Trans Galactic Insurance Page 5

  Jake turned around expectantly. He looked at everybody. Bart had rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and was shaking his head. Alicia’s eyes had glazed over, and she was nodding over and over. Nadine just stared at him.

  “Because, the net and the gross weight are the same. Right?” he asked. He looked at everybody in turn. “Get it?”

  “That’s nice, Jake,” said Nadine. She stood up and waved. “I’ve got to drop this off with Danny,” said Nadine. She held up a data chip. “See you later, boys.”

  “Bye, Jake,” Alicia said. The two girls walked toward Danny’s office in the back.

  Jake looked around. He looked at Bart. “What just happened there?”

  Bart looked at him with an odd expression. “Jake, I have a few questions.”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s a loading order?”

  “That’s the dock’s records of what containers went onto which ship and in what order, and where on the ship they were attached, as well as mass readings.”

  “OK, what’s a flight profile?”

  “That’s each corporate ship’s second-by-second listing of acceleration and helm controls. It shows the exact course the ship took and how often it used its engines.”

  “Uh huh. What’s a fuel log?”

  “That’s fuel readings at all times—regular checks from the computer, and a listing of how much fuel was loaded at different times.”

  “OK, two more questions. Why have I never heard of these?”

  “Well, I guess we didn’t talk about them in class. They are ship operational things. Normally the deck crew does this, not the officers, and the computer mostly does them automatically. But I’ve always had to do them on the station and provide the records for inbound and outbound shipments, because some of their computers weren’t so good.”

  “Final question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why, in the name of a hundred dead emperors, did you choose that as the topic of conversation when two pretty, blond girls who were barely dressed were leaning over your desk?”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh. You, Mr. Stewart…”

  “Yes?”

  “Are an ijit.”

  * * *

  The girls left, and Jake went back to typing his paper, but he was smarting inside. How come he could never pick up on those things? The girls had been right there, and he had been talking about insurance.

  Bart was finishing his netball picks. He looked up and frowned.

  “Jake.”

  “What? I know. I’m an ijit.”

  “Yes, you are. But I have another question.”

  “I like girls. Not boys. It’s not some sort of deflection thing. I just can’t seem to get it together.”

  “Not that, but good to know. I was thinking of inviting José from the registrar’s office out to dinner with us one night. He’s a fine figure of a man, if you are into that sort of thing, and if you were on that team, as a friend I would. But, here’s my question.”

  “Yes.”

  “What would pulling all those other records prove? Those logs and loading things.”

  “Mass.”

  “Why do you care about mass?”

  “Our insurance records don’t actually prove that there was anything in the container. The shipper certifies that they loaded it. The receiver certifies that it wasn’t there, or it was damaged. And we pay them, sight unseen.”

  “But I thought our auditor checked that?”

  “We don’t have auditors everywhere. And even if we do, sometimes they just don’t have time or just don’t go check the claim. They have a check box that says, ‘approved but not inspected’ that just means they agree but didn’t bother to check.”

  “Nobody checks that the shipment ever happened?”

  “That’s supposed to be our job here. But for some reason, we don’t have that in our procedures—there is no documentation that anybody looked at the loaded shipment, or that we’ve ever loaded any in transit.”

  “OK,” Bart said. “But what are you doing with all those logs?”

  “I’m just checking the mass readings. It could just be transcription errors. The loaders show a mass value, and that’s supposed to be net—the mass value of the contents not including the container. Mass isn’t so important on a station; they are in fixed orbits that don’t change. They tend to swap containers one for one. For instance, they receive a type A3 container from a ship, and they replace it outbound with another A3 container with different contents, so the mass of the containers cancels out.”

  “OK, I get that. But why do the ships care?”

  “The ships are much more careful,” Jake said. “They need to know the total, gross mass of their shipments including the mass of the containers and contents. If they don’t get that right, their maneuvers will be off, and they might smash into a moon.”

  “That would be undesirable.”

  “It usually doesn’t come to that; they can see the moon coming and adjust thrust to account for minor differences, but that should show up in the fuel logs.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “If you know how much the ship was supposed to mass, and what its actual course was, you can calculate pretty much exactly how much fuel it should use, provided the reactor efficiency numbers are correct. And if it’s a corporate ship we know all that. If I have a thousand-ton ship, and it accelerates at one G for ten minutes, I know that it should have used three kg of fuel and reaction mass, so I can check it against the fuel logs. If it didn’t, that means something was off—either the fuel log, the flight profile, or the mass readings.”

  “So you can tell there was something in the container?”

  “Yes. I can’t tell what, but I can tell there was something—or if there was nothing. And there’s another problem.”

  “What now?”

  “Well, look at this one from this morning.” Jake brought up a report. “See, it’s a claim for vacuum damage on a shipment of wooden items and clothing.”

  “So? We ship lots of that stuff. And containers break, so vacuum damage happens,” Bart said.

  “Yes, but vacuum doesn’t affect wood or clothes. It affects electronics, and some metals get vacuum welded—but not wood. In fact, on the station, every so often we would pull atmo from various places. The vacuum would kill pests like bugs and rats, and it’s a great way to sterilize clothes that you get from dead or sick people.”

  “You wore dead peoples’ clothes?”

  “Clothes are expensive in the Belt, Bart. When somebody without a family died, all their personal stuff would be dumped in an open airlock for a few hours. That process killed all the bugs and bacteria. Then it was sold at auction, and the money went into the station’s general account.”

  “Wow. OK. So, the bottom line is, for this shipment you can’t prove there was anything in the boxes, right?”

  “Correct,” Jake agreed.

  “But could there have been something there? I mean, the paperwork error could have been either way, right? The crews could have under-weighed the containers—reported them as less dense than they really were.”

  “I suppose so…What are you saying, Bart?”

  “Just that you don’t know what’s really going on.”

  “No, it’s just odd. It kinda looks like something funny with the insurance payouts, but I’m not sure.”

  “Well, you can’t just go accusing people about these things.”

  “I guess not. I really need to get more information. I’ll send some e-mails.”

  “You do that. Let me know what you find. I’m curious now; I’ll need to know these types of things once I’m back at family HQ. But for now, I’m going to see a man about a netball game.”

  Bart walked out of the office. Jake turned back toward his terminal and began typing.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Belter Boy! Get in here!” Danny shouted from behind Jake.

  “A minute, Danny.” Jake finished typing on his screen. He had stayed late last night sending some e-mails, and spent the morning looking at the responses. He wasn’t as far ahead in his work as he usually was.

  “Now, Jake. My office.”

  Jake sighed, but he saved his work. Danny didn’t have an office; the sign on the door said, “Ms. Gonzales.” Ms. Gonzales was the departmental boss, but she had another office somewhere and never used this one. Danny had taken it over and was practicing lording it over the student workers.

  “Stewart! You Belter twit! What have you done?” Danny demanded.

  “Done? All the reports are finished,” Jake said.

  “Not the reports, you dolt. What are these e-mails I’m getting?”

  Jake’s brow furrowed.

  “Uh, the report e-mails from me, you mean. That’s how I send you the reports, Danny, by e-mail.” Jake pursed his lips. “I’ve been sending them that way for almost a month now.”

  “No, you moron. I’m getting contacted from all over the rings.”

  Jake nodded. “Those e-mails? I’m asking for copies of ship logs.”

  “Logs? You are asking for logs? Why do we want logs? What did you do?”

  “There were a few discrepancies that didn’t match up, so I thought I’d look into them.”

  “We don’t pay you to think,” Danny said. “If we paid you to think, we’d be paying you half of what we pay you now. Who told you to check on the logs?”

  “It seemed the natural extensions of my job.”

  “Stewart, were you born this stupid, or did you have to work at it? Everybody thinks that we can’t read our own reports. You are supposed to certify the paperwork is present, that’s all. We’re not supposed to be bothering important ship captains all around the rings with stupid requests. Who told you to send these e-mails?”

  “Nobody. I thought it was a good idea.”

  “Don’t think; listen. How many of these have you sent?”

  “Just a couple of them—five so far this week,” Jake said.

  “E-mail those people back. Tell them the problem was on our end, not theirs, and tell them that we don’t need the logs after all. Thank them for their time.”

  “Why should I? You’re not the boss.”

  “No, I’m not the boss. But I am your boss. And I write your evaluations. And if you get a bad evaluation, Gonzalez will fire you.”

  Jake seethed. But Danny was right. He annotated Jake’s time card each week, and Jake couldn’t afford to lose this job. If nothing else, the better computer let him type faster.

  “Yes.” Jake started to turn away.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, Danny.”

  “No, ‘yes, sir.’”

  Jake closed his eyes and let out a breath.

  “Yes, sir.” He turned and went back to his desk, sat down, and looked at his screen for a moment. Then he called up his e-mail and began typing.

  Shari, a girl from his accounting class, sat two desks down, reading something on her screen. She smiled sympathetically at him.

  “Shari, come in here, please,” Danny yelled.

  “Buzz off, Danny. I’m busy,” she yelled back.

  “Shari, I need to talk to you.”

  “No, you don’t. Buzz off, Danny. I’m busy.” She shook her head and smiled at Jake. “That’s the way to treat him. Don’t let him get to you.”

  “You can’t talk to him like that. He’s the boss,” Jake said.

  “He’s not the boss; he just makes sure that we show up and fills out some time cards. This is a student’s job. He’s not really in charge, he just thinks he is.”

  “He fills out my evaluations. He can get me fired.”

  “Jake, he can’t fire you,” Shari insisted. “Only Gonzalez can. And she won’t. If the paperwork gets done and the reports are filed on time, Gonzalez doesn’t care. And he won’t fire you.”

  “He won’t?”

  “Jake, how long have you worked here? A month?”

  “Not quite that. Why?”

  “What do I do here? What do you see me doing?”

  “Well, not much, to be honest. You study a lot.”

  “I do,” Shari agreed. “This is a great place to study, but do you see me doing any work?”

  “No.”

  “That’s right, you don’t. That’s because you do all the work. Danny has dumped every single report on you. You are doing about four people’s work—mine, his, the rest of the morning crew’s. You do all of our work.”

  “Well, I figure you get stuff done when I’m not here.”

  “You are here all the time.”

  “The computer here is better than in my room or the student lounge.”

  “He’s taking advantage of you,” Shari said.

  “It happens. I need the job. And I don’t want to get fired.”

  “He can’t fire you; He would have to do the work. Don’t you see?”

  “Well, yeah, but I can’t take the chance.”

  Shari cocked her head and looked at him sideways.

  “Really?”

  “Shari, I don’t have a corp looking out for me; it’s just me. And I don’t mind. The work is kind of interesting.”

  “Well, whatever suits you.”

  “Shari, I still need to talk to you,” bellowed Danny from the office.

  “And you should still buzz off,” she yelled back. She shook her head and returned to her typing.

  * * *

  Jake finished the study guide he was working on and turned back to his e-mails. Despite the cancellations he had sent, he had still gotten some replies, so for practice he worked through different settings. This brought him to some other cross-references, and then he looked up a file or two.

  Two hours later he sat back from his desk. Shari had gone home. Danny was still in his office. Jake was confused. He got up and walked to Danny/Gonzalez’s office and knocked on the door.

  Danny looked up. “What?”

  “I need you to look at these reports.”

  “I’ll look at them when I’m ready. E-mail them to me.”

  “There’s a problem, Danny. We might have to contact Ms. Gonzalez.”

  Now Danny sat up straight. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s easier if I show you. Can you load the report?”

  Danny fumbled around. Eventually, Jake logged in as himself and showed Danny the tables he had put together.

  “Here, Danny—look at the mass in this column.”

  “What about it?”

  “This isn’t right. There shouldn’t be numbers like this.”

  “What do you know? You’re a Belter kid.”

  “No, I think there is a problem with the shipments.”

  “Stewart, what type of problem do you think there is?”

  “I think some of the auditors are stealing from TGI. I think that there are a bunch of shippers that are shipping out empty containers, claiming here are goods in them. I think that our insurance adjusters are certifying the shipments as present and paying out the claims on nonexistent goods. This is insurance fraud. We need to tell somebody.”

  “Tell somebody? Who?”

  “Mr. Dashi, maybe? He’s pretty senior in TGI. Or your boss, Gonzalez. Should we tell your boss?”

  Danny pushed his chair back from his desk. He looked at Jake and then spun his chair. He turned around in a complete circle and then regarded Jake speculatively, starting to chuckle.

  “Danny, ah, sir? Um, what?”

  Danny continued chuckling, then shook his head. “Jake. Go close the door.”

  Jake got up to close the door. “Um, sir?”

  “Call me Danny, Jake.”

  “Sir, Danny. What’s so funny?”

  “You are, Jake.”

  “Why?”

  “Bart told Gonzalez she should hire you because you were a hard worker, and smart. He also said you were a little naïve.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes, and he was wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “You aren’t a hard worker, you are an extremely hard worker. You do more work than the entire rest of the office.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “Whatever,” Danny responded. “And you are way more naïve than Bart said. You are right; somebody is stealing from TGI. Do you know who?”

  “The shippers?”

  “Kind of, but not quite.”

  “The auditors?”

  “Nope. Guess again,” Danny said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Me. You. Us. We are stealing from TGI.”

  * * *

  Jake drew back from Danny, and his eyes widened. “We are stealing? How? I’m confused.”

  “Look, you’ve already figured out the mechanism of this. We sell insurance here. Among other things, we sell small-shipper insurance—if you want to ship items somewhere, and you want to ensure for loss or damage, or something like that. You call us, tell us the value, we fix a price, you pay. If the cargo is lost or damaged, then we pay your claim. Simple, right?”

  “Well, yes, Danny, that’s how insurance works.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Belter boy. Right, and do you know what our profit margin is here?”

  “No.”

  “Seven hundred percent.”

  “What?”

  “Seven hundred percent. That’s after costs. We’re a very small but immensely profitable part of the TGI empire. TGI makes most of its money off very large insurance; they insure entire fleets, whole space stations. And that market is very competitive. They make maybe four percent a year. We make seven hundred percent because we are the only ones who work in this small space, and we charge a fortune. We’re ripping off most of our customers.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes. Remember—seven hundred percent profit, and that’s after expenses and losses. TGI overcharges everybody.”

  “Wow.”

  “Exactly. Now, some of our smaller customers, the ones on the edge, the most vulnerable ones…they are the smaller lines—the free traders. You are from the Belt. I’ll bet you know a lot of free traders, right?”