Hayford Peirce - Deep-Fried Black Diamonds

“How much are we worth today?” asked Jin Tshei seven months later.

“On computer? The three of us? About four and a half million buckles.”

Jin Tshei shook her head wonderingly. She is taller than Isabel, and not quite as rounded in the places that I myself find particularly interesting. She has golden skin the color of honey and glossy black hair that falls nearly to her waist. If J. Davis Alexander’s wife, Miss Grain Harvest of 2273, is the most flat-out gorgeous creature in the Belt, then Jin Tshei is a close runner-up. Sometimes I envied Isabel the fact that she was married to this beautiful woman and I wasn’t, but mostly I managed to suppress the thought. Jin Tshei is the assistant curator at the Clarkeville Museum of Art and Human Achievement and normally displays little interest in monetary matters except as how they relate to acquisitions for her rapidly expanding museum. “Four and a half million buckles,” she repeated softly. “I just can’t believe it. Are you sure you’re right?”

I nodded smugly and broadened my smile to encompass Isabel, who was sitting between us at the diningroom table. The three of us were finishing up a pleasant Sunday afternoon spent together at their apartment just on the outer edge of Silverspur, Clarkeville’s most desirable residential area, and I was about to leave for an early night in preparation for another arduous day in the life of an ethical stockbroker. “I know it seems unbelievable,” I said, “but it really is true. There’s never been an issue in the entire Belt that’s been snapped up so fast. It doubled as soon as it hit the market, and then doubled again—all in the first day. Since then it’s doubled and split seven times. It’s now the company with the highest market capitalization in the entire Belt.”

Isabel pursed her lips thoughtfully. “You mean that if you sold all the outstanding shares, they would be worth more money than Magnus Mining or Solar Transport Systems? But that’s insane!”

I shrugged. “Insane but true. J. Davis Alexander thinks that at least some of the money is coming from governments on Earth, France, Italy, and Spain, that are trying to protect their truffle farmers by buying up as much stock as they can—and then eventually trying to suppress the company.”

“Do you think that’s true?” asked Jin Tshei.

“I don’t know—but we’ve advised Ling Wong Guoy to put a permanent fleet of gunboats around Black Diamond Farm. That’s now the single most valuable piece of real estate in the entire Belt.”

“All without a single truffle being produced except for the ones he already had growing,” marveled Isabel. She turned her eyes to mine and they were far from being uncritically admiring. “I remember some of the other financial escapades you’ve involved us in that were going to make our fortunes. It’s my understanding that all of this enormous fortune you’ve accumulated for us on computer is actually based on us having bought stock on margin?”

“Of course,” I said. “How else could we possibly accumulate enough to be worth this much, no matter how often it doubled? I got a little bit of the original one million shares that was privately issued and split it between us, then when the ten million public shares came out I bought as many as I could on margin.” Margin is money that a stock-broking firm such as Hartman, Bemis & Choupette will lend its customers to buy stock on credit, the loan being secured by keeping physical possession of the stock itself. It’s an easy way to make money—as long as the price of your stock keeps going up. If the price goes down —well, that’s another story.

“And as our net worth goes up, that’s enabled you to make more and more purchases on margin?”

That’s right. Why? Do you think I haven’t been buying enough?”

Isabel and Jin Tshei scowled at me simultaneously. It was like watching a simultaneous eclipse of a double sun. “That is not at all what Isabel means, Jonathan White,” said Jin Tshei testily. “What she means is that in all these wonderful months of making millions of buckles for us, you seem to have forgotten that the whole point of the exercise was to make enough money to pay for Valérie-France’s stay on Earth and for an annual trip by each of us to go visit her.”

“Well,” I said, somewhat irritated, “isn’t that exactly what I’ve done? In another month or so, when the stock has doubled again, we can all go to Earth and live in a castle for the rest of our lives.”

Isabel shook her head. “We’ve heard your prognostications of the stock market before—and none of us are millionaires as a result. The essential thing here is Valérie-France’s health. According to my own figures, we’re going to need two and a quarter million buckles to pay for her stay and our visits over the next fourteen years. That’s if we buy a guaranteed annuity.”

I groaned in disbelief. “Throw away millions of buckles by investing them in annuities? When we can easily make—”

“Jonathan,” said Jin Tshei, “you’re outvoted. Put through the sell order for two and a quarter million first thing in the morning. According to you, that still leaves another two and a quarter million. A third of that is yours. You can do whatever you want with it. Isabel and I are going to take ours and buy two more annuities with it—fourteen years pass pretty quickly, you know. One of these days Valérie-France is going to be ready for college and then graduate work. How did you think we were going to pay for that?”

I shook my head in despair at the sheer folly of the words that issued from the mouths of these two beautiful women. “Madness,” I muttered, “utter madness.”

Jin Tshei stood by my side as we watched Ling Wong Guoy supervise the final loading of a full ton of carefully selected truffles onto the Solar Transport Systems ship that would take them to Earth. A billion stars or so, even more than were visible in the dining room of La Voûte Céleste, stretched from one end of the Cerean horizon to the other. It was a sight that always took my breath away. One of those distant lights, I supposed, could easily be Earth.

The master chef and restaurateur turned away from the cargo hatch. His face brightened at the sight of his beautiful kinswoman. “So kind of you to come to say goodbye,” he said, taking her hands in his and showing no great hurry to release them.

“This is your moment of triumph,” said Jin Tshei, nodding at the video cameras that surrounded us. “We wanted to see it in person. And to tell you to give Isabel a big kiss from both of us. You’re sure you’ll be seeing her?”

“Of course. She has already agreed to come from Switzerland to attend our little soiree. I will naturally be too busy during the dinner itself to entertain her, but I shall see her before and after. And I shall arrange that she sit between two of the most interesting people there, perhaps the King and Queen of the Netherlands.”

While gracious of Ling Wong Guoy to make the offer, I thought that this was rather unlikely. His so-called “little soiree” was a nine-course, black-tie dinner for the 250 greatest gastronomic figures in the Solar System: chefs, restaurant owners, food critics, media types, and a scattering of royalty. Most of them were French, of course, but because of the bitterness evinced by the local truffle growers, it had proven impossible to organize the dinner in either France or Italy. The neighboring Kingdom of Bohemia, however, also turned out to be a gastronomic powerhouse—and had no angry out-of-work truffle seekers to throw rocks at innocent diners. So it was to a princeling’s palace in Prague that Ling Wong Guoy was delivering his ton of truffles for what promised to be the most celebrated—and best—dinner in culinary annals.