Moon Flights

Say Cheese

“They cheated us!” Stavros Vatta glared at his younger brother Gerard. “They cheated us and you didn’t catch them.” He gestured at the open canister. Under a double layer of expensive—very expensive—CraigsHollow Premium Choice cheese shaped into neat round wheels, seven per layer, were irregular, messily wrapped lumps of very cheap and very smelly Gumbone cheese, already demonstrating why no shipper would handle it unless it were flash-frozen at source. That rendered it stringy, but at least it didn’t stink.

“All the telltales were good,” Gerard said. “I used the sniffer, everything—”

“Everything but your brain,” Stavros said. “You didn’t unpack every carton.” He transitioned from glare to glower.

“You didn’t want to wait, remember?” Gerard glared back. “You didn’t want to risk missing that early-delivery bonus on the run to Allray. I’m not taking all the blame. It’s as much your fault as it is mine.” He swatted idly at Moro, the ship’s cat, whose fascination with the containers in question had led to the discovery of fraud. “And these CraigsHollow cheeses, we’ve got to move them to separate containers and hope the mold or whatever it is hasn’t gotten into them.”

“I’m sure it has, after five days.” Stavros chewed his lower lip, then sighed. “Better try, though. Get Arnie to help—”

“Me? There’s forty containers—why not you?” It was not the first time Stavros had expected him to do all the cleanup by himself.

“Because I’m captain, remember? And I have other duties, such as figuring out how to make a profit on this run even though we’ve just found out our private cargo—that you chose—is worthless.” Stavros turned away. Gerard glared at his back, but wasted no time calling Arnie, their senior cargo handler.

Arnie Vatta, older by decades than Stavros and Gerard, shook his head as he came into the hold. “I told you, young sir—I told you to watch out for last-minute bargains.”

“Yes, you did,” Gerard said, as graciously as he could. Arnie, like the rest of Polly’s experienced crew, had offered far more advice than he wanted; by the time they’d reached Gum, he’d been tired of being treated like an apprentice. Arnie being right was worse than Stavros being angry. “You’re right; I didn’t watch hard enough. Now, though—”

“That stuff really does stink,” Arnie said. “Best tell Baris, in Environmental, before any spores get into the cultures. She’ll want special filters… ”

One thing after another. He could just imagine Baris’s reaction; she had little patience and a formidable temper. Gerard called her, with the result he expected. She cut off the intercom before he’d finished explaining the problem and was at the hold hatch in less than two minutes.

“What have you done—oh, spirits of space, you idiot. That stuff’s just this side of toxic!” She smacked the hold’s environmental control panel and shut off air circulation. Immediately the smell intensified. “There’s enough oxygen in here for you to work six or seven hours—I’m not turning circulation back on until you have that stuff under wraps again. And I strongly suggest a hard vac or flash-freeze.”

“But Baris—it’s getting thicker. Can’t we—?”

“No. Put on masks. Or suit up, if you want to; I don’t care. I’m not having that stench—or more of it—all over the ship. And don’t open the hatch until you’re done.” With that she was gone, shutting the hold hatch behind her as forcibly as the mechanism allowed. Gerard looked at Arnie, who shrugged and turned towards the hold lockers.

“I’m suitin’ up, Gerry. If I stay in here with no circulation, I’ll be pukin’ in no time. And the smell will be in my clothes and hair and… ”

Gerard sighed and got another suit from the lockers. This was not the way he’d imagined his first real trading voyage. He didn’t mind having his older brother as captain and his boss; Stavros had always taken the lead when they were children. Handling backup, any pesky details, had always been Gerard’s job. He’d expected to do the same this time. After all, he’d negotiated several tik-production contracts under their father’s supervision. He’d thought he would make a good cargomaster.

And now he’d failed. Not just failed, but put Stav’s future as a Vatta captain in doubt. Coming home with a contaminated ship, unsalable cargo, in the red? That promised to keep both of them off the list for a long time. “Let’s get at it,” he said, once he’d sealed the protective suit. “Any ideas for how to clean up the good stuff and store it so it’ll be salable?”

“Get it all out fast and into fresh containers—we got any empties?”

“Er… no,” Gerard said. Traveling with empties made no profit. Gerard had made sure they were all full.

“Mmm.” Arnie was unsealing canisters as he thought; Gerard followed his example, pulling out the good cheeses and then setting the lids back on to contain—at least a little—the stinking mess below. Twice, Gerard had to pull Moro out of a canister before he could put the lid on.

“We could move the Gumbone too, pack containers tight-full of it, and that would give us some empties for the CraigsHollow—”

“Canisters’d have to be cleaned, Gerry. I dunno what would get this stink out of ’em.” Arnie popped another canister lid. “I guess it’s better than nothing, though.”

Gerard started reopening lids he’d set back, stuffing Gumbone lumps into the space left by CraigsHollow wheels and then resealing the canisters. Even through the suit filters, he could smell the Gumbone.

“Why would anyone even make this stuff?” he said. “And why does the cat like it?”

“Dunno,” Arnie said. “What I heard is, the people back there eat it before it stinks so bad and they say it’s really good. Cats—can’t ever tell with cats why they like some smells. You’re lucky Moro likes you and the captain. He don’t like everybody, and if he don’t like you, he leaves marks.”

“Moro? Bites people? Scratches?”

Arnie chuckled. “There’s that, but there’s worse. Years ago, we had this young captain. The cat we had then, Sally, hated him. He was a difficult sort, we found out, but Sally was hissing at him and peeing on his bed before he’d done anything. Puked in his shoes, used the captain’s chair for a toilet. He hated her as much as she hated him; he finally threw her out the airlock—”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Not a nice young man at all.”

“Who is it? Is he still around?”

Arnie looked around, then shook his head. “I don’t like to say. Not good to start rumors.”

Gerard changed topics. “I was thinking… if Moro likes the smell so much, maybe we could market it—”

“As a cat-finder? For what you paid for it?”

“Cat food, Arnie. I know it’s not hard to find cats…”

“You don’t know it wouldn’t make cats sick.”

“Right.” Gerard pushed Moro out of the way again. “It’s interesting he’s not trying to get into the CraigsHollow cheeses, even though they must smell a lot like this stuff by now.”

“To us, maybe. He’s a cat.”

“Has anyone ever analyzed Gumbone? Seen if it has anything… you know… salable in there?”

“Not that I know of. It doesn’t travel well, you see…” Arnie snickered.

Gerard repressed a desire to throw a lump of Gumbone at his back. He was an adult now, a cargomaster according to the personnel list; he couldn’t give way to boyish impulses.

Finally the transfer of Gumbone produced enough empty canisters for all the CraigsHollow Premium, and they had sealed and double-taped the lids on the others, to Moro’s annoyance. The stench hadn’t diminished. Gerard called Baris. “We need to clean the canisters we’ve emptied of Gumbone, so we can put the good cheese in those. We’d only need to open the hatch for a minute; we can use the crew decontam just down the passage—”

“No, you cannot!” Baris said. “Decontam dumps watermass outside, and we’re in FTL. No external openings, remember?”

Now he felt really stupid. He’d been on a ship before; he should have remembered that. “Well… where, then?”

“How valuable are those CraigsHollow cheeses? Really worth the trouble of saving them?”

“Yes,” Gerard said. “If we can get even an ordinary price for them, it’ll help get us out of the red.”

“All right. In ten minutes, I’ll have a stack of sealable bags outside your hold hatch. You’re suited—unsuit inside, seal your suits, then bring your stuff out. Put it in the bags. Take it all to the big washroom, and before you repack it, wash the insides of the bags as well. Run your clothes through the vac unit. Use a sniffer—as long as you’ve been in there, your noses are probably saturated.” She clicked off.

“Do we take the good cheese?” Arnie asked.

“Might as well,” Gerard said. “We can at least rinse it down.” They loaded the CraigsHollow into the empty canisters, put the canisters on a load-hauler, and moved everything near the hatch.

Gerard tried not to breathe as he unsuited, but he had to take several breaths… impossible to believe that anyone ever actually ate Gumbone. Soon they were out in the passage, moving the loadhauler upship. When they arrived in the washroom Baris was there.

“I could smell you coming all the way down the passage,” she said. “I’ve already installed special equipment in the water system to handle any spores or anything.”

Washing down the containers and the bags took another hour, because Baris insisted on checking every single one for residual contamination.

“And your clothes,” she said, when they were down to the CraigsHollow pile. “No, not the cheeses… I’m still considering whether it’s a good idea to rinse them off—”

“We have to do something about them—” Gerard began.

“Right now what you have to do is your clothes,” Baris said. “Off with them.”

Arnie was already half-stripped; Gerard ran a finger under the closure of his shipsuit, feeling like a little boy whose mother had found him wallowing in a mud puddle. Baris could at least leave them alone for this… but environmental security was her responsibility. Sighing, he handed over his clothes and walked through the scrubber. On the far side, he pulled a clean shipsuit off the rack and put it on.

“I’m worried that rinsing these cheeses could damage them,” Baris said.

“They’re wrapped,” Arnie said. “We’re not even sure the spores could get in.”

“The wrapping could have sensors built in—change color if water touches them, something like that. I put in a call to Kerry, in Engineering; he’s on the way with some specialized equipment.”

Kerry and Stavros showed up together. “What’s going on?” Stavros asked. Kerry crouched over the pile of cheeses.

“Trying to save the profit,” Gerard said. Engineering hadn’t been his strong point during his apprentice voyage; he had no idea what instrument Kerry was using. He focused instead on Stavros. “We have four canisters’ worth of the CraigsHollow. If we can sell it at the next stop—”

“Allray? I don’t think that’s our best bet, not with so little. If we had forty canisters, I’d say yes. When we left Craigomar, the market price at Allray was fifty two five. You paid twenty five each for the forty—our net on just four would put us seven hundred ninety in the hole, not counting transport costs.”

“Definitely sensors in the wrap,” Kerry said, standing up. “Captain, I’d advise against any tampering, and that includes the use of water. There are at least five sensor suites in the wrapping of each cheese. Temperature, moisture, mechanical—that would be unwrapping or cutting the seal, a pH check, and one I’m not sure of. Quality merchandise, quality security.”

“Which close contact with the Gumbone may already have compromised,” Gerard said.

“If it hasn’t,” Stavros said, “there’s a hot market—or was when we left—for exotic foodstuffs on Corland. CraigsHollow cheese was starred. Two zero six per canister.”

Gerard felt a gleam of hope. Still in the hole but not as much, and maybe the price would have risen in the meantime. “And that’s only thirty days station to station from Allray—”

“Since we’re supplementary to the regular Vatta service, we don’t have to do more at Allray than drop off the consignments and pick up anything that’s shown up for Corland. We can be in and out in less than a day.” Stavros grinned. He punched Gerard lightly on the shoulder.

“Of course,” Gerard said, his mood dropping again. “We still owe for the transport of the Gumbone.”

“We’ll think of something,” Stavros said. “Only 2.8 more days of FTL, thanks be. Kerry, Baris, do you think we should let the good cheese air before packing it away?”

“The packing instructions say in sealed, dry containers,” Gerard said. “At least that way it won’t be contaminated by anything else.”

“When you get it packed,” Baris said, “come by Environmental; I have filters for you to carry back to the hold and install in the intakes before I turn the circulation back on.”

Gerard did not look at the CraigsHollow cheeses again until they were out of FTL flight, within a few hours of Allray Station.

The Gumbone canisters, the seals taped over, were as far from the CraigsHollow as possible. Gerard sniffed as he entered the hold. Air had circulated through the scrubbers repeatedly; he couldn’t smell anything resembling the stench of aged Gumbone. He pried the lid off the first of the CraigsHollow canisters… and his heart sank. Their translucent wrapping had changed to opaque orange. The CraigsHollow seal, once metallic green, blue, and gold, had turned flat gray, with no logo.

Gerard pulled out the top layer of cheeses, hoping against hope that the others were undamaged, but no—all showed a color change in the wrapping and label. He took one and headed upship to tell Stavros the bad news.

“The seals changed,” he said, as he came onto the bridge.

“What?” Stavros didn’t turn, peering at the screen which showed Polly’s position on the inbound traffic lane. Another showed the current market for the goods they carried, and a list of cargo waiting shipment.

“This.” Gerard held out the cheese. “The seals. Evidently there was something in the smell that could penetrate the wrapping and it set off the sensors.”

Stavros turned, then, and grimaced.

“Damn. Now what? We can’t sell it as CraigsHollow Premium if it doesn’t have that seal. We might as well eat it ourselves.”

They looked at each other. “We’ll be eating dry bread and water if Father finds out how far down we are. So much for trade and profit,” Gerard said. He peeled the seal off and unfolded the wrapper. It still looked like a CraigsHollow Premium round, the darker outer rind that should have a paler interior. “I can’t really smell anything Gumboney now,” he said, after a careful sniff.

“Well, the sensor could smell it,” Stavros said. “Let’s hope it’s not too bad. I should make you eat it all yourself, but I’m a generous man—”

“You’re in as much trouble as I am,” Gerard said. “You know the rule: the captain is responsible.”

“Mother should have had you first. Then you’d be captain, it’d be your responsibility, and I’d have had sense enough not to buy the stuff and cause you grief.” Stavros turned back to the screens, highlighting for inquiry those whose mass and destinations would suit their schedule.

“You’d have walked over me to be captain, no matter who was oldest,” Gerard said, prodding the cheese with one finger. “It looks all right. If it’s not too bad, maybe we can feed it to the crew and sell some standard rations.”

“Quit stalling. Go on and taste it, Gerry. I’m your captain; I’m ordering you.”

“Bully.” Gerard pinched off a crumb and tasted it. “It’s not that bad,” he said. “In fact… ” The flavors suddenly expanded, layer after layer of complexity. Gerard had tasted CraigsHollow Premium once as part of his education, but this… this was more. Better. Vastly better. “Stav… you have to taste this.”

“Why? I may be stuck eating it until we get home, but I don’t have to start right away.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Gerard pinched off another crumb and held it out. Stavros took it, sniffed at it cautiously, then laid the crumb on his tongue.

“You’re right, it’s not so bad… in fact it’s even… oh, my…”

“See what I mean?”

Stavros worked his tongue around in his mouth. “It’s better than CraigsHollow. It’s much better.” He grinned. “Gerry, whatever was in the Gumbone that did this, however it did it—”

“Just sitting in the canister with the CraigsHollow for five days—”

“I wonder what it would do with other cheeses. If they tasted like this, we could make a fortune. We could start a new business—”

If they’d had cheese to try it on. If it worked on other cheeses.

“I don’t see how we can sell anything made with it,” Gerard said. “It’s a food product—we have to show provenance. We don’t have the Gumbone on the manifest at all—it was all supposed to be CraigsHollow. We can’t sell the CraigsHollow itself because the label’s degraded—”

“We could manufacture our own label.” Stavros broke off another crumb and put it in his mouth. “Dear heavens. This is… incredible. Or maybe we just eat it all and die in ecstasy.” Stavros reached for another crumb and Gerard slapped his hand away.

“Stop it. Profit first, if it’s possible. The problem is, we have nothing on the manifest… no provenance. And we don’t have a license for food production. No certifications—” Gerard had spent hours studying the Uniform Commercial Code, in hopes of finding exactly the right cargo to make their private stake.

“I wonder how picky Corland is about certificates,” Stavros said. “I’ll bet if they had a taste of this, they’d ignore the rules and pay… double what they were offering for CraigsHollow alone. There’s got to be some way we can sell it.”

“There’s always forgery,” Gerard said, half-joking. “If we could find a label we could copy—”

“Too easy to check up on us, unfortunately. It must’ve been great in the days before ansibles. Desperate rogues like us could get away with anything, just by skipping a few light years.” Stavros grinned again. “Think of our esteemed founder. But in these civilized days, I suppose we must not ruin the reputation of the firm. And these look entirely too much like CraigsHollow Premium—same shape, same color, same weight. Probably would test much the same, barring the flavor. Anyone can find out we were carrying some.” He smacked his lips. “I could eat a whole wheel of this stuff… I wonder if it’s really addictive or just that good.”

“Well… you mentioned other cheeses. If we could treat some other cheese… maybe mix some of this in with it,” Gerard said. “For instance, back home… there’s that place where Aunt Grace buys party supplies. Cheese rolls, cheese balls… roll it in chopped tik nuts and… What’s that herb, the one she puts in sausage? Those things are expensive.”

Stavros frowned. “I don’t remember, but I think I know what you mean. Use the CraigsHollow as a base, or the Gumbone?”

“I’m thinking Gumbone as an additive. Everyone thinks it’s worthless; nobody else is carrying it. We—well, the family—could have a monopoly on it, at least for awhile. If we take it home—”

“But we don’t know it works with anything else. CraigsHollow is unique, that’s why it has such a name.”

“We’ll be at Allray in four hours. Three hours to unload the consignment, three to load whatever you snag to replace it; we can be on our way in less than a day, even counting time for customs and such. There’ll be cheeses for sale in dockside markets—we don’t need high-quality cheese, just something edible, to test it on.”

“Using what for money? You spent our personal allowance back on Gum; we’re not allowed to use corporate funds, remember?” Stavros looked just as angry as when they’d first found the Gumbone where the CraigsHollow Premium should have been.

Gerard remembered now… they were probationary captain and cargomaster on this voyage. Only those with permanent appointments could tap into Vatta funds for trade capital. “Arnie might—” he said.

Stavros shook his head. “No. Only the captain and cargomaster can do it.”

Gerard slouched deeper into the chair. “Well… there’s got to be something we can sell to get some money.” He thought through his own possessions: nothing worth much that he hadn’t already sold off. “What about the early-delivery bonus? We’re getting that, aren’t we?”

“Goes to the company. We are well and truly in it to the earlobes, Gerry.”

“Wait—that sapphire ring you bought for Helen—what about that?”

“You want me to sell Helen’s engagement ring? You’re crazy!”

“You can get her another—you’re not actually engaged yet.”

“I am not selling Helen’s engagement ring,” Stavros said, every centimeter the outraged lover. “I picked it out specially. She loves sapphires; they match her eyes. And I could afford a much better ring at Placer B than back home—”

“She won’t mind,” Gerard said. Stavros lunged at him; Gerard dodged around the navigation console and kept talking. “She won’t mind not having a ring nearly as much as she’d mind having you in disgrace, not getting your permanent status for another year, if ever.”

Stavros paused, scowling.

“I’m serious,” Gerard said. “We’ve got to do something to fix this mess, and it’s going to take both of us.”

“He’s right, Captain,” said Collins, the duty pilot, who had ignored them until now. Gerard glanced at him.

Stavros transferred his scowl to the pilot, then took a huge breath and let it out slowly. “All right. All right. We are partners; I understand. But the moment—the moment—we have a profit, I’m taking it and replacing this ring. Helen knows I’m going to her family when we get back—” For a moment his eyes unfocused, then he gave Gerard a sharp look. “And I’m buying the cheese this time,” Stavros said.

“You can’t,” Gerard said. “You need to stay aboard if we’re doing a short turnaround; you’ll be arguing for a departure slot. Send Arnie. He’s experienced.”

Stavros nodded. “Fine. The ring’s in my cabin, second drawer on the left, in a little red leather box. You take it to him.”

Immediately after they cleared the Customs & Immigration docking, Gerard took over the unloading of the consigned cargo while Arnie headed off with orders to sell the ring and buy cheap, but non-smelly cheese, nuts, and herbs.

Then Stavros, wearing his best uniform and his captain’s cape, came down to dockside, where Gerard had just finished the offloading and certification of the consigned cargo. “Trouble,” he said, before Gerard could ask. “Arnie’s been arrested. They claim he tried to cheat a jeweler.”

“What?”

Stavros muttered something Gerard couldn’t understand.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear that.”

Stavros grimaced. “I said, they said the ring was a fake. They weren’t real sapphires. Arnie insisted they were, the jeweler called the police, the police took him and the ring—”

“But Stav—surely you checked—”

“Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.” Stavros shook his head and lowered his voice again. “It was a reputable store. At least, it looked like a reputable store. I checked the directory, all the things Father told us to look at.”

“Could the store here be lying?”

“I don’t know. What I know is that Arnie’s in custody, the ring is in custody, they’re bringing in an independent appraiser to determine if it’s a fake or not, and no matter what the result, we’re facing a delay, extra costs that will have to go on the company account because we can’t pay them, and gods know what else.”

Gerard opened his mouth to list what else could go wrong, but changed his mind. Instead he said, “Don’t worry, Stav. I know you can handle the situation there; I’ll make sure the ship’s secure and check that the on-delivery payment gets to Crown & Spears.”

Stavros nodded. “Thanks, Gerry.”

Gerard turned back to the ship.

“What’s happening?” Collins asked, when Gerard arrived on the bridge. “Captain left in a rush—he wouldn’t say why.”

“If he wouldn’t say why, I shouldn’t,” Gerard said. He called up their account at Crown & Spears. The on-delivery payment showed as Pending Clearance. Collins raised an expressive eyebrow. “You think I should?”

“It’s not my place to say,” Collins said. “But if you ask me—”

“Oh, go on,” Gerard said. “I know you and the rest could run the ship perfectly well without us, and you’re laughing your heads off because we got into trouble—”

“Not really,” Collins said. “If you mess up too badly, it’s bad for us, too.”

“And you think we’re bad enough to cause you trouble?” Gerard said.

“Actually, no,” Collins said. “You’ve made some mistakes, sure. All the young officers do. But for the most part, the crew thinks you’ve performed very well.”

“So you’ve discussed us, have you?” Gerard could imagine… stories about Arkady Vatta’s boys would soon be all through the Vatta fleet, and they were bound to get back to Arkady.

“Well, of course,” Collins said. “What do you think? It’s part of our job with any young officers like you. Anyway, you’ve done well on the whole and we’d hate to see you fail.”

“So… does the crew have ideas that might help?”

Collins grinned. “Since you finally thought to ask, we might. We all have a cargo stake, you know.”

Within the hour, the crew had chipped in from their personal funds and sent Baris off to buy cheese and other supplies to implement the new plan. Stavros called back a little later, to report that Arnie had been cleared of charges. The sapphires were synthetic and worth much less than he’d paid for the ring.

“Sell it anyway,” Gerard said. “You’ll want genuine stones for Helen and besides, you now owe the crew.”

“Owe the crew?”

“Get it done and come back; I’m not explaining on this line.”

Arnie reappeared first, lugging two sacks. “I just happened by a market and saw Baris. She said to bring this back.”

“How’s Stavros—I mean, the captain?” Gerard asked.

“Fit to be tied. He’s really upset about that ring. I told him—” Arnie didn’t finish; he didn’t have to. Gerard knew that Stavros, like himself, had been given more advice then he wanted.

“He told me it was a reputable jeweler,” Gerard said.

Arnie snorted. “A dockside jeweler. No such thing as a reputable dockside jeweler. But lovesick lads have to find out the hard way. Now don’t you tease him. He feels bad enough.”

“Me tease him!” Gerard shook his head. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

“You. You’re a younger brother. I know all about younger brothers. Was one myself, had one younger than me.”

“So, did Baris find cheese?” Gerard asked, retreating from what promised to be a long family remembrance. Arnie started to speak, but Baris herself appeared at the hatch.

“I’m back,” Baris said, peering into the bridge. “Somebody’ll have to open up below. I got a great deal on the ingredients. And the outgoing cargo’s arrived.”

Something about her tone alerted Gerard. “Ingredients?”

“Ingredients,” she said. “The cheapest cheese was too expensive when the captain’s ring turned out to be fake. And it wasn’t good enough. We didn’t need more bad cheese.”

Gerry’s heart nearly stopped. “You didn’t get cheese… What did you get?”

“I told you. Ingredients. What you make cheese out of, milk and coagulant and salt. The local cheese factory went out of business, some kind of legal problem; I bought up their raw materials for a lot less than cheese would’ve cost.” She looked entirely too cheerful for someone who had clearly just lost her mind.

“But we don’t know how to make cheese—”

“I have it all right here.” She held up a data cube. “It shouldn’t be hard at all. Environmental’s all about cultures and cleanliness, right? If I can’t make better cheese than was in the market, I’ll be very surprised.”

“Does the captain know—?”

She pursed her lips. “Well… not exactly. I didn’t see any reason to worry him with the details. He’s always said you were his detail man. Now if you and Arnie will just go down there and open the cargo hatch…”

Being the designated “detail man” meant that he was the one who had to tell Stavros they had no cheese, just the ingredients for making cheese.

“Baris said she could do it,” Gerard said, watching his brother’s eyelid twitch. He had insisted on talking to Stavros in the captain’s cabin. One interruption by a helpful crew member and his brother might say something unfortunate. “She seems very confident.”

“Baris—” Stavros began. Then he dropped his head into his hands. “This is the worst voyage anyone ever made. Neither of us will ever make permanent captain—and Helen—”

“It’s not over yet, Stav,” Gerard said. “We have three ten-days before we get to Corland Station. Maybe Baris will make good cheese, maybe the Gumbone will give it the perfect flavor… or maybe we’ll come out of jump in a star and never have to worry about anything again.” That had been the final chance their father listed every time they’d faced a difficulty, from being lost in the hills behind Corleigh Town to a feeling of panic when faced with asking a girl to a dance.

Stavros snorted and shook his head. “Gerry… I could almost wish for that collision with a star, right now.”

“I know. The thought of facing our father if we don’t come back at least even-money scares me, too. But the crew’s on our side. They’re not stupid, even if we were—”

“I wasn’t stupid… not exactly. I swear to you, it looked like a legitimate jeweler’s. Everything seemed to check out. But really—cheesemaking on a spaceship? And we still don’t have any certification. How can we sell a food product we’re not licensed to make?”

“Ah,” Gerard said. “That’s the real question. We can’t pretend we have the license; they’d find out. We can’t pretend it’s someone else’s product; they’d find that out, too. So it’s really a marketing problem.”

They sat staring at each other a long moment. Then Stavros shifted in his seat. “Wait… What if it’s something that’s never been exported before? Experimental or something?”

Gerard felt the hair rise on his arms as an idea leaped into his mind. “Something that hasn’t been exported—so it doesn’t have to be on the manifest—because it’s not for sale.”

“Not for sale? But the point is to sell it—” Stavros looked confused.

“Oh, we’ll sell it. But we’ll have to be persuaded… we don’t want to sell it—”

“Of course we want to sell it!”

“Wake up, Stav,” Gerard said. He saw the whole plan now, clear as the figures in red and black. “We can’t sell it legitimately—we have to have an angle. That’s the angle. Call it our rations or something. Not for sale. But we let the right person get a taste of it—”

Stavros’s face lit up. “Gerry, that’s brilliant! If Baris can make the cheese—”

“We can make the sale,” Gerard said. “And the profit.”

Corland Station’s Customs & Immigration team came aboard to check out the consigned cargo. “Something sure smells good,” the inspector said, as Gerard signed the datapad to indicate that they had nothing further to unload.

“Lunch,” Gerard said. “Want to join us?”

“I can’t,” the inspector said. “We’re not allowed—but what is it?”

“Nothing special,” Gerard said. “You know, cheese and sausage and bread.”

“Mmm. Ever consider selling some of it, whatever it is?”

“No. It’s just crew rations,” Gerard said, shrugging. “Nothing to get excited about.” Across dockside, he saw two men lift their heads and sniff, their reaction completely unlike his to the undiluted Gumbone.

“How long will you be here?” the inspector asked, sniffing again. “If I stopped by when I’m off-duty…”

“We have to wait for the local sales agent Vatta works with,” Gerard said. “I think there’s something for us to pick up here—at least, our captain’s trying to find us cargo to replace what we’re dropping off. Polly’s a nightmare to trim with the load this unbalanced. If we can’t find cargo, we’ll have to move things around…”

The inspector finally moved away. Gerard pulled out the platter of cheese, sausage, and bread Arnie had placed on a hotplate in front of the ventilation blower, and the two of them sat down to eat in plain sight of dockside traffic.

“When’s the company agent coming?” Arnie asked.

“Another hour,” Gerard said. “That went well, didn’t it?”

“Baris is a genius,” Arnie said, and took a bite of ship’s biscuit spread with Baris’s cheese roll mixture and a slice of sausage.

Gerard took a mouthful and nodded. Never mind the suspense of those days when it seemed the cheese wouldn’t be ready in time or that Baris would never find the right proportion of Gumbone to the cheese she’d made. It had worked out in the end and the flavors in his mouth were proof of that. Better even than the fume-flavored CraigsHollow Premium.

Several of the people walking by paused, sniffing, turning to look. One of them, after a hesitation, came nearer. “What’s that you’re eating? Smells good, but nothing like I’ve had before—”

“Just lunch,” Arnie said. “Why?”

“I’m off Morroway, Bissonet registry, dock seven. Where’d you buy it?”

“Didn’t buy it,” Arnie said, taking another bite. “It’s off our ship. Rations.”

“Vatta feeds you that well? That’s got to be Gold Level—”

“It’s not,” Gerard said, earning a look from Arnie. The whole act was going as planned. “It’s homemade.”

“Can—can I have a taste?”

“Sure,” Gerard said. Arnie shook his head.

“Better not. We don’t know what you’re allergic to. It’s got chopped nuts in it, and dairy—”

“I’m not allergic,” the man said. “Just a taste—”

Gerard and Arnie exchanged looks. “Well, if you fall over dead, don’t blame us,” Arnie said. He smeared a round of ship’s biscuit with the cheese and laid a sausage slice on it. “There you go.”

The man took a bite, and his face changed to the blissful expression Gerard expected.

“This tastes even better than it smells. Sure you won’t sell us some?”

Arnie laughed. “And not have any for ourselves? You’ve got to be kidding.”

With a last longing look at the platter, the man finally went away. Gerard stuffed another bite in his mouth, to have some reason for the triumphant grin he was sure was spreading over his face.

“Act Two,” Arnie said. “Word’s going to spread fast.”

Gerard left Arnie lounging in the cargo hatch opening, and went upship to set the stage for their next visitor, this one expected.

“What is that heavenly aroma?” the sales agent said as Stavros led him past the galley.

“Just ship rations,” Stavros said. “It’s only a cheese roll.” He glanced at the table, where a cheese roll, haggled at one end, lay on a cheese-smeared plate with an open tin of ship’s biscuit beside it. “Gerry, weren’t you supposed to clean up the galley after lunch?”

Gerard glowered. “Not my turn. Baris should have—”

“You sell them?” the sales agent said.

“Ship rations? No, of course not. Traditional food.”

Gerard, watching this, admired, Stavros’s tone of voice.

“But—but I must taste that—”

“If you want to,” Stavros said, sounding puzzled. “Gerry, cut him off a piece.” To the sales agent he said, “It’s just a cheese spread thing.”

Gerard sliced off a corner and put it on a plate. The sales agent took it eagerly, eyes alight. His eyes widened when the flavors developed in his mouth. “You—you don’t export this?”

“Wouldn’t be profitable,” Gerard said. “Labor-intensive, expensive to make.”

“Really…” The rep looked at the roll on the table. “That’s—it’s quite good. There might be a market for something like that.”

“But it’s our rations,” Gerard said. He cut off a lump, pressed it on a ship’s biscuit with his thumb, and took a bite. The rep shuddered slightly, but his eyes shifted back to the table. “Besides,” Gerard said, around the mélange of flavors in his mouth, “it’s not licensed provender. You wouldn’t want to buy something with no provenance.”

The man’s hand twitched. Stavros cut off a slice for himself, spreading it onto the round of biscuit with a knife, as a captain should. “Go ahead,” he said to the rep. “Help yourself. I always did say Auntie Grace made the best—”

Gerard nearly choked on the last of the biscuit.

“A relative made this?”

“Yes,” Stavros said, draped in honesty. Gerard admired his skill even more. That statement was true in all senses, but yet, in the conversational context, it was a plain lie.

“She makes fruitcake too,” Stavros went on. “And sausage.” He nodded at the sausage, which had indeed been a gift from Aunt Grace, but they had no idea if she’d made it herself.

“She’s a cook?”

Gerard inhaled a crumb the wrong way and had to cough.

“Not exactly,” Stavros said. “It’s more of a hobby with her. But she’s good at it, isn’t she?”

“If her fruitcake’s as good as this cheese—” The sales agent cut himself another slice. “Look, Captain, we’re hosting a summit conference between—well, I can’t give the names. Hostile powers, let’s say. It’s very, very secret.”

Gerard was tempted to tell him it was no secret on the docks; the loaders had talked about it as the cargo came off. Santanians and Berklundians. If they went to war and started throwing munitions at each other, four useful trade routes would be yellow-tagged for years, until someone cleared all the mess away. Instead, he licked the cheese off his fingers, playing hick to the hilt.

The sales agent went on. “We are tasked—I am tasked—with providing the food. It’s politically inexpedient that they know where the food is from—trade agreements on produce are a major source of the hostility. Something like this—something unique—is exactly what I need. Of course it would have to pass analytical tests, including testing against their allergen panels—”

“Allergen panels?” Gerard asked, as if he’d never heard of them.

“Oh, yes. Our guests provide us with a complete panel of any known allergies, with detailed specifications of the allergens, so we can ensure that nothing they come in contact with will cause them distress.” The rep cut himself yet another slice of the cheese roll, this time spreading it thickly on a ship’s biscuit. “But you’re eating it, and I’m eating it, and my implant’s not flagged it yet. Now—are all the ingredients from your homeworld? Slotter Key, is it, or is that just the ship’s registry?

“No, some ingredients are imported to our homeworld,” Stavros said. “Each family has its own recipes, you understand. For instance, Aunt Grace uses a small amount of CraigsHollow cheese in the mix. And if she runs short of rutter cheese, she uses whatever light cheese is available. We’re not primarily a dairy supplier.”

Aunt Grace would skin Stavros alive, Gerard thought, if she ever found out about this. And she would find out, because she found out everything.

The rep’s expression of gustatorial bliss mixed with intense cunning suggested the source of his next question. “Supposing I were willing to buy such a food product. Without a license of course I could not pay premium prices… how much could you supply?”

Stavros shot a glance at Gerard. “Well… I don’t know. We’d have to be able to resupply here, and your prices are awfully high—”

“What about a straight trade, then? Kilo for kilo? This stuff is good, but surely you’re tired of it by now.”

“Oh, we never get tired of good cheese,” Gerard said. “Would you get tired of this?” His implant rolled the figures past him. If they even-traded cheese rolls for Corland’s high-priced foodstuffs, they could sell those somewhere else and still make a profit. Corland’s station inventory included flash-frozen bloodbeast filets, Turnoy tigerfish steaks, spices from at least twenty worlds.

“Straight trade. No paperwork. If it passes our toxicology tests that’s all that really matters. Private-label it.”

“I don’t know,” Stavros said. “I don’t want to get in trouble with your food safety inspectors.”

“Look—110% by weight premium. Really. How much—”

“Well… ” Stavros looked at Gerard; Gerard shrugged as if he didn’t care. “I guess we could let you have—how much have we got left, Gerry?”

“A couple gross,” Gerard said. “We could let them have ten or twenty rolls and still get home before we ran out.”

“You have over two hundred—come on, you can survive part of one voyage without it, surely. I could use all that—”

“Crew’s not going to like it,” Gerard said. “But it’s up to you, Captain.”

“It’s irregular,” Stavros said, as if that were a problem. “But I guess… if you can guarantee we won’t get in trouble with the authorities…”

“No problem,” the rep said. He cut himself another slice. “No problem at all. I’ll put it in writing. Special import, traditional native food of… Slotter Key, wasn’t it?” Stavros nodded. “And listen—if you can get people to jump through the hoops and set up for export, I guarantee it’d be a profitable product…”

“I don’t know,” Stavros said. “We’re just a transport company really.”

“We’ll need to rewrap it all,” Gerard said. “You know how it is—” he indicated the wrapper, where the words Not For Sale still showed on the uncut end of the roll. That had been another of Baris’s bright ideas. “I suppose you have plain dairy-quality wrap on the station—”

“How soon?”

How long would it take to make up that many cheese rolls if everyone pitched in? The biggest mixer in the galley had a capacity of only 3 kilos of cheese. That would make six half-kilo cheese logs… Gerard ran the calculations, the number of batches, the time it would take to mix in the right amount of flavoring, shape them, roll them in nuts and herbs, wrap and label them. Add a few hours for the inevitable problems. “Day after tomorrow,” Gerard said. “If we get the wrapping today. We’ll have to be careful not to knock off any of the seasonings.”

“I could have that done for you.”

Stavros shook his head. “No—nothing can leave this ship with Not For Sale on it… an inspector couldn’t ignore that.”

“Oh. Of course.”

They had the signed contract within the next hour, and an hour after that, Baris returned to the ship with two rolls of dairy-quality food-product wrap. Gerard had already cleared out the galley and dining area to make a workstation. Someone had started the big mixer in the galley, and two batches sat in bowls ready to shape, with bowls of chopped nuts and herbs ready to go.

By the time they had two gross cheese rolls ready for delivery, the entire crew was exhausted, but they were ready ahead of time, and every lingering trace of the Gumbone additive had been scrubbed from the air. Only the lush aroma of Baris’s recipe, now neatly wrapped, sealed, and closed with the newly printed labels (Vatta & Co, Private Treaty Cheese Rolls, 500g) greeted the sales agent on his return.

Homecoming meant docking at Slotter Key Station and facing yet another customs and immigration inspection. With the exception of the remaining Gumbone, now stored in crew quarters as private property, everything in the cargo holds matched the manifests. The last of the cargo from that Corland trade had been sold off two stops before.

Gerard did not expect to see his father standing outside the ship when customs cleared them and opened the dockside access.

“I’ll just come aboard, shall I?” Arkady said, with a nod for Arnie. “Hi, Arnie. Talk to you later.” He stepped into shipspace before Gerard could say anything. Gerard gulped.

“Father. Welcome aboard.”

“We’ll go upship,” Arkady said. The arm he put around Gerard’s shoulders was hard as stone and felt as heavy. No chance to warn Stavros… “I understand you’ve had an interesting voyage, Gerry. You and Stav both.”

“We’re in the black,” Gerard said.

“Very nice,” Arkady said, in a tone that did not match his words.

Someone had warned Stavros, because he met them in the main passage.

“Your cabin,” Arkady said. It was not a request. Stavros, stony-faced, ushered them in and at Arkady’s gesture closed them in. Gerard had the feeling that only one was coming out of there alive.

“I should knock your heads together,” Arkady began. “Do you even have an idea how many laws you broke and how much trouble you could be in?”

“I don’t think we actually broke any laws,” Gerard said. “At least, not until we unload the—” His father held up a hand.

“I don’t want to know about that until it’s downside, behind odor-proof seals. It’s your problem how you get it down.”

“We’re in the black,” Stavros said. He glanced at Gerard.

“Trade and profit,” Gerard said.

Arkady gave them both a long, hard look, then slowly shook his head. The rumble of laughter that meant danger was over followed after. “You boys,” he said. “No, sorry, you men. You are definitely, absolutely, without any doubt, Vatta to the core.” He grinned. “We will have to have your pictures taken, added to the database of permanent crew.” He chuckled again. “You will have to say cheese,” he said.