Элизабет Мун - Moon Flights

“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.