In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 47: Tales Of Two Businesses

Great Mandan Laker's crew all returned to the station at various intervals after they had gone aboard ship to make their schedule arrangements. Joseph still wanted to do most of the repositions the ship would require himself. Practice was the only way to get more comfortable with docking the new ship.

Urgent as that need was, he couldn't resist the temptation to spend some time on Four Machines Station. Despite his earlier indifference, even Charlie decided to come talk to the mine residents for a while. They hadn't been in space that long yet, but all were aware how rare these opportunities would be. Even their delivery points, more civilized and well-populated than the mines, often wouldn't be worth a trip off the ship.

In the Four Machines cafeteria, several of the freighter crew sat and chatted with clusters of off-duty locals. Excitement was evident on the faces of the older miners and in the exuberant behavior of the children, which made Joseph wonder just how long it had been since they had last had visitors. Joseph poured himself some coffee and went to join Rhett at a table by the exterior window, where the back end of Great Mandan Laker was visible.

"I was just admiring your ship." Rhett lowered his own coffee mug as Joseph sat down. "Fine-looking piece of equipment you got yourself there."

"Thank you. Even better, she operates flawlessly, at least so far. I think she looks rather like a massive catfish."

Rhett laughed and looked at the ship again. "There is some resemblance, now that you point it out. What are the bulged out lines from the bow to the stern?"

"Access corridors. The mechanical sections are all at the stern. Bridge, quarters and living space is in the bow, so there has to be a way to get between the two. They double as maintenance access for a lot of sensors and equipment on the hull or in the cargo bay, which is why there are six of them that all go to the same place."

"That explains a lot." Rhett ended his examination of the ship to return to his coffee. "How did you end up with an ore hauler? I remember either you or our buyer mentioned that this was your first voyage."

"A lot of effort and unusual trips." Joseph grinned and told the story of his partnership with Tyrone as briefly as he could manage. Purchase of Garden Variety Animal, freight runs to unaffiliated space, Tyrone and Justine's marriage and the desire of all three to expand their operation were the important points. The only thing to add was his discovery of the profit margins in deliveries from asteroid mines in fringe systems that motivated the whole scheme. "Once we've got a better handle on how the market for ore runs works, we may add another hauler or two. We'll have to find people we trust to crew them first, I already hired most of the ones we had."

"Ore prices do fluctuate, but they're virtually always high enough to make a profit," Rhett said. "That much I can tell you, otherwise we would never have invested in an asteroid mine. Why did you and your partner decide to go independent? You could have flown for a shipping company."

"We could have, and in a lot of ways that would have been easier." Painful memories of anxiety and frustration from the struggle to fill their schedule in the first few months surfaced. Once they built a solid client base it was much easier, and thankfully that hadn't taken long. "I think what it comes down to is the desire to be completely in charge of our own operations.

"We made our own decisions about repairs and maintenance, cargo and destinations, and all kinds of things. Most freight companies don't do many deliveries to unaffiliated space with their own ships in the first place, they contract most of them to shipowners like us. That was how we filled most of our outbound trips. Crew decisions were in the mix too, if we were both pilots for the same company there would be no guarantee we'd be placed on the same ship."