NOVEL NEXT Chapter 63 Trade Goods
––––––
Hiram: Best to set expectations as you wish them to be up front: once set, they tend to be 'sticky'.
––––––
Saturday, November 16th, 2090, about 9:44 am MST, Montana City
Launch day dawned far too early, a sheepish Karen scurrying off to Claire's room with her pitcher, leaving his room emptier for it.
The launch window opened at 2 PM. Gordon had hours left—mostly slotted for panicked packing, checking lists he couldn't focus on, and doing his best not to puke. Those had not been Mojitos.
Shortly thereafter, his portable chimed.
[9:45] Hiram:
Good morning, my son. I trust I need not remind you, but we depart for orbit at 14:00 sharp. Please ensure your cargo is packed and made fast by noon. I have authorized a discretionary cargo fund of $30,000 for this unique occasion.
Note: Do not use the usual debit card.
I will be at breakfast with your sister if you have questions.
Gordon stared at the message. Thirty grand? For what? Was he supposed to bring a troupe of elephants? Peacocks? Circus performers?
His Iron Age musings and hangover were the perfect storm. Whatever his father was up to was temporarily opaque to his numbed brain. He'd have to get clarification from the source.
–––❖–––
He found them in the resort dining hall, seated at a polished white stone table like it was any other Tuesday. Claire was nursing a cup of tea. Hiram had already demolished half a grapefruit.
"You're up early," Claire said without looking at him.
Hiram didn't lift his eyes. "Is something unclear about the launch plan?"
"Yeah, actually," Gordon said. "The cargo fund? The… discretionary thirty thousand dollars? What exactly am I supposed to do with that?"
Hiram set down his spoon and looked up at his son like Gordon had just asked how air worked.
"You are Gordon Stone," he said evenly. "A member of the American upper class. You are taking a high-profile voyage to Mars to reunite with your Martian paramour—who, I might add, is the closest thing they have to a member of an aristocracy."
Gordon blinked.
"I trust," Hiram continued, "you were not planning to arrive as a poor guest. Bring whatever you like within your budget. The ship can accommodate up to fifteen tons of discretionary cargo in addition to the current planned inventory."
He dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "I didn't know what your plans were," he added, almost offhandedly, "so to avoid duplication, I'm simply bringing a few years' reserve fuel for the reactor. As my own little guest present."
Gordon just stared. Fuel. Literal years of reactor fuel.
"If everything goes as you hope," Hiram said mildly, "rather than as I hope, my grandchildren could, presumably, grow up calling Mars their home. What kind of grandfather would I be if I allowed my grandchildren to die of cold in the dark?" The words were ominous and landed like tombstones. Gordon could almost see his future children piled like snowdrifts in Hiram's words—small bodies, pale as frost.
"I wouldn't even know where to begin spending thirty thousand dollars in three hours," he muttered.
Hiram took a sip of tea, perfectly at ease. "I'm sure I must have sent you a memo."
He hadn't. Everyone knew he hadn't. Claire didn't even glance up, but the silence that followed made it clear: somehow, this was Gordon's failure.
"And besides," Hiram said, a ghost of a smile curling at his lips, "if you were to be married—while my original dowry offer still stands, of course; her immigration, her medical therapy, and so on—I would hate to make a poor impression on my future in-laws."
Gordon opened his mouth. Closed it. Whatever reply might have formed drowned somewhere between outrage and raw logistical panic.
Claire set her fork down.
"I'll help," she said.
He turned to look at her, uncertain—half-shocked, half-suspicious—and saw the Stone expression on her face. Flat. Controlled. Efficient.
"I'm not a monster," she added. Then, more quietly, "And I do know how to spend thirty grand in three hours."
Gordon blinked. "I'm not sure if that's impressive or horrifying."
"Depends on the goal," Claire said, already pulling out her tablet.
Gordon rubbed his temples. "Okay. I guess this is happening."
Hiram rose, smoothed his cuffs, and straightened his jacket. "Delightful. I have a call with Zurich in seven minutes. Do try not to select anything embarrassing."
And with that, he swept away.
–––❖–––
"With that said, Claire, I think we can narrow it down to three possible categories: luxury goods, technology, and textiles. I think I know what I'm going to get her," Gordon said, holding up a card.
"Textiles?" Claire asked warily. "That'll be harder to source."
"Something cheap and locally available," he assured her.
"Sure, but you're not gonna have enough cheap textiles to hit either your $30,000 or your 15-ton limit. What are you going to fill the rest with—chocolate?"
"It shouldn't be chocolate, should it?"
Claire gave him a funny look. "What's wrong with chocolate?"
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"If I were them—and if I become one of them—I wouldn't want to get used to the taste of something I can't grow natively and am going to run out of eventually. It's just sad. Why would I want that?"
"Because it's chocolate," Claire said slowly. "You imbecile. Why do you have to be sweet and caring only about the stupid stuff? Listen. Other people will not think like you. Other people will want chocolate. Other people will import chocolate. Chocolate will be available for you and Marie, whether or not you bring some. If you do bring some, it just means she gets that much more chocolate. Girls like chocolate. It's cheap. And I know where to get it."
"You do?"
"Who do you think orders all the candy that goes in the big bowls at the job fairs?" she asked. "Hiram? Picture that."
He pictured it. High stakes. Tension. Chocolate. Completely undignified—beneath his father.
"Okay. So… you think she'd like chocolate?"
"You haven't been single that long," Claire said. "Isabelle has to have told you about women and chocolate."
"I don't want to talk about her," he said flatly.
"Fine, Gordon. Whatever. And now you've got me feeling sad for all those people on Mars who've never had a hamburger—I could send you with a quarter-pounder."
"You probably shouldn't."
"Are you sure? Two days' transit is nothing. It would look exactly the same."
He gave her a look.
Claire stood. "Get your shoes. You're driving."
–––❖–––
They pulled into a back lot behind a row of forgettable storefronts—balloon arches, folding chairs, party tents stacked in dusty windows. Gordon squinted at the unmarked warehouse ahead.
"This doesn't look like anything," he said.
"That's because it's real," Claire replied, already unbuckling her seatbelt. "The ones that look like something are for consumers, but we're doing B2B. It's better."
Inside, the warehouse was cool and dim, the air thick with starch and lint. Bales of fabric towered in uneven stacks. A tired man with a clipboard looked up as they entered and gave a quick nod.
"Claire. Got your call. We pulled what you asked."
"Thanks, Marcus." She offered a smile, not slowing her pace.
They moved through the aisles, bolts of fabric brushing their shoulders. Gordon found his fingers drawn to the cotton—jersey in greys and blues, soft heathers with familiar weight. He let his hand linger on a bolt, thumb brushing across the weave.
"This is what I wanted," he said quietly. "Nothing gaudy. Just… what feels like home to me."
Claire glanced back, assessed the bolt without pausing her call. "We can work with that."
She was juggling two calls now, alternating between clipped instructions and bursts of shorthand. Gordon caught fragments:
"No, we already cleared the launch manifest, it just needs the tag—yes, like last time—"
"Good, get the inventory from Hawthorne before they close—"
"No van? Reroute to Thirteenth and have them hold for pickup. Send Violet, she's got a Class-A license. No, I don't care."
He stood there, half-surrounded by jersey cotton, while his sister coordinated what sounded like an entire logistics team from her phone. Every few seconds, she'd glance at a text, tap something, issue a directive. When she wasn't talking, she was checking spreadsheets.
"Wait," Gordon said at one point, catching up. "You didn't call all these people yourself, did you?"
Claire didn't look up. "No, I flagged it to procurement. They're vetting stock and mapping stops. I'm just triaging."
"You activated your department for this?"
"You're cargo. You get a logistics pipeline."
He blinked. "You can just… do that?"
"I have already done that." She ended a call, already dialing another. "Now drive. This is just stop three."
–––❖–––
They'd only unloaded half the order when Gordon stepped back, wiped his hands on his jeans, and shook his head.
"Nope," he said. "There's no way we're getting all of this in one run."
Claire glanced up from her tablet. "Weight problem?"
"Volume," he said. "Cardboard cores. You can't bend them. Can't fold or stack them tight. They take up too much space."
He looked over at the RX-Vision—still gleaming, still smug, still hilariously unfit for the task.
"Best case," he continued, "we get half in the trunk and wedge another few bolts across the back seat."
Gordon squinted at the bolt in front of him, then gave it a little test shake.
"This is hollow-cored," he said. "But you can't get it out because it's stapled to the fabric."
"Kind of the point," muttered the warehouse worker nearby.
"Bet you," Gordon cut in, "that we can find a workaround." He looked up. "You got any metal rulers?"
The man hesitated, then nodded warily and disappeared behind the counter. A moment later, he returned with a long, well-worn straightedge and held it out like it might explode.
Gordon took it, knelt down, and jabbed the end between the cardboard and the fabric roll's inner curl. It took a few false starts—some wiggling, some rotating, a small tear he chose to ignore—but then with a sharp twist, the cardboard cylinder slid free like a sword from a sheath.
He held it up in triumph. "Perfect."
Claire barely looked up from her screen. "That saves us about two trips. Good."
"Great," Gordon said, already reaching for the next bolt. "I'll do this. You figure out where we're headed next."
The warehouse worker still lingered nearby, uncertain. Gordon didn't glance up as he added, "You can put the ruler on our tab. Not getting it back. Sorry."
–––❖–––
It had come down to the wire, in the end.
But they'd made it—pulling into the cargo staging area with the RX-Vision's rear wheel-well nearly scraping the gravel, the engine audibly unhappy about everything that had just occurred. The car groaned to a stop like it had aged twenty years in the past ninety minutes.
The logistics personnel waiting at the loading dock took one look at the vehicle and couldn't suppress their amusement. They stood back and watched as Gordon and Claire began pulling shapeless rolls of cotton from every imaginable cranny in the car: wedged under the dash, curled behind the seats, stacked like soft artillery shells across the back window.
Gordon barely noticed the smirks. Claire didn't acknowledge them at all.
There was a deadline. They made it work.
–––❖–––
The last crate was lowered gently from the cart, the crane humming softly as it guided the box into place. It slotted neatly into the cargo module—secure, final. The label on the side read:
TO: M. Ramirez'– PRIVATE
Contents: Textiles, Personal Effects, Non-Perishables.
Gordon stood nearby with his arms folded, watching. It was the first time he'd had the opportunity for stillness for literal hours, and he looked exhausted.
Claire stood beside him, her gaze following the crate as it vanished inside the hold. She was quiet for a moment.
"Weird, seeing our engines on a real ship," Gordon commented. The thick machines, four of them, one to a corner of the boxy cargo orbiter, made up the majority of the bulk of the vessel. Gordon had probably done parts testing on all four.
"Weird, to think that you're going to ride in it," Claire echoed. They exchanged a loaded glance.
Claire looked away first.
"You did good," she said at last.
Gordon nodded. "We," he amended.
The wind was cool and refreshing.
"Suppose you did learn something in those fancy boarding schools after all," he said.
Claire snorted. "You're welcome, jackass."
They didn't hug. Of course they didn't. But as they turned back toward the car, she bumped her shoulder against his.
Claire hadn't been ready when Gordon asked to spend thirty thousand dollars.
She'd burned favors she'd built up over years—years of playing nice, staying late, letting herself be underestimated. All of it, spent in a single week.
And yet.
He wouldn't be CEO.
She would.
Which meant Hiram would finally be in retirement.
And Gordon—only Gordon—would know whether anything passed QA or not.