She swallowed a mouthful of ice-melt and vodka and did a different-criteria search through the market.
Pell… was the gateway to Earth. To arts. To culture.
Books. Zero mass. Vids. Software. Distribution licenses. Always high-priced because ships bid on them. But ships only bid so much, usually scooping up what they could get without a fight, because it was a chancy market, riding local fads, and the willingness of some station-side promoter to take it off your hands where you were going… so if you were willing to gamble big that you knew tastes where it was going… ordinarily you could get it, the info-market being quiet, low-tension, not subject to big bids from ships that better understood the market for frozen foods and machine parts.
She took out her stylus, punched the keys you couldn’t accidentally access with bare fingers, and money moved.
Data moved.
Data flooded into Sprite’s black-box info-storage. Permits, licenses. Credit. Text. Images. Patents. Two solid hours, while she sipped fruit-juice and vodka, of high-speed input—in which the info-market accelerated, picked up interest on some items—then hyped into a wild surge of activity.
She traded back some books, some vids, snapped up rights less useful to ships that didn’t reach deep in Union territory: license to reproduce at Union ports and points further, exclusive rights down routes reachable from Unionside—prices ballooned as ships bid to get a speculative commodity they regularly dabbled in, rights they routinely bid on, ships and stationside interests battling each other for what somebody unknown was going for in huge quantities. The whole info-market soared as station-side speculators and automatic trading programs saw a rising price and a limited availability and went for it. Feeding frenzy set in, sent prices crazy. She sat it out for fifteen minutes and sipped her drink while the market computers registered a flurry of trades.
Four ships and one publishing house released major holdings to profit-take on the market, she grabbed it all and resold, bought hand and fist on the panic, and the market dropped and rose and ticked into stability as the regulators slammed the lid on.
She keyed Sprite for departure at m2330h, then, scant time to get the Dee Imports cans offloaded and get the tanks filled.
After which, she turned on her pocket-corn and told Mischa they were in count for departure in under twenty-four hours, beep everybody who was out.
“Marie, “ Mischa said calmly, “where are you?” Less calmly: “—Are you in some bar?”
“Noisy? I said 24 hours, Mischa, do you copy? We’re bought up. We’re going. I’ve made a profit just sitting here and logged us for departure. You can check the schedule board.”
“Marie. We aren’t loaded. “
“Zero-mass. Publishing rights. Tons of publishing rights. We’re bought and loaded. It’s in Sprite’s databanks right now, didn’t you notice that little light flicker? Every cent we have in credit. It’s time-critical and I suggest we pull out the second the tanks are filled.”
“Damn you! Get your ass back on this ship, Marie! Dump that infoshit back on the market, resell and get our money back! You’re not pulling this!”
“Mischa, sweet, we’ve made money, as stands. There’s been a modest little trade war in the last few hours and the market’s gone under regulatory controls, now. There’s really no way to make anything short-term under a regulatory, you know that. If we sell now, we sell at a loss. So we’d better make that schedule, Mischa. Dear. It’ll work.”
“This is going to a vote, Marie. Your post is going to a vote!”
“I’ll call yours to one, too, sweet. Think about it. I’ve made us money in this port. I’ll make us money where we’re going.”
“And where’s that? What area’s this damn infodump valid for?”
Mischa’s grammar was going.
“Marie?”
“Cyteen, via Viking, via hell, brother. It’s what we have to do. And speed counts. Trust me.”
—ii—
WAVES UPON WAVES, SCARY climb into nothing and nowhere.
Hand brushed Tom’s brow. Voice, ever so far, whispered to him.
His heart started beating too fast. Colors flared and ran like dyes across his vision. It was Saby he was with. Saby’s bed. He could feel her presence by him.