Ky explained about the Pavrati failure to deliver a prepaid order, and the Economic Development Bureau’s urgent desire for agricultural machinery before their attempt to open theHamilValleyto farm settlements failed.

“And the profit,” she said, ignoring the twitch inGary’s cheek, “is enough—with the profit we can reasonably expect from the sale of our Lastway trade goods—to do a refit at some reasonable yard, enough to bring her up to spec.” Or almost.

“Hmmmm.”Quincylooked down. Ky couldn’t read her expression.

“Payment or profit?”Garyasked.

“Profit,” Ky said. She tensed, knowing the next question.

“So how much is the advance?”

“Well… actually… they’ll pay on delivery. They paid Pavrati in advance, and the manufacturer in advance, and they don’t trust us.”

“So… you’re talking a spec run, and… do we have to pay for the merchandise?”

“Yes,” Ky said. “But it’s hard goods; if they don’t cough up, we can sell it somewhere else. And we get a residual, the rights to any insurance settlement.”

Quincylet out a stifled sound and buried her face in her hands.

“What?” Ky said. “It’s not that bad an idea…”

Quincylooked up; tears rolled down her face, and her shoulders shook. She was laughing, Ky realized, laughing so hard she couldn’t speak.

Gary, when she glanced at him, was grinning. “Ky,Ky,Ky.We wondered how long it would take.”

“How long what would take?”

“You. So prim, so proper, so very earnest—” He chuckled, and shook his head. “I knew it wouldn’t last. It never does.”

Ky felt her neck going hot. They were treating her like a child, and—

“You’re so Vatta, is what he means,”Quincysaid, through the laughter she was trying to control. “Trade and profit, right? If there’s an angle—and then it is your first ship.” She shook her head, still laughing.

“The thing is,”Garysaid, “there was no way you were going to take this ship off to scrap if you could help it. I’ll bet you that you’d been wondering if you could possibly earn enough for a refit before you ever got aboard.”

“Not… exactly,” Ky said. They were both grinning now, not sarcastic grins, but genuine glee. “You knew,” she said. “You knew all along… did my father know?” Gaspard must have known, she realized. He must have assumed that any Vatta would find a way to save a ship from scrap.

“He knows you,”Quincysaid. “I don’t suppose he knew about the Pavrati nondelivery, no, but he knew you.”

“I think Ted got it,”Garysaid toQuincy.

“Depends on how we set the time,”Quincysaid. “From the time she made the contract, or from telling us?”

“Now what are you talking about? Ted got what?” Ky asked.

“The ship’s pool,”Quincysaid. “Actually we had two, one for you taking a contract, and one for you figuring out a different way to make a profit.”

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Ky said. She had not even imagined a ship’s pool on her performance. “You were all sure I’d try to save the ship?”

“Did anyone pick no?”GaryaskedQuincy.

“I don’t think so,”Quincysaid. “I’d have to look at all the entries so far.”

“Just what did you expect me to come up with?”

“Who could guess?”Quincysaid with a shrug. “First-run captains have done all sorts of things. There’ve even been a few who followed exactly the line they’d been given, but most of those end up working for someone else. Now—let’s take a look at this contract you signed. Spec, and we have to buy the goods up front?”

“Yes.”

“Could be worse,”Garysaid. “You’ve got a letter of credit from the family, I suppose?”

“Yes,” Ky said. “It’s on Crown & Spears at Lastway, but that should be negotiable elsewhere, but we also have the payment on delivery for the cargo we brought in. That’s actually Vatta Transport, money, though. I’d rather not use it.”

“Quite right,”Garysaid.

“So, I thought Sabine Prime,” Ky said. “The Economic Development Bureau has given me the specs for what they want. Sabine has several manufacturers of the kind of equipment they want, plus used-equipment dealers.”

“Is that where they ordered it from in the first place?”

“Yes. From FarmPower. But they’d take equivalent stock from another manufacturer, or used, in order to get something here quickly, they said. And that’s in the contract.” Ky pointed out the relevant paragraph.

“And how much do you know about farm machinery?”Quincyasked.

“Me?” Ky said. “Nothing. But there are books, and it’s two months to Sabine.” Quincy and Gary both rolled their eyes. “What? You don’t think I can learn?”

“Mitt may know,”Garysaid. “But let me see that—we may have a load problem.”

“I checked the hold layouts,” Ky said.

“Yeah, but… some of these brutes will have to be disassembled, and then—we have to shift the Lastway cargo around. We aren’t fully loaded, but we’ll need easier access in these tight spaces…”

“Store some of it here,”Quincysaid. “They aren’t paying in advance, so they can store our stuff free.”

“It’s worth trying,”Garysaid.

Somewhat to Ky’s surprise, the Bureau of Economic Development was willing to put Ky’s Lastway cargo into storage for no fee, as security against their timely return. Ky hadGarycheck out the sealed storage facility; to her it looked like any other sealed storage facility. They had no special requirements, so she wasn’t nearly as concerned about temperature, pressure, and so on as about pilferage.

“The locks and seals are good quality,” he reported. “If something goes missing, it’ll be because someone used the main hatch and the key for it.”

“What do we do if they do?” she asked.

“We have their ag machinery, and we keep their ag machinery until they return our cargo.”

This was getting more complicated by the minute. Ky extracted Aunt Gracie’s fruitcakes from the rest of the cargo—maybe she could unload them on Sabine, and they fit into one of the lockers in her cabin—and signed off on the stowage contract.

Glennys Jones eased away from Belinta Station under her own power—Belinta’s single tug service being occupied with an insystem carrier—and Ky tried not to fret. Ted Barash, Mitt’s assistant in Environmental, had indeed won the pool, and used it to treat everyone to a meal just before they left. Ky tucked a mint she’d saved from the dessert tray into her mouth and went back to her calculations. Two months to Sabine. Say a week to locate the machinery, a week to do the paperwork, some days to load—to be safe another week—and then two months back to Belinta, and a week to unload, process the paper, reload with their Lastway cargo. Five months, all told, by which time the family would expect to hear that she was in Lastway, though Lastway would still be four months away.

She would have to let them know sometime, she told herself. But when? Not now, when they might tell her to stop, or send someone to help her fix her mistakes. Maybe once she had the cargo loaded at Sabine Prime? Or when she was back here and they’d be expecting word anyway?

The imagined message appeared in her mental vision, expressed in perky tones unlike her own:

No. Definitely not. Slight delay, don’t worry wasn’t much better.

She forced her mind away from the wording of a message she didn’t have to send for several months, at least, and called up the ship’s reference library. Farm machinery. She knew what they used in the tik plantations back home; she had even been sentenced to a fortnight of hard labor—as she’d called it, bootlessly, at the time—driving one of the harvesters.

The Belinta Economic Development Bureau wanted ag machinery to convert thick forest into productive farmland. As a colony world with limited repair and manufacturing facilities, they wanted machines designed specifically for such use—very rugged, low maintenance, easily repaired. They were willing to trade off the advantages of multipurpose machines for the increased life-span of a dedicated single-purpose machine.