Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pee SiS ue Oia Mare R abt. ea SG Sa Ata oa a ata, Seal kN ie : Ye i ae - \ oe Meee 30 ' ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION houses and exchanges all around me— and 1 couldn’t make it pay! How do you propose to do it as a free trader?” “You made a mistake,’ Garver pointed out bluntly. “You grew up with the businessmen who had been chained to Terra for centuries. They had no more conception of inter- planetary trade than the average man on the street does today. I grew | up with the ships that ply the routes between the planets. 1 know inter- planetary commerce from all its varied angles. Sure, a ferryboat skipper can’t" see how transoceanic steamers can make a profit with their tremendous investment, long voyages, and chang- ing markets. With the same token, the terrestrial businessman has trouble visualizing a profit when he can’t ship forty tons by sky freight and get it there in a matter of hours. It’s all a matter of viewpoint. Van, I’ve shipped for years with free traders who could and did make it pay!” Vanderhoff watched the smoke from his cigar drift slowly in the evening breeze. The last bits of color were fading from the western sky. “All right, Vil do business with you, but I’ve got more questions, ones which will need to be backed up by figures.” The old Dutchman got up and put out his cigar. He turned and added, “You see, Garv, ’'m no horse trader. My people taught me the ethics of, the trade—and there are ethics to com- merce. I drive a hard bargain, but I couldn’t outright cheat a man any more than a doctor can administer poison. Let’s go look at the books so we can get a square deal.” i The Fafnir was ready to go again. She stood out starkly white in contrast to her gantry. Gone were the streaks of rust; her skin was welded and ham- mered out and painted. Her insides were clean and re-organized. The jets had been lined with R-26, the new refractory material, and were fed by pre-heating pressure-differential fuel pumps. Winch Astrabadi, whom Gar- ver had hauled off the Asgard shuttle, had put in the new dovar which was hidden in the radomes bulging out from the hull, and had helped Harvey Bernotte rewire the entire ship. ““Minus-45 minutes,” the Fafnir’s new skipper remarked, checking his watch. He turned to Vanderhoff. *‘Hold down that fort, Van. I think I’ve shown you all the ropes at the Tavern.”’ “It'll do all right. Vil send the monthly reports to New Dakota Space- port so you can have them all when you get down on Venus.”’ Vanderhoff was now the operating partner of the Tavern, having traded the Fafnir for half-interest. They had arranged a complicated deal. In brief, they had it fixed so Vanderhoff could buy off Garver’s interest; Garver planned to use that money to pay off the loan with which he’d rebuilt the ship. There were a number of clauses in the contract which allowed for payments on the ship from the proceeds of the Tavern in case Garver got into trouble. In all, it was the strangest outfit that ever put a ship into space. Winch leaned against the gantry, impatiently shifting from one foot to the other. Cosmo II was wrapped around his neck like a fur piece. “We'd better get aboard, Skipper. Harvey’s yelling out the lock. Why’d you have to blast off at prayer time?” “Want to recompute the orbit?” Garver asked. “Go get your gear warmed up. Ill be up in time.” He turned to Vanderhoff with a smile as Winch went up on the gantry lift. ‘““Winch’s impatient to get back. So’s Harvey, and even more so in his case. He finally decided he’s going home to Comichooks*com