Robert Asprin – Tambu

“Sounds like a good deal. Any chance my ship can get in on that?”

“I’ll have to check my lists,” he retorted with mock severity. “You know I won’t play favorites. Just because you successfully seduced me doesn’t mean you should expect special privileges.”

“I stand duly chastised.” She hung her head dramatically.

“Getting back to the original question, jokers like these would be able to tell in no time flat if I wasn’t reading their reports.”

“Which would be an open invitation to gimmick the books,” Ramona acknowledged.

“Even if I trusted everyone implicitly, which I don’t, but even if I did, I’d still take the time to review the reports. There’s a lot of information here once you learn to read between the lines.”

“Such as what?”

“Well,” Tambu squinted, “I can tell how often they conduct target practice, what the condition of their ship is, the state of the crew’s morale-“

“Wait a minute. You lost me. How can you tell all that from just looking at numbers?”

“By studying various expense items. For example, if a ship is spending less than half the amount on maintenance and parts as other ships the same size and age, I can make an educated guess that its condition is less than excellent.”

“And crew morale?”

“If a captain is paying his crew low wages and is spending little or nothing on employee luxuries, they will be noticeably less happy than a well-paid crew on a ship with a new lounge and game room.”

“I see,” Ramona commented thoughtfully. “Maybe I should take another look at my own reports.”