Trans Galactic Insurance Page 4

  “You want seconds? Help yourself.” Bart pushed the tray toward Jake. “No, you don’t cheat. The other students cheat. You know those excellent term papers—I mean ‘study guides’—that you make for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Make ‘em for the other students. Charge money. They won’t have to write them; they can just hand them in as their own.”

  “But the professors will figure it out. I’ll get kicked out.”

  “No, you won’t,” Bart said. “First, most of them aren’t that bright.”

  “Students or professors?”

  “Both. Second, most of them don’t care who writes the paper. There are kids from important families in some of these classes. Why get them riled up? Third, it’s not your problem. If somebody is found handing in your papers as their own, then they are the ones who get into trouble, not you.” Bart sat back and flipped his hands out. “Simple, see?”

  “Oh.”

  “The tests are a different matter. You have to actually know how to operate a reactor, not pretend to operate a reactor. That’s why the tests are given at the end of the cruise; you learn real things from real officers, and they make you practice them. And they pay a lot of attention. That’s why nobody cares about academy marks. Just do what I say, Jake. It will work out.”

  Jake looked thoughtful for a moment. He spooned up the last of the seaweed and swallowed it. He pointed his fork toward Bart.

  “What would I charge?”

  “You mean, what would we charge? This is a cooperative business venture. I figure about twenty to a hundred credits, depending on how long the paper is.”

  “But how many students want this done? Can I make enough money?”

  “Don’t worry, Jake—you handle production, and I’ll handle sales and marketing. You’ll make a fortune, and I’ll collect a modest finder’s fee.”

  “A finder’s fee?”

  “Sure, I’ll find the customers for you, you write the papers, and you’ll get ninety percent of the take. I’ll take a reasonable ten percent commission. I’ll work all my social contacts; they’ll come running to us!”

  “This can never work,” Jake said.

  “It will. By my calculations, you’ll get more cash than you need for your place!”

  “I’ll never even get the ten percent. I’m doomed,” said Jake. But his heart wasn’t in it.

  “That’s the spirit! Outstanding. Whizbang! Good for you, Jake.” Bart was smiling now.

  “But what do I tell Mr. Dashi? He wants to know all the details.”

  “I have a strategy for that too,” Bart said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Lie.”

  * * *

  Lying and cheating proved to be not only an excellent strategy but very easy to implement. Using Bart’s pad, Jake drafted an email to Mr. Dashi explaining his choice for next semester. Mr. Dashi, or José, sent back a series of forms. Jake filled them out and authorized them. He chose the position of deck officer and promised to put in the deposit. He also said he’d be able to pay the other bills when they came due. Mr. Dashi didn’t ask him how he’d get the money, just reminded him when the deposit was due and signed him up.

  * * *

  “Item one, check,” said Bart when the confirmation email came in.

  “I don’t feel right about this,” Jake said.

  “Jake, my boy, don’t worry. Just listen to your uncle Bart.”

  “I am listening to you, and you are making sense. That’s why I don’t feel right.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The next morning, Bart made some calls and talked to a friend of a friend—or his second cousin, or somebody he bet on netball with. Jake wasn’t clear exactly what happened, but Bart got him a part-time job as an insurance adjuster. He saw Bart in the hall between classes.

  “It’s not the greatest job, but it pays, and you don’t have a heck of lot of work to do,” said Bart.

  “Sounds good. What will I be doing?”

  “Insurance stuff.”

  “What type of insurance stuff?”

  “How should I know? I told them you can do it,” Bart said.

  “You don’t know what the job is?”

  “No.”

  “Then how can you say that I can do it?”

  “You’re smart, Jake. You can do anything. It’s paperwork; it can’t be too intellectually taxing. You can do all that in your sleep.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Bart said. “There is one wrinkle.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Danny’s your boss.”

  * * *

  The next month was a bit of a blur for Jake. During the week, he worked mornings at the insurance adjustor’s job for four hours. His classes took all the afternoons, and evenings he studied and wrote papers. It had taken some careful planning to fit the schedule together; one day a week he had to be in at 0300 to get done before his 0800 class, and he had to come back at 1000 to catch anything he missed. It would have killed his social life, if he had one.

  The job wasn’t that demanding. As an assistant auditor, his job was to reconcile the different reports that came in from corporate ships. The computer handled anything that was usual, so he only saw the exceptions. In most cases it was clear what had happened: data-entry errors, mislabeled shipments, or items that were destroyed or damaged in transit. Jake was surprised by how many of the latter there were. He only remembered a single case of damaged goods arriving at Rim-37, and that was after a collision between a tug and a freighter punctured a container within sight of the station. There were many more here.

  The paper-writing business was a success from the start. Bart usually had some social event every night, so he just talked up Jake’s abilities to all his friends and showed them his marks. If he, Bart, could get such excellent marks with Jake’s patented study guides, why couldn’t they? They just had to pay a small fee. The work rolled in. Bart was careful to stress that these were study guides for his own papers and warned them not to hand in the originals. He and Jake consulted daily.

  * * *

  “Jake, this paper has to be redone,” Bart said early the next week. He was reclining in his chair in the student lounge, reading Jake’s latest effort and scrutinizing a netball game on the large wall screen.

  The school shared office and residence space with TGI corporate operations on the station. The student ‘lounge’ was just a meeting room that had several small tables, comfortable chairs and display screens. Computers lined one wall. Jake used the student lounge computers a lot. There was hardly ever anybody there, computer time wasn’t charged against his account, and the connection was fast. He could also use the other stations’ databases, sometimes, when they were in range—comm traffic and orbital mechanics willing. Bart sat with him often, mostly watching sports on the big screen.

  “Why? What’s wrong with it? It’s a great paper.”

  “That’s the problem. It’s too smart; the writing is too good. There’s no way Fatima could have written this. Her instructor will know it.”

  “What do you mean?” Jake asked.

  “She’s barely scraping by in class. She can’t start getting A’s.”

  “Oh. What should I do?”

  “Misspell some words, put in some poor grammar. Kill a few of your better sentences. Dumb it down a bit.”

  “That’s hard work for me, Bart.”

  “Just cut out some of your better stuff. You can do it.”

  “OK.”

  “Uh, another issue—you need to do that economics paper for me this week.”

  “Give me what you’ve got, and I’ll work on it.”

  “I haven’t got anything.”

  “You haven’t?” Jake stopped typing and looked up at Bart.

  “No,” Bart said. “I’ve been pushing this at parties. I haven’t had time to do anything.”

  “You have been busy most nights,” Jake agreed.

  “It’s not like it will be much extra work for you. Oh, and by the way, here’s the fifty from Fatima,” Bart said, extending a credit chip.

  Jake turned around to look at Bart. “Fifty? I thought you charged her forty?”

  “Oh, she gave a bonus, a tip, for good work.”

  “But she hasn’t seen the paper yet, has she?”

  “No, but I told her about it. I said it would be ready on time and it would be great, and she wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Oh, OK. Thanks.” Jake looked at the credits, and then put them in his pocket. “Well, if I have to write your papers as well, it’s no big deal, I guess.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, they were a smooth machine: Bart sold, Jake wrote. All the payments were in cash, so Jake had to make time to go to the station bank every day. He’d never seen that much cash on the rim, and he was nervous about keeping it in his room. He saw Bart every day in class, but they also met either in the student lounge or at Jake’s office to discuss the papers. Bart came by to drop off money or to pick up a data chip. He insisted they do nothing on the stations network.

  “I wanted to say thanks to you, Bart,” said Jake. Jake was sitting at the front table at work, typing out a paper on basic environmental system maintenance.

  Bart was lounging in a comfortable chair in the small reception, trying to figure out his bet for the station netball quarterfinals. He had on a bright red silk tunic over his skin suit, and new station slippers.

  “Thanks for what?” asked Bart. “Is that guy on third shift, the shooter—is he still sick?”

  “I have no idea about that guy on third shift. I meant thanks for helping me by getting all those people to pay for papers,” Jake said.

  “Helping you? You are helping me.”
br />   “You could have done those papers yourself and kept all the money.”

  “My confused young Belter friend, why would I do all that work?”

  “Well, with extra effort, you could make it work.”

  “Jake, Jake, Jake. This is merchant academy. If you are going to be a successful merchant, you need to understand how economies work. What’s the most basic premise of economics?”

  “Buy low sell high?”

  “Specialization. Comparative advantage. Give the work to people who do it the best.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. You are the best paper writer in the whole class. You are a paper writer par excellence. Everybody should pay you to write papers, and they, or I, can concentrate on doing what they do best.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Betting on netball and spending my sumptuous allowance,” Bart said. “Who do you like in the quarterfinals?”

  “What’s a quarterfinal? Is that where you win part of the final?”

  “Sort of. How’s your part-time job by the way? And shouldn’t you be doing it right now? What are you doing?”

  “Typing out Waheed’s paper. Nope, I got all the work done this morning,” Jake said.

  “So, how’s the work?”

  “Bart, this is the best job I’ve ever had. This might be the best place I have ever worked at. The office space is great.”

  “The best place you ever worked at? Great office space?” Bart looked around. The office was dim. The walls were blank. The furniture was all metal. The chairs were metal and didn’t even have cushions. “Are you kidding me?”

  Jake also looked around. “This is a great work space, Bart. Everything works. All the computers work. I can use as much power as I want. There aren’t any blackout hours. The desks and chairs aren’t broken. It’s great. This is way better than any job I had at R37.”

  “R37?”

  “Rim-37. The Belt station I grew up in.”

  “Jake, it doesn’t even have a carpet, or a viewport, or anything on the wall.”

  “I don’t need those, Bart. I just want to do my work. The heat even works.”

  Bart shook his head. “In any event, this job—what do you do? What’s your day like?”

  “I come I in at seven,” Jake said. “I reconcile the overnight reports. The computer flags anything unusual—mass ratings that don’t match, missing reports, that sort of thing. Mostly I just fix data-input errors, move misfiled reports, or check on mislabeled shipments. I have to approve the paperwork on payouts for missing or damaged shipments.”

  Bart put down his tablet and sat up straight.

  “You approve payouts?”

  “No, I just certify that all the paperwork is there; Danny approves them.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” Bart picked up his tablet and went back to his bets. “It would be good to know somebody who approves payouts.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind, it’s too salacious for your young ears. Business stuff you Belters wouldn’t understand. Say, is Danny a good guy to work for? Friendly?”

  “He’s an ass. He’s always yelling at me. He complains about everything. He criticizes my work all the time.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I don’t know why,” Jake said. “I finish all my work before everybody else on the shift. Danny’s started assigning me everybody else’s work as well. I basically do the work of a whole office of six people before they come in for the day. They just sit around and drink coffee and complain about their hangovers. And I double-check all their paperwork as well. I don’t just tick it off that it’s received.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I think Danny just doesn’t like Belters. He makes comments. He says Belters are stupid and that we smell.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “What? Bart? What are you talking about? Are you listening to me at all?”

  “Nope. Look at that; isn’t that a wonderful sight?”

  Jake looked up to see what Bart was looking at. Nadine and her friend Alicia were walking into the office. They had obviously been working out at the gym, and their sweaty clothes clung tightly to various body parts.

  “Hi, Jake! Hi, Bart!”

  “Nadine! Alicia!” Bart called. “You two are looking fabulous as usual! What brings you two pretty girls to the wonderful world of shipment-insurance processing?”

  “Well, it’s possible that we heard about this new silk jacket that you have and had to see it.” Nadine said.

  Bart jumped up. “Outstanding. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Had it made for me at the downport. Pure silk all over. Feel the quality.”

  Nadine and Alicia stroked his arm and oohed and ahhed over the softness of it while Bart preened for them. This went on for a minute while Jake watched.

  “I’m just dropping off some paperwork for Danny.” Nadine waved a data chip. “He handles my corp’s claims here on the station. What brings you here, Bart?”

  “I’m just advising young Jake here on a few things. Helping him write out some forms. Letting him know how the world works.” Bart put a fatherly hand on Jakes shoulder.

  “Don’t you mean explaining to him how much of your homework you want him to do, and how much you won’t pay him for it?” Nadine asked.

  “I’ll have you know that I always…frequently…often…” Bart paused. “I often do my own homework, but never without one of Jake’s patented study guides by my side. You girls should contract him to write one for your classes. It will be a great help to your studies.”

  “How much does it cost?” Nadine asked.

  “My young friend here would charge you the minuscule sum of forty credits.”

  “Oh. That seems like a lot.” Nadine turned and smiled at Jake. Jake looked at his screen and kept typing. Nadine continued.

  “Tell me, Jake, what would you do for me if I gave you forty credits?”

  “Um, well, whatever you want.”

  “There are lots of things I want, Jake.” Nadine leaned over Jake’s desk. “Would I learn something new? What would you teach me?” Jake blushed at the innuendo. Nadine saw that, and looked towards Alicia and nodded her head. Alicia winked, then she too leaned over Jake’s desk. Jake could smell her; she smelled fit. He blinked and sniffed for a moment.

  “Um, sure.” He took another deep breath.

  Nadine waited. Jake had no idea what to say.

  “How do you like your new job, Jake?” Alicia asked.

  “Oh, it’s OK,” said Jake. He cleared his nose and sat up straighter.

  “What are you doing now?” Alicia asked.

  “Oh, it’s quite interesting. See, I take the overnight reports and reconcile them.”

  “The overnight reports? You work here twenty-four hours a day?” Alicia sounded surprised.

  “Oh, not our reports. Station ops run twenty-four hours, but insurance claims don’t, and we get communication from all over the system, so there’s no attempt to synchronize working times. All the stations use the old imperial twenty-four-hour day, regardless of planetary day, and Delta, the moon, used a time slip of one hundred seventeen minutes every night at midnight after the twenty-four-hour day. The different stations’ time stayed the same relative shift to each other, and only the moon’s time drifted. So, claims and paperwork comes in all the time, and everything is batched out to us every station morning, and we collect the paperwork together, and Danny approves.”

  “Oh,” said Alicia. “Collect the paperwork?”

  “Yes, the claims are for content of the containers. When one is lost or damaged, they have to file a report. Then the shipper gets one of our auditors to look at the shipments and declare it a loss. We check all the paperwork and make sure that it’s all there. We need the outbound manifest, the original insurance paperwork, a declaration from the shipper and the receiver, and a note from the auditor. Then if it’s below a certain amount, it’s passed on to Danny, and he approves it.”

  “Sounds kind of boring,” Alicia said.

  “Well, if that’s all it was, I guess it would be,” Jake agreed. “But I’m interested in this sort of stuff, so if I have time, I investigate a little further. I pull the loading records to make sure the loading order matched the container, and cross-reference the mass numbers on the loaded container with the received container. You find some interesting discrepancies—like look at this one here.” Jake turned to his computer and typed up something.

  “See, in this case here, the net weight the shipper showed was identical to the gross weight reported by the carrier, and when it was received, the auditor declared a loss of two thousand kg of furniture for seven hundred ninety-five credits, even though the gross weight and the net weight were the same. I pulled the loading records from the station carrier, and I’ve also asked for a copy of the ship’s manifest and loading documents, as well as their flight profile and fuel logs, because—”