“From Goddard,” Lazarus answered and told him what the skipper had said to the V.I.P. McFee answered with the one about the old maid in free fall, which Lazarus pretended not to have heard. Stories led to politics, and McFee expounded his notion of the “only possible solution” to the European questions, a solution predicated on a complicated theory of McFee’s as to why the Covenant could not be extended to any culture below a certain level of industrialization. Lazarus did not give a hoot either way but he knew better than to hurry McFee; he nodded at the right places, accepted more of the condemned rocket juice when offered, and waited for the right moment to come to the point.
“Any company ships for sale now, Joe?”
“Are there? I should hope to shout. I’ve got more steel sitting out on that plain and cluttering my inventory than I’ve had in ten years. Looking for some? I can make you a sweet price.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on whether you’ve got what I want.”
“You name it, I’ve got it. Never saw such a dull market. Some days you can’t turn an honest credit.” McFee frowned. “You know what the trouble is? Well, I’ll tell you-it’s this Howard Families commotion. Nobody wants to risk any money until he knows where he stands. How can a man make plans when he doesn’t know whether to plan for ten years or a hundred? You mark my words: if the administration manages to sweat the secret loose from those babies, you’ll see the biggest boom in long-term investments ever. But if not well, long-term holdings won’t be worth a peso a dozen and there will be an eat-drink-and-be-merry craze that will make the Reconstruction look like a tea party.”
He frowned again. “What kind of metal you looking for?”
“I don’t want metal, I want a ship.”
McFee’s frown disappeared, his eyebrows shot up. “So? What sort?”
“Can’t say exactly. Got time to look ’em over with me?”
They suited up and left the dome by North Tunnel, then strolled around grounded ships in the long, easy strides of low gravity. Lazarus soon saw that just two ships had both the lift and the air space needed. One was a tanker and the better buy, but a mental calculation showed him that it lacked deck space, even including the floor plates of the tanks, to accommodate eight thousand tons of passengers. The other was an older ship with cranky piston-type injection meters, but she was fitted for general merchandise and had enough deck space. Her pay load was higher than necessary for the job, since passengers weigh little for the cubage they clutter-but that would make her lively, which might be critically important.
As for the injectors, he could baby them-he had herded worse junk than this.
Lazarus haggled with McFee over terms, not because he wanted to save money but because failure to do so would have been out of character. They finally reached a complicated three-cornered deal in which McFee bought the I Spy for himself, Lazarus delivered clear title to it unmortgaged and accepted McFee’s unsecured note in payment, then purchased the freighter by endorsing McFee’s note back to him and adding cash. McFee in turn would be able to mortgage the I Spy at the Commerce Clearance Bank in Luna City, use the proceeds plus cash or credit of his own to redeem his own paper-presumably before his accounts were audited, though Lazarus did not mention that.
It was not quite a bribe. Lazarus merely made use of the fact that McFee had long wanted a ship of his own and regarded the I Spy as the ideal bachelor’s go-buggy for business or pleasure; Lazarus simply held the price down to where McFee could swing the deal. But the arrangements made certain that McFee would not gossip about the deal, at least until he had had time to redeem his note. Lazarus further confused the issue by asking McFee to keep his eyes open for a good buy in trade tobacco . . . which made McFee sure that Captain Sheffield’s mysterious new venture involved Venus, that being the only major market for such goods. Lazarus got the freighter ready for space in only four days through lavish bonuses and overtime payments. At last he dropped Luna City behind him, owner and master of the City of Chillicothe. He shortened the name in his mind to Chili in honor of a favorite dish he had not tasted in a long time-fat red beans, plenty of chili powder, chunks of meat . . . real meat, not the synthetic pap these youngsters called “meat.” He thought about it and his mouth watered. He had not a care in the world.