Bud Sparhawk: Primrose and Thorn

“Why did I ever listen to you about this race? I already spend a bunch right here on Earth,” protested Jerome Blacker, president of JBI. “I’ve been having second thoughts about this Jupiter race.”

The two tanned and muscular people facing him looked uneasy. A sales tag was still attached to the man’s sleeve and flapped as he waved his hand while speaking. “You already made the commitment, JB—you just have to follow through. Come on, it doesn’t cost you any real money.”

“You sure as hell aren’t much of a businessman if you think this won’t cost me anything!” JB said nastily.

“Mr. Blacker,” Pascal interrupted, “the publicity about this race will bring in more than enough to offset expenses.”

Jerome leaned across the desk. “What about insurance, the cost of transport, the cost of the boats? Those things aren’t cheap!”

Pascal sighed. “The funds from the Jovian ventures can’t be spent on Earth. Thanks to the treaty of ’54, you have to reinvest at least 75 percent of your profits.”

Jerome winced. “Don’t remind me about those damn pirates! If it hadn’t been for my stations and hubs, the damned Jovians wouldn’t have a pot to piss in,” he grumbled.

Pascal continued his attack. “GeoGlobal and the Times cartel are both outfitting ships for the race. No telling how many the Jovians are going to enter themselves. If we don’t race, JBI will lose a lot—the publicity about our entry will bring in more than enough revenue to cover our expenses.”

Jerome mused, half to himself, as he rubbed his chin. “I remember your numbers, I’ve read the reports. So be it. What do I have to do to finalize the financial arrangements?”

Pascal spoke slowly, not wishing to reveal how anxious he was to get JB’s approval. “I’ve already reserved Thorn , a used barkentine. You just need to sign the commitment for outfitting her. Once that’s done, the orbital factories will start fabricating the sails—we’ve already sent them our specs. We’ll use the Jovian funds for both of those efforts. The only cash outlay you need to worry about will be our transport out to Jupiter.”

“Which leaves only the human element,” Jerome said. “Even now I find it hard to believe that we can win this race.” He swiveled in his chair to face the woman who sat beside Pascal. She was the best captain in his fleet and winner of more sailboat races than he could count. She’d been unusually quiet since she came in the office.

“Do you think you can race one of those barques, Louella?” he asked her quietly. “Do you think you can sail a boat on the seas of Jupiter?”

Pascal held his breath as he awaited her answer. The success of their entire enterprise, and the payoff for the past year’s worth of intense training, rested on her reply. The answer she gave would make or break the deal.

“I could sail a fucking bathtub on the Sun if the price was right,” she spat back. “Now how the hell do I get a drink around here?”

Rams had stopped at the station in the hopes that there would be an opportunity for business. That, and a chance to restock his supplies. In order to keep his ship, Primrose , he had to take advantage of every opportunity that came his way.

Jake, an irritable old scamp who knew everything there was to know about sailing the winds of Jupiter, had taught Rams how to sail. Rams learned that every ship had its own personality. He learned how to balance keel and ballast, how to adjust the ship’s buoyancy to ride the turbulence.

After teaching him the basics of sail, rudder, keel, and line, Jake went on to show him how to heave-to in the hurricane-force winds so that they would ride easily, neither making way nor being blown back. They’d used that technique to mine the edges of Jupiter’s storms. The updrafts in these dangerous hurricanes often pulled metal-rich meteorites and icebergs—worth their weight in gold to the floating stations—from the lower depths of the atmosphere. Jake showed him how to “cheat” the boat close to the edges of the turbulence, using jib and main to close in on these bits of rock and harvest them.

Jake had shared all of his secrets of playing the winds of Jupiter’s storms and winning its rewards. Jake taught Rams to love the winds on the wine-red seas.

Rams’s transition from crewman to ship’s captain hadn’t been easy. He’d scrimped and saved every cent he could, and signed away nearly all of his future profits—all to buy a fast, outdated clipper at one of JBI’s auctions. Clippers had been deemed too inefficient to achieve JBI’s “acceptable” level of profitability.

Refitting the boat and replacing the instruments that Primrose’s former crew had stripped put him even further in debt. In addition, there had been the outlay for new sails and refitting the keel. Both cost more than he expected and, suddenly, his debt for Primrose started to look like a financial black hole from which there was no hope of escape.

His first year had been a disaster. The cargo he’d hauled hadn’t generated enough to pay the interest on his loans. To keep from losing her he borrowed even more. If he wasn’t careful he could lose Primrose and be thrown in jail—that was the penalty for simultaneously using her as collateral for multiple loans. Since then it had been nip and tuck, keeping one financial step ahead of bankruptcy.

The second year of operations had taught him where the good money could be earned—carrying perishable goods on quick dashes. JBI’s huge, lumbering cargo ships could move things cheaply, but they were neither speedy nor very maneuverable. Like the old square-riggers of Earth, they flew with the wind, stolid as the stations, and scarcely moving much faster. Sometimes their crew endured months between station-falls.

Rams usually got the best return when he had to make a darting emergency run from station to hub and back. Double charges both ways, and no hassle for it, either! Best of all, the fees kept him out of prison.

“Wind one-thirty meters per second and rising, Cap’n. Satellite shows some deep turbulence spinning off the edge about twelve thousand klicks upwind and heading to intercept your destination. Weather advises you should try to stay within the central laminar flows of sub-bands MM and KK until you’re almost to Charlie Sierra One. That should keep you out of the storm,” the station master said.

“Put it down that I acknowledge the limits on bands MM and KK,” Rams replied as the ’master logged his ship out. “How much margin does Weather give me before that storm hits?”

“Best they can project is that you have about a sixteen-hour margin, give or take six hours. Of course, if it swings south of CS-42 the edge winds might give you a lift.”

“When did I ever see one of those storms change course in a way that would help me?” Rams asked rhetorically. “I’ll plan on beating the weather the last leg of the trip. I just hope that Weather’s prediction is right.”

“I agree with that,” the ’master replied. “You’d better keep a watch for any miners who might be prospecting on the periphery of the storm.

Wouldn’t want to run into one of those crazies, would you?”

Rams grinned, remembering when he had been one of those crazies. “I’ll watch out for them,” he promised.

“Well, it looks like you are all set to go, Primrose ,” the station master said as he popped the record from the computer and handed it to Rams. “Fair winds and good passage, Cap’n.”