.” Pip’s voice had that distracted voice that he got when he was on the trail of a deal.
From below, I heard Bev mumble, “Sleep well…boy toy.” It was followed by a sleepy giggle.
Chapter 25
Margary Station
2352-January-13
Pip got up with me in the morning and helped set up for breakfast. We still had the issue of how many buckles to buy and we needed something else to take to St. Cloud for trade goods.
Cookie smiled when I stepped into the galley. “Good morning, young Ishmael. Your day off went well, I presume? I heard you visited the mushroom caves?”
“Morning, Cookie. Yes, very well, thank you. And, the caves were quite interesting.”
“Well, you’ll find today’s menu on your tablet. Can I trust you to handle breakfast solo this morning? I have some business ashore myself.”
Pip and I looked at each other. Cookie was leaving the ship?
I nodded. “No problem, my pleasure.”
“Thank you, young Ishmael, I’ve set the bread to rise but if you could get the biscuits and pie crusts…?”
“Of course, of course.”
He gave me an odd littl
e bow and left the galley. Pip and I looked at each other. “Solo?” Pip raised an eyebrow.
I shrugged. “Not like there’s anything on this menu I haven’t done a hundred times already.”
“True. And in port it’s slow, especially in the morning.”
“To tell ya the truth, it makes me feel better that he’s going ashore.”
Pip looked at me quizzically.
“Well, I’m not sure he hasn’t gone ashore in the evening, because he doesn’t talk about what he does. But I bet it has been ages since he’s gotten off this ship. I think his card game takes up a lot of his spare time.”
Pip nodded. “Yeah, me, too.”
“The never-going-ashore thing makes him seem a little…I don’t know…unnatural. This is better especially since we really don’t have enough to keep both of us busy.”
“Amen, brother. So, can I get an omelet? Lots of mushrooms and extra cheese, please.”
I chucked a towel at him. “Yeah, sure, if you’ll make the coffee for a change.”
A few ticks later we settled on the mess deck to eat. The biscuits were baking and I was ready to make omelets for anybody who wanted one. It was early yet and I had time to enjoy the fruits of my omelet pan.
“So, how many buckles?” I asked Pip.
He shrugged. “We have ten belts, we should take at least that many to match. Should we pick up some extras?”
“They’re excellent work, and not that much mass. If you get them for ten creds each, and they’re all in the two hundred gram range, that’s five per kilo. We’d burn two kilos for the first ten. What if we doubled it, how much would that be?”
Pip answered instantly, “Two hundred to three hundred depending on the price.”
“We’ve got three kilocreds…” We looked at each other and grinned in disbelief. “…but I don’t want to tie up all the cash if we don’t have a good cargo.”
“We only have about twelve kilos of available mass allotment between us, I think, maybe as many as fifteen. With twenty buckles, we’re down to around eight with some room for anything we might spot that’s small. We could get maybe forty additional buckles,” Pip rattled off in quick succession.
“But we’d be betting the farm in terms of mass,” I pointed out.
“Two things—no, three things left to consider.”
I raised my eyebrows in question.
He ticked them off on his fingers. “First, we’re almost certain to clear the first two kilos and the weight of the belts because those ten will evaporate on St. Cloud. Second, we don’t have a line on any other cargo. Third, the mass is only a problem if we find something we really want to buy.”
“Good points, tell me about St. Cloud.”
“Nice place.” Pip got the dreamy look and went into his recitation mode. “It’s one of the more established systems in the sector, owned jointly by a farming and a fishing company. The surface is about sixty percent ocean and the landmass is mostly divided into three continents. One is almost a continuous flat plain, one is mountainous, and the smallest island is near the southern pole. We’re picking up containers of grain, fish, mutton, and wool. We’re dropping machine parts and communications equipment.”
“Farmers, fishermen, and shepherds,” I summed up.
Pip blinked until his eyes focused on me again. “Yeah, sounds about right.”
“What’s with the wool? Is it raw or textiles?”
He pulled up the manifests on his tablet. “Bales. It could be either.”
“What’s the value?”
He grinned. “You’re good. Looks like bulk wool. I shoulda caught that.”
“You’re rubbing off on me. If you were living up in the mountains with a bunch of sheep, what would you do with your spare time? Besides the obvious.”
“Try to keep warm. I’d spin wool. You think the companies would let the herders keep some of it?”
“I’m pretty sure they would find ways to keep at least the odds and ends, perhaps buy it back from the company at wholesale, that kind of thing. Just like I bet they eat a lot of mutton and fish.”
Pip smiled. “Does that suggest anything to you?”
“Yeah. Let’s see if you can find a good deal on powdered dye.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “Primary colors like red, blue, yellow, maybe even black.”
“Why dye?” Pip asked, frowning in puzzlement.
“Well, sheep are almost always white. It just makes sense that a bit of color would make their goods sell better.”
“You think on a crooked path, my friend. I like that.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m right. I feel like I’m missing something.”
“What?”
“I dunno. But something.”
The entire environmental crew came in for breakfast and I had to get back to work. Pip waved as he left and I slipped into serving mode. Anyway, I had to get the biscuits out of the oven.
As expected, the pace on the mess deck was slow and spotty. I got the bread punched down around midmorning and set it to second proof. Clean up was easy and I even got a nice mushroom-barley soup going. Mr. Maxwell stopped by for coffee a couple of times and nodded to me without speaking. Cookie left some unbaked cobblers in the walk-in and I slid those into the ovens so they’d be ready for lunch. Even though I didn’t get a morning break, I confess it felt kinda nice pottering about the galley. I could see what Cookie enjoyed about it.
Around 11:00, just as I was setting up the lunch buffet, Cookie bipped me to let me know he’d be there by noon and I felt a little disappointed. I was beginning to anticipate doing lunch solo as well and the ideal appealed to me for some odd reason.
I had a lot of time to think about St. Cloud, too, in the back of my brain. I was having second thoughts about the dye idea. I was coming to the conclusion that we should just go ahead and buy up buckles for about half of the available remaining mass. That would leave some wiggle room in case they didn’t move, and give us something to sell beyond just the ten buckled belts. Something wasn’t quite right, but I just let it percolate.
The lunch set up went off without a hitch and Cookie breezed in just before noon. “Thank you, young Ishmael. Sometimes you just have to get out and about. I feel much better and you’ve done an excellent job.” He patted me on the shoulder.
“My pleasure, Cookie. It was fun.” I brought him up to speed on the lunch status.
Pip came in for a bowl of soup just before lunch prep was over with a smug look. “I found the dyes.”
“Did you buy any?”
He shook his head. “I found that thing you were missing.”
“What was it?”
“The dyes I found here came from the Erehwon Dyeworks on St. Cloud.”
We laughed. “That’s what I was missing. I bet they have roots and berries and such to dye their own wool.”
Pip shook his head. “Snails.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, apparently when processed they yield a really rich purple. There’s also a red and a black version. That’s in addition to the plant-based dyes.”
“So, what do we take?”
Pip shrugged. “We play it safe or we play it out. We’re out of here tomorrow afternoon. Whatever we get, we have to buy it today. Safe, we go with just the ten buckles, or maybe just a few more. Or we can fill up the mass with buckles and hope they like them as much there as we do here.”
I sighed. “You know, neither of those really appeals to me. What we need is something small that we can buy a lot of cheaply here that we can sell there at twice the price without costing an arm and a leg.”
Pip got a funny look then and fished in his pocket. “Like these?” He tossed three smooth stones onto the table. There were both flattened and round stones in natural looking, circular shapes. One looked like quartz with a silvery mineral threaded delicately through it. The second one was a rich blue that looked like the stone on Beverly’s belt buckle so it was probably lapis. The last one
was a lustrous black with a fine texture showing through the polish. None of them was more than three centimeters across. Each had a hole bored widthwise through the top. They looked like the accent stones on Neubert’s necklaces. I picked up one and didn’t want to put it down. The stone slid smoothly under my fingers as I rubbed it.
“Where’d you find these?”
“A guy back in the gem aisle had a booth. Just him and a couple of buckets full. They were three for a cred and I liked the way they felt.”
“How many of them do you think it would take to mass a kilo?”
Pip grinned. “A lot. These three averaged ten grams each.”
“Can you find him again? Because I think you found something here.”
“Yeah, how many do we want?”
“Let’s go with the ten buckles for the belts, twenty buckles extra. That leaves us, what? About six kilos?”
Pip nodded. “Something like that.”
“Two kilos of these would work out to about two hundred of them. The actual income isn’t very large but the margin is potentially pretty big.”
Pip shrugged. “Let’s go all six kilos. It’s not going to take that many creds so if we get stuck and need the mass we can just toss ’em.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said excitedly. “Let’s do it.”
Pip nodded and headed back out to finish the trading.
With Cookie back in the galley and lunch all ready, there wasn’t much for me to do and I had the afternoon clean up done almost as soon as lunch ended. Cookie planned a spicy beefalo dish for dinner and he began humming as he puttered around the galley. I pulled up a stool and watched for a time but he waved me off. “Go, young Ishmael. You didn’t get a break this morning, and I can certainly handle making a small batch of this by myself.” He smiled at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Thank you again for doing such an excellent job with the morning duty.”
“My pleasure, Cookie. I’m glad you got some time in port. Any time I can help like that, you know I’m always willing.”