Orbital Claims Adjuster: Adventures of a Jump Space Accountant Book 2 Read online

  Dashi smiled at her again. He had come first. “You only slept with me because you thought it might throw me off my game for finals.”

  “Why can’t a girl mix work and pleasure?”

  “No reason. Why are you really here?”

  “Why are you really here?” she countered.

  Dashi looked around. They were in an isolated bubble of seats. They could talk freely.

  “Swap?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to see the militia budget, and see what debate happens. My sources tell me they will have to lay up two cutters this year.”

  “Two cutters? Laid up? Why?”

  “They can’t do patrols anymore. Fusion plants are too inefficient. They can’t run propulsion and life support at the same time. Never mind electronics and weapons.”

  “But two at once? What will people say?”

  “They might not say anything. They might not know. The Militia might just put them in parking orbit near the stations and not tell anybody.”

  “But people will figure that out.”

  “Will they? What if they continue appointing captains and crews to them, but they never move. They just hide them in the paperwork. Unless you’re watching closely, you’ll never realize that those two never go on patrol.”

  “Interesting. Can’t they fix them?”

  “The superconductors are getting old. They can be refurbished, but that takes production capacity. There are only so many factories for parts.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Your turn.”

  Beth also paused and looked around. This conversation was unplanned, and they were unlikely to be targeted.

  “The monorail is shutting down a station out west. Not enough traffic they say.”

  “Really?”

  “No. There’s plenty of traffic. We need the parts. We’re going to disassemble the rails and use them for spares on the main line.”

  “Why?”

  “Same problem with the ships. Old empire technology is failing. Slowly, but failing. We can make more but only slowly. And we’re having some problems with resource allocation.”

  “Resource allocation? That wasn’t mentioned in the reports.”

  “Yes, it was all done in committee. We threatened to remove some items from the shared resource pool if we didn’t get more of what we want. We weren’t the only ones.”

  “Huh. What about the corporations out west?”

  “There is no single predominant one out there, just bits and pieces of various food companies. And buffalo farms. The executives don’t care about the price of buffalo, but the price of regular food could be a problem.”

  “Will it go up?”

  “Hard to tell. They might subsidize it.”

  Dashi drummed his fingers on his chair arm. “The food from out west is only the higher priced trays. They’ll keep the red, green, and blue trays the same price and push the prices on the higher trays. That’s what I’d do.”

  Beth smiled at him. “That’s why I like to talk to you. You always know the answers in advance. Tell me, how do you do that?”

  Dashi ignored the question. “It’s the only logical solution. Keeps the poor people happy, and the upper class can pay a credit or ten more for a meal.”

  “For now. But it won’t engender support.”

  “It’s the only logical thing to do, Beth.”

  “People don’t always follow logic, especially if you start taking away their privileges. And you never answered how you knew about the militia thing.”

  “I never did.”

  Beth smiled and patted his leg again. “You are a close one, Dashi. Everybody always underestimates you. Except me. I think that’s why we get along. What will the Militia do?”

  “Hide it. They won’t mention the ships being docked. They’ll just lie and say their patrol strength is unchanged. That way the current group of officers can retire and dump the problem on the next generation of leaders.”

  “The next generation. Meaning us?”

  “Meaning us,” agreed Dashi.

  The annual meeting limped along. Reports were presented and posted on the net. Formal resolutions that were identical to last year’s formal resolutions were adopted. Galactic Growing had lost a two-person courier ship in the far outer rings. The crew’s last daily status report said they were all down with some sort of flu but looking forward to a good night’s sleep before their final burn to bring them back in-system. They never made the final burn and didn’t communicate again. Maneuvering thruster failure in the Militia was up twenty four percent, but replacements were adequate. Fusion plants had dropped point five percent in efficiency across the fleet. Consumption of carrots was down thirteen percent. The price of fish was down thirty percent.

  Finally, the chairman banged his gavel and closed the meeting. Everyone shook hands and went home. Dashi hugged Beth before she left to mingle on her own personal journey of self-aggrandizement. He felt a bit sad. They were still friends, barely. He could see a time soon when they would become rivals and eventually enemies.

  He turned down the offer of a drink in a nearby bar from other colleagues and headed back to his hotel to get on the net. All the divisions of the Delta Corporation had to publish annual reports at the same time. Much could be learned from perusing them. And the wired connections on planet were much faster than the wireless ones in orbit.

  Dashi sat down in his hotel room and began to read. The empire was still gone. There were still no jump ships. Trade was reasonable. Nobody was starving. Inflation was almost non-existent. The stock market crept sideways. Corporations still maneuvered for advantage. The population grew slightly. Not enough for concern, but economists’ long-term forecasts were not optimistic. The money supply was having problems keeping up. Actually, there would be deflation in prices this year if current trends continued. Unemployment was very low but creeping up slowly. The only mild worry was that some marginal manufacturing plants were to be shut down, a hauler shuttle was decommissioned, and some marginal mines were to be shut. Galactic Growing was going to shut down an orbital nickel mine because the cost of repair parts made it uneconomical. They were also going to decommission one of their industrial size 3D printers.

  All this sounded benign, but Dashi knew there was another side to it. There were no new manufacturing plants being opened. Rebuilding the hauler shuttle was beyond their technological capacity, so it would never be replaced. The deflation was probably going to be permanent, and unemployed people would have to go somewhere, probably right here at landing, which would explain the small groups of younger men and women he saw lounging around during the day.

  But Mr. Dashi was more interested in the nickel mine. The system was swimming in nickel from the asteroids, and a little more or less wouldn’t make any difference. But nickel wasn’t the only thing that that mine produced. The list of byproducts included selenium, ruthenium, and many rare earth minerals. Most of the byproducts were listed not in percents, but as parts per million. But process enough nickel ore, and the parts per million added up.

  Ruthenium, selenium, and platinum group metals were critical materials for the manufacturing of ion thrusters and fusion plant magnetics. And you didn’t “decommission” a valuable 3D printer. Those were old empire. It must have broken and been unrepairable. That was one less source of high-tech material for the colony.

  After about six hours Dashi headed downstairs for a drink. He wanted to go out for a walk and decided to go to the bar his colleagues had invited him to after the meeting. He had barely stepped out of the lobby door before hotel security intercepted him.

  “Beg pardon, sir, but if you are looking for a drink or a bite to eat, there are some fine places over there,” said the uniformed guard, gesturing back across the street from the hotel.

  “I was thinking of going downtown to the conference center to meet up with some friends.”

  “It’s a little late for that, sir, and not the best idea to walk dow
n there alone at this time of night. We’d rather you didn’t. But if you are set on it, just give us a minute and we’ll rustle up a ground car and an escort or two.”

  “An escort? How dangerous is it down there?”

  “Not dangerous at all, sir. Fine place. Very safe. But the younger folks can get a little rambunctious at night out in the streets. Just blowing off steam, you understand. They would never bother a group of say three people. We’ll get you a couple of the boys lickety-split, and they’ll take you into the center there. We’d be embarrassed if an executive was harassed.”

  Dashi thanked him courteously for his help, but said he’d changed his plans and walked across the street to the secure bar instead.

  How many unemployed were there actually? Dashi wondered. If the Militia wasn’t reporting the status of its ships accurately, what else wasn’t being reported properly?

  ***

  The next morning Dashi took hotel transportation to the shuttle port. His shuttle took its place in the run up to the mass driver. Metal containers loaded with products were put on the kilometer-long track, and superconducting magnets accelerated them to orbital velocity. Dashi buckled in and carefully emptied his pockets and arranged his legs, arms, and clothes. The shuttle reached up to 4 Gs for an extended period, and he didn’t want a data pad in the wrong place to give him bruises or interrupt blood flow and cause him to pass out. The trans-sonic boost period seemed to take forever, but eventually they were airborne and free falling. Dashi waited while they floated and thought deeply about magnets and how important they were to Delta and its economy, and how they were manufactured.

  “It’s beginning,” Mr. Dashi said to himself.

  Chapter 2

  Jake had graduated from the TGI Merchant’s Academy with no fanfare. The other students had finished their exams, had them graded, found out their marks, celebrated, then attended the graduation ceremony accompanied by friends and family. Jake had been unable to attend his exams because he had been kidnapped by a rebel group who had framed him for killing his boss and trying to steal a shipload of weapons. He missed his graduation because he was involved in a firefight in an airlock in TGI main station that led to depressurizing a large part of a loading dock, theft of several hundred old-empire automatic weapons, and the death of his best friend. At least, that was the story.

  The reality was somewhat more complicated, and even his new boss, Mr. Dashi, didn’t know all of it. But Mr. Dashi had hushed up the more unsavory parts and struck a deal with Jake. If Jake kept his mouth shut, in return for a passing mark and a commission as a 4th Officer in the TGI Merchant Service, any militia charges would go away. Jake had agreed to four years of service and “special duty,” reporting at all times directly to Mr. Dashi.

  Mr. Dashi’s position was somewhat nebulous. Jake had known him as one of his professors and head of the students at the Merchant Academy. It later turned out that he was the second most senior TGI representative in this orbital sector and seemed to be in charge of many other things. He had no difficulty getting Jake transferred and seemed able to have Jake attached to any class or ship that he wanted. Mr. Dashi was well-spoken, neat, formal, and polite at all times. He never raised his voice and smiled often. Jake was scared to death of him.

  Jake stood in Mr. Dashi’s large office. The walls were covered with wood paneling—incredibly expensive in space, and his furniture appeared to be solid wood. Jake figured he could probably eat for five years on what one of the chairs cost.

  “Mr. Stewart. Welcome back. I see you had no trouble with your exams,” said Mr. Dashi. He smiled at Jake and twirled his small mustache absently.

  “No, sir,” answered Jake.

  “Not that we expected any.” He handed Jake some papers. “Here is your commission, a Fourth Officer in the TGI Merchant Service, Admin Division.”

  Jake’s head came up. “We had talked about the Deck Division, sir.”

  “We had. Something has come up. Needs of the service. It’s necessary for you to be in admin for a time. But I’m not against you cross-training while you work. You are a smart man. You figure things out. When the time is right, we’ll transfer you.”

  Jake frowned. He’d gone to the Merchant Academy to escape scut work at his home station. He’d worked hard to graduate, and Mr. Dashi had offered him a job as a sort of corporate troubleshooter, keeping an eye on things and reporting back to him. Spying, basically. But spying as an officer on a spaceship, not as an administrator.

  Jake wanted to be a spy, not an accountant.

  “That wasn’t in our agreement, sir.”

  “It wasn’t? I thought you read the entire contract through?”

  “I did, sir. Twice.”

  “Then you’re familiar with sub-section G, which outlines ‘exigencies regarding necessary changes due to the needs of the service?’”

  Jake cursed inwardly. He had read that section. “I just assumed that you would honor the spirit of the arrangement, not the letter, sir.”

  “You did, Mr. Stewart? As I recall, you twisted your contract with us totally out of shape to allow yourself to attend the academy, never mind graduate.”

  That was true. “Sir, I did take an aggressive view of what I was entitled to.”

  “Indeed, as you should. As did I. If you wanted a more formal arrangement, we could have discussed it.”

  Jake pondered. Since a more formal arrangement might have had him going to jail for murder, he thought that he should change the subject.

  “Never mind, sir. It’s no shame to be beaten by a master.”

  “Hardly that, Mr. Stewart. I’m just a simple bureaucrat trying to make the most efficacious use of my resources.”

  Now Jake was jealous. Mr. Dashi had maneuvered him into doing something he didn’t want, and he had also used both the words “exigencies” and “efficacious” within two minutes. Jake wasn’t sure he could spell either word, never mind use them properly in a sentence.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You do need more training. If you are going to be in the Admin department, you must be trained to be an administrator. We have you registered in a six-month course on administrative rules and procedures, and following that six months on cargo handling paperwork. Then you’ll be ready to pass your TGI licensing tests.”

  “Another year in school sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see, sir,” Jake said. He paused. Dashi steepled his fingers in front of him and stared back. Neither said anything for a moment.

  “Sir. I don’t want to do that,” Jake said, “I feel like I’ve had enough school for now. And cargo handling paperwork is boring.”

  “You believe it would be boring, Mr. Stewart? I disagree. I enjoyed my year learning administrative procedures immensely.”

  Of course you did, Jake thought. “Sir, I have another, I think better solution.”

  Mr. Dashi unsteepled his fingers and flipped his hands open. “Please share that with me, Mr. Stewart.”

  “Sir, I don’t need to go to school. I can learn this by myself. I’ve already read the TGI policies and procedures manual. I’ve done cargo handling all my life. Let me study for these exams on my own. Just a bit of a refresher and I’ll be ready to take the tests.”

  “That’s certainly possible. You did well in my class. But what advantage accrues to TGI from this arrangement?”

  Accrues? You needed a thesaurus to have a conversation with this guy, Jake thought.

  “I’ll be able to do field work for TGI while I study. You can send me on other jobs, and I’ll study at night and on weekends, or in my free time.”

  “This sounds not unreasonable,” Mr. Dashi said.

  “Of course, some benefit should…. accrue to me as well.”

  “What type of benefits are you suggesting, Mr. Stewart?”

  “I want to go to pilot training sir. Next class opening, I want it.”

  “You want to be a pilot, Mr. Stewart?”

  “I want to take the training
, sir.”

  “A subtle, but important difference. Very well – I suggest this. No school. You are to take, and pass, the admin level 1 and 2 license exams, and the cargo handling level 1 and level two exams within the next six months. Once you have passed both exams, I will get you a slot in the pilot evaluation simulation – the test that we run on our regular pilots every two years to check how up to date their training is. I can’t guarantee you a spot in a training class without you taking the evaluation, but if you do well in the evaluation, we’ll see what we can do. Until that time, we’ll assign you to other work as appropriate. Does that sound fair?

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. let me explain your first task to you.”

  The goal, Mr. Dashi explained, was simple. Some of Mr. Dashi’s friends had been approached by an executive from another company. He was the general manager of their freight and shipping concerns, and he had a gambling habit. A bad one. He took the shuttle up to the orbitals to gamble every few weeks and lost heavily. Now his debt was due, and he didn’t have it. The executive, Colivar, had approached Dashi’s friends with an offer to sell his shipping schedules and profit margins for the last five years. These friends contacted Dashi. Dashi was appointing Jake to go and collect some intelligence information.

  “Just statistics, really,” Mr. Dashi said. “That’s one of our main jobs here, in addition to running the school. The school employs a lot of professors, so we have access to specialists in lots of different areas, and we have extensive computing and communication resources. We use that to get an idea of our business competitors’ capabilities. We mostly collect raw data from public sources and publish reports. Occasionally, we get offers like this. And if they are good, we take them.”

  “So, you want me to go buy this information?” Jake asked.

  “No, we’re not at that stage yet. We were promised a sample. Colivar is going to be at a bar near the shuttle dock tomorrow night at about twenty hours. We’ll give you a picture and some information about him. I want you to go to the bar, have a few drinks, blend in. Wait till he comes in. When he does, go sit down with him. Tell him you are there to pick up a data chip he has.”