“Huh,” grunted Rus, when Hesperus told him of his shrewd bargaining. “You trust them? You don’t think they’re just waiting for us to witch in to some desolate burg and blow us apart?”
“Really, Rus, you have a distressingly suspicious mind,” said Hesperus, frowning. “It does you little credit. Think about it. What could they gain from a double-cross? Twenty-seven tons of farm machinery? When there are pirate ships out there, legal targets, their bellies full of looted luxuries and precious metals …” He wiped his mouth. “Besides, they are already aware that the Dubious Profit would make a formidable opponent.”
Rus jerked his head, stabbing the air with his horned snout. “Formidable, right. So they’re giving us an escort all the way to Teen because they admire your combat capabilities. No, that’s not suspicious at all.”
Hesperus pursed his lips. “We offer them additional cargo space, as well as providing a powerful reserve of force,” he said. “All parties gain. It is the very essence of good business. Now: we are due to launch in five minutes. The Olympus is leaving first, and will be followed by the two Asps. We bring up the rear. And I need you down in the engine room, not crowding out the cockpit.”
Rus rolled his eyes, and turned to go. “Oh, here,” he said, turning back, holding out a flimsy. “The bill of lading. That agent told me to give it to you.”
“The bill … but what happened to the ident pad?” asked Hesperus.
“Wasn’t compatible with Qudiran systems, apparently. This is what they use. Bunch of hick farmers. She had the dock crew drag everything out the cargo bay; shunted it all around, she did, up and down, all over the place. When it was reloaded she gave me this.” He pushed the flimsy into Hesperus’s hand, and lumbered off down the corridor.
Hesperus looked at the pale green sheet, made from some sort of thin-pressed vegetable matter. It was covered in blurry markings, barely legible. A faded “dira Dock Aut” had been casually stamped across the bottom corner. A wiggly line of what must have been chemical ink was scrawled in the box labelled “For Official Use Only”, and a gritty black substance was leaching out of the material onto Hesperus’s fingers. It stated that the Dubious Profit contained eighty tons of ploughs, harrows, seed drills and threshers, with Inines as the port of origin. Oh well, he thought, Tulka’s agent, Tulka’s cargo, Tulka’s problem. He folded the flimsy, trying not to get any more of the black stuff on his hands, and slipped it into his jacket pocket.