Beggar's Can't Be Choosers

Nathan looked over the shipping notices with a sigh. There were plenty of passengers ready to go but even if he took on all the waiting cargo, he'd barely fill half of his hold. Since Wildeman was only a Jump-1 trip away, the collapsible tanks had been stored away and he had even more cargo space to fill.

Listings for things he could trade on spec were even more dismal. There were tons of grain, but the asking price was a bit too high for Nathan's tastes. There was also a lot of armored vehicles, but even if he thought there was a market for the stuff, he'd never be able to afford one of them.

Still, Canary Gold had offered him a lead and he now sat in the offices of the Ministry of Natural Resources hoping that there might be something for him here. The waiting room was stark and drab, even for a low-tech world like Iilgan. The civil service that ran the place operated with an eye for efficiency, not aesthetics.

Nathan had just tried to find a new, least uncomfortable position, when a woman came into the waiting area.

"Mr. Fletcher?" the woman said, "I'm Erika Fee."

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am," said Nate, rising to his feet and shaking her hand.

"Likewise," said Ms. Fee, "I hear you've got an interest in moving some cargo for us. Let's go into my office and see what we've got for you."

He followed her down a grey-green hallway and into a small office. He took a seat in front of a battered steel desk and nearly goggled at the crude terminal she had sitting on it. Iilgan was a pretty nice place to visit, but the lack of technology never made you feel like staying.

"Iilgan has a fairly small mining presence and so we generally consume everything we produce. Not a whole lot to spare for export. But sometimes we get some excesses that we can profitably trade away to our neighbors. How big is your ship, Captain Fletcher?"

"Depends on how far you want the cargo to go," replied Nathan. Our next stop is Wildeman and for a Jump-1 we've got 190 tons of cargo space. We could make a Jump-2 if the cargo was right, but that reduces our cargo room to 150 tons."

"Excellent. We don't have any on-going trades with anyone at Jump-2, but your cargo capacity is perfect for Wildeman. We recently uncovered a huge deposit of Zinc. It was more than adequate to bring our stocks up to full and we had enough to offer it out on the open market. Wildeman jumped at the chance to get it. They've got a number of industrial uses for it. The only problem is that they've got a primary facility where they want it shipped and they really want the whole thing in bulk. Locally, we just don't have the shipping capacity to move all that ore over there in one go. If we broke it up, it'd take several trips and we'd wind up losing money on it."

"But by having it sit here, you're also losing money on it."

"And it's taking up valuable warehouse space. Yes, you can see our problem. Your ship is well-suited to solving that problem for us. You can haul the zinc over in one shipment and we'll turn a nice profit on it."

"Then there should be a bit of bonus for helping you realize that profit."

"Absolutely, Captain. We're prepared to pay you a 50% premium on the standard shipping rates for you to take this to Wildeman."

Nathan did some fast calculations. Fifteen hundred credits a ton for...

"How many tons?" asked Nathan.

"One hundred fifty on the nose," said Ms. Fee.

Nathan's wearables finished the calculations and the profit margin was very good indeed.

"I think that's more than fair," said Nathan. "I believe we have a deal Ms. Fee. We'll be departing in a couple of days. If you can get your ore down to the spaceport in 24-48 hours, we'll see that it's loaded up."

Ms. Fee's fingers flew over the keyboard. "I'm authorizing the transfer now, Captain Fletcher. You should see the cargo arriving by noon tomorrow. It will come with an invoice you can take to the Iilgan embassy in Wildeman. They will be happy to make payment for your delivery there."

"Very good. Is there anything else?"

There was a grinding and groaning noise and Ms. Fee tore off a sheet of paper from the printer sitting on a small file cabinet. "Just sign at the bottom and take the bottom copy for yourself."

Nathan did so and Ms. Fee escorted him to the door. "Thanks so much, Captain Fletcher, it's a pleasure doing business with you."

"The pleasure is all mine, Ms. Fee", said Nathan. As we wandered out of the ministry, he marveled at the efficiency of the process and the nice paycheck this run was going to earn him.