Owner's Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper) (28 page)

“Forty.”

He puckered like he wanted to spit on the deck but refrained and swallowed. “You’d be lucky to get thirty for it in scrap.”

Kirsten looked alarmed. “Is it that bad?”

Chief Baily scratched the side of his face with square fingers and muttered, scowling at the deck. “Sorry, Ms. Kingsley, but ya. ’S that bad, and bangers who left a ship in this condition should be put out a lock to walk home.”

Mr. Kimball turned to Kirsten. “How badly do you want this fig leaf?”

She glanced up at him. “What’s your deal?”

“I’ll give ya thirty, and he buys it for forty. I make my book, you get whatever the devil it is you want him to have it for, and we never had this conversation.”

Kirsten looked at me with the question on her face, Mr. Kimball turned to look at me as well.

“Forty sounds acceptable, but lemme check with Mr. Simpson as to the state of my capitalization, and I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve secured funding.”

“You know you’re basically buying scrap metal?” Mr. Kimball asked.

“I’m pretty sure I know what I’m buying, Mr. Kimball.”

Chief Bailey muttered, “Kids.”

“Okay, then,” Kirsten said, looking around. “Ishmael, if you’d get a hold of Willie? I think he’s got what you need already lined up. Thank you, Haverhill. I appreciate your help.”

He rubbed a hand along his jaw line. “I’m not sure what game you’re playing, Kirsten, but as long as I’m making my book, I’ll to play along.”

“I owe you, Haverhill,” she said, before turning to the lock and punching the key to open it up. “Go make me safe, Adrian. We’re due in the office in half an hour.”

He led the way off the ship followed by Kirsten and Haverhill Kimball. Chief Bailey stumped slowly toward the lock, his head swiveling back and forth, taking in the dirt and the broken parts. He had a thoughtful looking frown, and dragged his feet enough to let the others get well ahead before turning to me, and spearing me with a baleful stare.

“You serious about running this banging bucket a bolts?”

“Yes, Chief, I am. If I can line up the credits, I’m gonna take her sailing.”

He cackled softly. “Good. You need an engineer?”

I blinked. “I will, yes. I’m not certified on this.”

He nodded and took a last look around. “When the time comes? Call Kirsten and tell her you wanna talk to her Gramps. I heard he’s thinking of comin’ out of retirement. Old fool.”

“Thanks, Chief. I appreciate the lead.”

He just looked at me, his head nodding a bit unevenly. Then he snorted and held out his hand. We shook and he nodded again.

From the dock, Kirsten yelled back into the ship. “Gramps? You comin’?”

He shot me a grin and a wink and muttered, “Kids!” before turning, stumping down the ramp, and falling in behind the group.

Chapter Twenty-Three
Diurnia Orbital:
2372-December-25

When I met William Simpson, I had no idea what to ask, or how to go about it. After the obligatory greetings, we took seats in the comfy chairs and gazed out into the dark. We sat so long, I almost wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but eventually he broke our silence.

“How have you done so far, Ishmael?”

“Not too bad, sir. I’m not sure how she’s done it but Kirsten has managed to get the price of the ship down to forty. Now I need to get the money to buy it.”

“Excellent. And crew? Have you come up with a crew yet?”

“I think so. One of the Able Spacers followed me from the
Agamemnon
and I’ll have Christine Maloney. I’m thinking I need one more quarter share for helm watch and an engineer, of course. I may have found him.”

“And how will you differentiate yourself? Any luck there?”

“No, sir. We’ll have to base it on service, because everybody with a small ship is competing on price and speed. We just don’t know what that service will be.”

He nodded in the dimness. “It’ll come, my boy. Be diligent.”

We lapsed into silence again for a few heartbeats before he turned to me. “So, you probably need some money now, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, we’ve got some paperwork to file to incorporate. Now that the name’s registered we can incorporate as soon as you’ve convened your board of directors.” He paused. “How much capitalization do you need?”

I shrugged. “As much as I can get, I think.”

He laughed at that. “Hardly, my boy. Too much is worse than too little. You’d wind up owing too many people, serving too many masters.” He paused. “How much will the ship cost to redeem from the breaker’s yard?”

“Forty million.” I couldn’t believe I was actually even saying that let alone spending it.

“And you’re sure you won’t take your share of the prize money and retire to grow roses or something?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We don’t know how much that is yet, my boy.”

“I know, sir, but I want to be out there.”

“Just checking.” He smiled at me. “You know you’re crazy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. In that case, let’s sign some papers, and you can go buy your ship.”

I must have gaped at him but he didn’t seem to notice. He reached down beside his chair, and pulled up a legal tablet. A flick of the thumb switch brought up the document he was looking for, the backlight on the screen making his wrinkled face glow. He flipped through three or four pages of text, scanning each page rapidly as he did so. At the end he nodded to himself and reset the document to the beginning. He handed the table to me.

“Read that carefully. It’s not long. If you agree to the terms, then sign it and we’ll take care of the rest. In a nutshell, your company will have nine shares, five stock holders. Privately held, preferred stock, each share is worth ten million credits with a dividend rate set at five percent of face value. The first dividend is due five stanyers from the anniversary of incorporation.”

He spooled it off like it meant nothing. Perhaps to him it did. I took the tablet and began reading. I recognized some of the language from my academy days, and from the many contracts I had used and been subject to myself over the stanyers. A page or so of preliminaries, agreements binding me to the laws governing business practice, statement of company name, a short statement of intended business activities, and a page listing the board of directors. The documents listed me as chairman of the board with five shares. It listed Dr. William Simpson as treasurer. There were three other names I didn’t recognize—Avram Schroeder as secretary, and Enid Clearwater and Roger Wentworth as members at large, each with one share. The document further went on to stipulate a face value of ten million credits on issuance, and a dividend rate of five percent due in five stanyers, just as Mr. Simpson had sketched out.

I read that section twice.

“Mr. Simpson, I’m not following this valuation section. I have five of the nine shares that are each worth ten million.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t have fifty million, sir. How does this work?”

“No, you have the whole company now. This document carves it up into nine pieces, five of them you will keep, and you will sell four of them for ten million each, providing your company with the funds it needs to prosper. In five standard years you’ll begin paying us dividends of five percent per stanyer, or more likely, you’ll buy the shares back from us.”

“But who are these people, sir? I mean, I recognize your name, but who are the rest?”

“Avram is an old friend of Roni’s. Very old money. He and Roni trade projects. She was very taken with you, by the way, my boy, and under different circumstances she’d have probably financed it all. She thinks you’re going places.”

“You mean besides Jett and Dree?”

He laughed his raspy laugh. “Yes, yes. Quite so. Anyway, since she can’t invest under the circumstances, Avram is her proxy. Enid Clearwater is one of my clients. Roger is one of Barbara Greene’s. We try to share the opportunities where we can.”

“Mr. Simpson, it’s been a long time since I was in finance class. The four of you are giving me forty million credits to start my company.”

“Not giving—no. It’s an investment. We believe we’ll make that forty million back with interest.”

“But what about collateral, and risk, and all that?”

“Oh, it’s a risk, but ...” he shrugged. “Personally, I think it’s a good risk. I’ve met you. I’ve seen what you’ve done. Roni has watched you since you got out of the academy, and she’s frankly quite impressed, my boy.”

“But...” I didn’t know where I was going. The whole situation seemed too good to be true, and I was leery of anything that seemed that good. “When I talked with Mr. Larks, he said I should take the money from my settlement and retire.”

“He would. We made him senior partner to protect us from the idiots.”

“I don’t follow.”

“If you were the type who was inclined to take his advice, you’d never have met Roni or me. This deal would have died on the vine. Dick invests in assets. He advises his clients to invest in assets. He’s a hard-core, cold-blooded, bottom-line guy, and as such he’s the perfect filter. People who only pay attention to assets usually miss the big opportunities.”

“And you think this is a big opportunity? Me?”

“Oh, yes, my boy. I certainly do.”

“Can I ask why, sir?”

“You can ask, but the answer isn’t really anything I can point to. It’s part history, part chemistry, part something that I can’t put a name on. You have it. Both Roni and I see it. We’re wrong occasionally, but we’re right more often than we’re wrong, and it only takes a few really large wins to offset a lot of small losses.”

I almost choked. “Forty million is a small loss?”

He grinned at me, his wrinkled face seeming to almost fold in on itself. “Well, not to you!” His raspy laugh came out of the darkness. “Roni and I, we invest in people, not assets. It pays off much better.”

I looked back at the document and realized I probably should have it vetted by a lawyer. Out of the corner of my eye I saw William Simpson sitting patiently watching the ships that sailed between the stars. There was nothing in the agreement that cost me any money, and no stipulations that appeared complex enough to hide any meaning. Most of it was simple boilerplate language that I recognized.

I signed it and handed it back.

Mr. Simpson took it with a smile. “What? You don’t want a lawyer to check it?”

I shook my head. “It’s a risk, but...” I shrugged.

He held out his hand. “Congratulations, Captain Wang. We’ll get the articles of incorporation filed today, and settle the purchase agreements with Kirsten and Haverhill. You’ll be required to hold a board of directors meeting sometime in the next year, and I’m sure the other members would like to meet you sooner rather than later, so be thinking about that.”

“Maybe I’ll take you all out for a dinner cruise.”

He looked at me curiously. “What’s that, my boy?”

I shook my head. “Nothing, sir. Just an idea we’ve been banging around. If it comes to anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Okay, you do that.” He reviewed the document on his screen and then filed it. “Well, I suspect we’ll be having the formal signing tomorrow or the next day, but go ahead and start assembling your crew, and getting that ship ready for space. You’ll own it by the end of the year.” He paused and turned to me, his eyes glimmering in the dimness. “And if the
Chernyakova
earns what I think it’ll earn, you’re going to be very glad you’ve got a ship to sail on.”

Chapter Twenty-Four
Diurnia Orbital:
2372-December-25

“Ms. Arellone? What do we need to do before we can move aboard?”

We headed down to the docks, but my mind was going in five directions at once.

“Food, pots and pans, plates, utensils...” She frowned, looking at her reflection in the metal of the lift doors. “Bed linens, stuff for the head.”

“If we had the linens and hygiene supplies, we could sleep aboard.” I was trying to think of the smallest level necessary. “We’re already eating out, and what we need for us is relatively minor in terms of food and kitchen gear.”

She shuddered dramatically. “Would you want to sleep on one of those mattresses, Skipper?”

I frowned. “Good point.”