He gestured toward the table behind him.
“The yearly financial statements?” Ramona raised her eyebrows, her anger mollified by her curiosity. “I thought you enjoyed playing with numbers, love.”
“There’s a limit! Nine boxes of paper and data tapes is a bit much, even for me.”
, “Why don’t you just review the summaries?” she suggested.
“These are the summaries. The support data behind them would fill several cargo holds.”
“Well, it should solve your leisure-time problem,” Ramona joked. “Seriously, though, why do you bother? I mean, just the fact that everyone has to submit yearly reports to you should serve as a deterrent against embezzlement without your having to review them all.”
“Don’t bet on it.” Tambu sighed. “Sooner or later, people would figure it out if I just filed their reports. Sometimes… wait. Here, let me read this to you.”
He fished around on the table for a specific sheet of paper, found it, held it aloft, and read:
“If you have gotten this far in our report, we will buy you a case of your favorite whiskey. Simply call so we know what brand to buy.”
“Really?” Ramona laughed. “Are you going to collect?”
“I sure am,” Tambu grinned. “And on the other eight notes like it I’ve found buried in other reports. I also get to send about a dozen terse reprimands to references to my parentage or sexual preferences.”
“What are you going to do with all that liquor?” Ramona asked. “You don’t drink anything but wine.”
“Another year like this last one, and I’ll be ready for the hard stuff. But, I can’t actually accept the shipments. If nothing else, it would show which ship I was on. Instead, I’ll have each donor send it off to a different ship, with a note that the ship’s crew is to enjoy the gift with my compliments.”