Freelance TravellerKursis Charter
36. Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am
Date: 208-993 Imperial.
Location: Adukgin (0722).
"Right", said Fish, "we want barbed wire and minefields all round the cargo hatch to keep the little buggers out. Shotguns all round. I don't want those blasted things in my cables."
"Perhaps I could arrange a few claymore mines..." Maelcum drawled. He steepled his fingers, innocently.
Silea rolled her eyes and put in "If you're that worried, we can park the ship at the highport and take the shuttle down."
The Avaricious had considered not trading at Adukgin at all, since there just weren't many people to do business with. In a place like this, there was a good chance that a regular free trader would make less in a week than they'd pay on the mortgage. But Sir David's part ownership and special finance cut their overheads, so they went for it.
Besides, them starport records could be slippery varmints and you never knew how long you'd be on planet hunting them down. Might as well use that time to hunt cargo.
It took about 10 minutes of comm calls from orbit to locate the starport records and get them shipped up to Avarice Rewarded. They were waiting on the highport when the ship docked.
It took 2 hours to unload 45 dtons of bulk freight from Kerin's Tyr, most of it food.
It took about 3 days to sell the fancy hand-carved wooden furniture Luan had bought in the Confederation of City States on Kerin's Tyr. All that time on the train had brought the local woodwork to her attention. It fetched a good price on this fairly rich, semi-desert world; but she was glad they hadn't brought a hold full of the stuff because it would probably have taken weeks to sell.
Luan kept an eye on the starport commodity trading board to see if anything local was offered for sale. In the week they spent in system, the only offers were 80 dtons of old rope and 150 dtons of bulk plastic. Neither looked more profitable than freight, and neither lot would fit in the hold anyhow.
But they did pick up a pretty full hold of freight bound for Sentry, most of it split off from larger ships headed elsewhere. And they got some passengers, two for the low berths and two fresh victims for Sir David's cooking.
Fish sat in the engine room on the run out to jump, throwing darts at a picture of a Graddin and looking smug.