The ledger made him a Magnate at six minutes to twelve, on the dock at Sabik b, between a sack of coffee and a crate of tea.
You're a Magnate now. Nobody gave you that.
He read it twice, because it was the kind of line a man likes to read twice. Then he sold a hundred and twenty-three crates of medical supplies for forty-eight thousand credits and read that twice as well.
It had been a very good morning. He had bought two hundred and forty-nine crates of medical supplies at Tau Ceti for three hundred and three apiece, which had taken most of what he owned, and then he had spent the morning letting them go a few dozen at a time to people who needed them more than he did. Fifty-seven at Tau Ceti for three hundred and sixty. A hundred and twenty-three at Sabik for three hundred and ninety-four. Sixty-nine at Arcturus, the oldest star on the chart, for four hundred and one. He could have kept going all day. Canterbury had never felt so much like a ship that knew what she was for.
By twenty-five past one he was at Ankaa b with forty-three sacks of grain delivered and a hundred and eighty-three thousand credits in the account. It was more money than he had ever had. It was more money than he had ever thought about having.
'Tau Ceti Orbital has run dry of Hydrogen,' said Jessie. 'This dock hasn't.'
He bought forty-three units of hydrogen, because she was usually right, and then he looked at the board.
The bounty was near the top.
Bounty: bring in Kavs. Nine thousand credits. The card had a pilot's record on it instead of a cargo manifest. Notorious. Wanted. There was a warrant, and the warrant was for nine thousand as well, and somebody at the Desk had thought it worth printing twice.
He had been shooting raiders for three days. He had taken one apart off Cebalrai with a mining hull and a pulse laser bolted on as an afterthought. He had taken another in forty-seven seconds. He had begun, in a small way that he would not have admitted to Jessie, to think of himself as somebody raiders ought to be careful of.
'That's a pilot,' said Jessie. 'Not a raider.'
'I know what it is.'
'I'm only saying.'
He took it. It was twenty-six minutes past one.
Rigel Refinery was ten minutes out. He spent them thinking about the laser.
The pulse laser had done well by him, but it had done well against raiders, and raiders were small and fast and made of not very much. A wanted pilot would be something else. A wanted pilot would want seeing to properly. He docked at Rigel at thirty-eight minutes past, and at thirty-nine minutes past he had the pulse laser out of its mount and sitting in his inventory, where the yard told him it would fetch five and a half thousand if he ever wanted to sell it.
Seven seconds later he had a Railgun Mk I in its place.
It cost twenty-six thousand credits. That was nearly three times what the bounty paid. He had looked at that figure and decided it was an investment, which is a word that has cost better men than him a great deal more than twenty-six thousand.
Canterbury's attack went from what it had been to fifty-five. He looked at the number with real satisfaction.
Then he went looking for Kavs.
Kavs was flying a Quarryman.
A Quarryman is a mining hull. It is the third and largest of the line that begins with the Pickaxe Skiff, and it is built for sitting over a seam all day cutting rock, which means it is built to be hit by rock and not mind. It has a hundred and seventy-five points of hull. Canterbury had a hundred and seventy. It had fifty of shields to her forty-five. These were small differences and he did not look at them.
He would have looked at the next two, if he had stopped. This Quarryman had been fitted by somebody who had been wanted for a while and had thought about it. Its attack was fifty-seven, two better than his new railgun. Its speed was fifteen, against Canterbury's seven.
He engaged at nineteen seconds past the minute. That was eight seconds after the railgun went in.
The screen came up the way it always did. The enemy's intent was shown in a plain box at the top. Under it the board offered three buttons, and under those, in smaller letters, the counter it thought he ought to choose.
They strike. Suggested: BRACE.
He pressed STRIKE.
Fifty-five went out and fifty-seven came back, and Canterbury shook, and the Quarryman shook, and both of them were still there.
They brace. He pressed STRIKE. The railgun went into a mining hull that had been built to be hit and was ready for it. Twenty-two got through. Thirty-one came back the other way, which was the part about bracing he had not quite taken in.
They strike. Suggested: BRACE.
He pressed STRIKE. Fifty-five out, fifty-seven in.
They brace. STRIKE. Twenty-two. Thirty-one.
'Az,' said Jessie.
The box at the top had turned a different colour. The board marks a blow that can kill you, so that nobody can say afterwards they were not told, and it had marked this one. They strike. This drops you. Suggested: BRACE.
He had pressed STRIKE four times. He had a rhythm going. He pressed it a fifth time.
Fifty-five went out. Fifty-seven came back.
Your ship was destroyed in combat.
It was twenty-nine seconds past the minute. The fight had lasted ten seconds. The railgun had lasted eighteen.
Somewhere off Rigel, a Quarryman with seventy-one points of hull left in it received a short note from the Desk.
Azorius attacked your Quarryman and lost. You took 5,000 cr.
So that was the bounty settled, in a manner of speaking. Somebody had been paid for bringing in Kavs. It was Kavs.
He came round, as pilots do, in a yard.
The yard was very kind about it. It had seen this before. It did not say so, which was its kindness. It refuelled what he had left for a hundred and ninety-eight credits, patched the hull for eleven hundred and eighty, and waited politely while he looked at the account.
A hundred and fifty thousand. Thirty-three thousand gone since Ankaa, and Canterbury with it, and forty-three units of hydrogen that had been going to Tau Ceti and were now not going anywhere.
'Well,' said Jessie.
'Don't.'
'I wasn't going to.' She was. 'She was a good ship.'
She had been. She had carried medical supplies to three systems that morning and made him a Magnate on the way. He had owned her for two days, and named her for two days, and he had lost her for a bounty that paid less than the gun.
At eighteen minutes to two he bought a Drayman Freighter for seventy-five thousand credits. He fitted a cargo pod. He fitted a second, bigger cargo pod. And then, because he was who he was and nothing that had happened in the last three minutes had changed it, he fitted a Railgun Mk I for twenty-six thousand credits.
He sat and looked at it for a moment. Then he fitted a survey drone.
Eleven seconds after the survey drone went in he opened the board and abandoned Bounty: bring in Kavs. It went without a fuss. The Desk did not ask why. Somebody at the Desk had probably seen the combat record.
Two minutes after that he took a contract to survey Aludra b for thirteen thousand and forty credits, and set course.
It was fifteen minutes to Aludra. The new ship was quiet, and bigger than he was used to, and still had the yard's smell on her.
'What are you calling her?' said Jessie.
He thought about it. The name field sat on the screen with Drayman Freighter in it, which was what the yard called every one of them.
'I've a name put by,' he said. 'For when I can afford a ship that deserves it.'
'And this one?'
'This one's a freighter.'
'Good,' said Jessie. 'Freighters come home.'
He looked at the railgun on the fittings card, twenty-six thousand credits of it, and left it where it was. Then he settled back in the chair and flew out to Aludra, to sit in orbit over a planet and take readings of rocks, which do not shoot back.