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me.
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"Johnny finding your client for you?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yes. As you suggested, I have invited her to dinner here with us."
"Good enough. Jan and the kids will be in when the business is over."
Johnny Peregrine came over to the table. "Boosting cargo this trip?"
"Sure." The babble in the room faded out. It was time to start the main event.
The launch window to Luna was open and would be for another couple hundred
hours. After that, the fuel needed to give cargo pods enough velocity to put
them in transfer orbit to the Earth-Moon system would go up to where nobody
could afford to send down anything massy.
There's a lot of traffic to Luna. It's cheaper, at the right time, to send ice
down from the Belt than it is to carry it up from Earth. Of course, the
Lunatics have to wait a couple of years for their water to get there, but
there's always plenty in the pipeline. Luna buys metals, too, although they
don't pay as much as Earth does.
"I'm ready if there's anything to boost," I said.
"I think something can be arranged," al Shamlan said.
"Hah!" Hornbinder was listening to us from his place at the bar. He laughed
again. "Iris doesn't have any dee for a big shipment. Neither does
Westinghouse. You want to boost, you'll deal with us."
I looked to al Shamlan. It's hard to tell what he's thinking, and not a lot
easier to read Johnny
Peregrine, but they didn't look very happy. "That true?" I asked.
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Hornbinder and Rhoda Hendrix came over to the table. "Remember, we sent for
you," Rhoda said.
"Sure." I had their guarantee in my pouch. Five thousand francs up front, and
another five thousand if I got here on time. I'd beaten their deadline by
twenty hours, which isn't bad considering how many million kilometers I had to
come. "Sounds like you've got a deal in mind."
She grinned. She's a big woman, and as hard as the inside of an asteroid. I
knew she had to be sixty, but she had spent most of that time in low gee.
There wasn't much cheer in her smile. It looked more like the tomcat does when
he's trapped a rat. "Like Horny says, we have all the deuterium. If you want
to boost for Iris and Westinghouse, you'll have to deal with us."
"Bloody hell." I wasn't going to do as well out of this trip as I'd thought.
Hornbinder grinned. "How you like it now, you goddam bloodsucker?"
"You mean me?" I asked.
"Fucking A. You come out here and use your goddam ship a hundred hours, and
you take more than we get for busting our balls a whole year. Fucking A, I
mean you."
I'd forgotten Dalquist was at the table. "If you think boostship captains
charge too much, why don't you buy your own ship?" he asked.
"Who the hell are you?" Horny demanded.
Dalquist ignored him. "You don't buy your own ships because you can't afford
them. Ship owners have to make enormous investments. If they don't make good
profits, they won't buy ships, and you won't get your cargo boosted at any
price."
He sounded like a professor. He was right, of course, but he talked in a way
that I'd heard the older kids use on the little ones. It always starts fights
in our family and it looked like it was having the same result here.
"Shut up and sit down, Horny." Rhoda Hendrix was used to being obeyed.
Hornbinder glared at
Dalquist, but he took a chair. "Now let's talk business," Rhoda said.
"Captain, it's simple enough. We'll charter your ship for the next seven
hundred hours."
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"That can get expensive."
She looked to al Shamlan and Peregrine. They didn't look very happy. "I think
I know how to get our money back."
"There are times when it is best to give in gracefully," al Shamlan said. He
looked to Johnny
Peregrine and got a nod. "We are prepared to make a fair agreement with you,
Rhoda. After all, you've got to boost your ice. We must send our cargo. It
will be much cheaper for all of us if the cargoes go out in one capsule. What
are your terms?"
"No deal," Rhoda said. "We'll charter Cap'n Rollo's ship, and you deal with
us."
"Don't I get a say in this?" I asked.
"You'll get yours," Hornbinder muttered.
"Fifty thousand," Rhoda said. "Fifty thousand to charter your ship. Plus the
ten thousand we promised to get you here."
"That's no more than I'd make boosting your ice," I said. I usually get five
percent of cargo value, and the customer furnishes the dee and reaction mass.
That ice was worth a couple of million when it arrived at Luna. Jefferson
would probably have to sell it before then, but even with discounts, futures
in that much water would sell at over a million new francs.
"Seventy thousand, then," Rhoda said.
There was something wrong here. I picked up my beer and took a long swallow.
When I put it down, Rhoda was talking again. "Ninety thousand. Plus your ten.
An even hundred thousand francs, and you get another one percent of whatever
we get for the ice after we sell it."
"A counteroffer may be appropriate," al Shamlan said, He was talking to Johnny
Peregrine, but he said it loud enough to be sure that everyone else heard him.
"Will Westinghouse go halves with
Iris on a charter?" Johnny nodded.
Al Shamlan's smile was deadly. "Charter your ship to us, Captain Kephart. One
hundred and forty thousand francs, for exclusive use for the next six hundred
hours. That price includes boosting a cargo capsule, provided that we furnish
you the deuterium and reaction mass."
"One fifty. Same deal," Rhoda said.
"One seventy-five."
"Two hundred." Somebody grabbed her shoulder and tried to say something to
her, but Rhoda pushed him away. "I know what I'm doing, Two hundred thousand."
Al Shamlan shrugged. "You win. We can wait for the next launch window." He got
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