The Data Traders

Historical Context

In ancient times, raw materials and finished goods were commonly transported from place to place because of scarcity or the difficulty in producing finished goods. As technology advanced, the ability to manufacture goods was only limited by the imagination and technical competency of the designer. The complete automation of production late in the solar era meant that there were very few reasons to ever transport finished goods more than a very short distance. In the era of interstellar commerce, the notion of transporting actual finished goods across thousands of light-years is obviously ludicrous. However, detailed design specifications of finished goods from household items to military hardware are extremely valuable. With a core set of replication machinery and the correct set of specifications, an entire spacefaring society can be created in relatively short order. Thus, it is the transportation of Intellectual Property, or Data, that has become the backbone of interstellar commerce. This is the vocation to which you aspire as a petitioner to the Data Trader Journeyman’s review board.

Excerpted With Permission

Data Trader’s Handbook

Copyright 3250, Interstellar Data Trader Guild

“Pleb Draft in Ten Minutes.” The reminder whispered softly in Leo’s ear. As a master’s candidate, one of his duties was to support his team in the draft. Not that he got to actually choose; he was basically a gofer for the masters in his trading group. Right now, that meant he had to be there for the meeting but didn’t really have anything useful to do.

The Pleb Draft was a common enough occurrence that they had a routine for the draft but not so common that it got boring. There was a well-established “rotation” order that gave each group first pick on a rotating schedule. There were always more openings for traders than they had candidates so there was keen competition for the best candidates. Today, it was the ComDes team’s chance for first pick. They had picked up four pleb’s at the transfer station so they had a decision to make.

Not that there was much suspense in the decision. Leo had reviewed the jackets of each of the candidates and one of them was a standout. He came from a good trader family and had grown up on trader ships. Two of the others were in-system merchies, only Ramona was dirty-foot. Like it nor not there was definitely a bias in the guild to those who came from guild families. Growing up on the DA Connor Loic (“Connie”), Leo had known he would grow up to be a trader and had spent his entire life preparing for his upcoming master’s board. Anyone from outside of that world simply could not operate at that same level, could they? Yes, everyone was evaluated on merit but the reality is that not everyone is equal.

The masters were starting to file in. As usual, Gunny Tomplin was exactly fifteen minutes early. His (far in the past) military training and experience still shaped his worldview, and that worldview did not include being late to meetings or imprecise in any way. Leo got a friendly nod. Tomplin liked him for some reason that he’d never bothered to explain. The other masters filled in the chamber with the “Arts and Entertainment” folks being last into the room as usual. While everyone was on time, only the Gunny kept the “fifteen before” rule. Finally, when a decent interval had passed, Roger Thorsten, the guild master, stood up. “OK folks, we’ve got four new pleb’s from the transfer station. None of them have come to their senses and asked to switch to ship’s company so we have four drafts to make.” He looked over at Leo’s boss. “Larry, I think it’s ComDes up first in the rotation.”

Tiernen looked a bit surprised, which was strange since this was common knowledge. There had been speculation for weeks about who he would choose with his first pick. “Rog, not really sure about our pick.” There was muffled laughter in the room. “I think that we will trade our pick.” The laughter stopped. One of the strange things about being a professional trader was that almost anything was for sale. Yes, they had an agreed rotation, but anything that could be earned could also be sold. Tiernen looked over to Tomplin. “Gunny, how about I trade you two for one? You’ve got an extra pick coming up because of what happened last month. I need two people. What do you say?”

Gunny looked down to his pad in a very studied manner. Leo was starting to smell a rat. Gunny’s acting wasn’t very good. This cool nonchalant thing wasn’t really his style. He always did everything with purpose. “Innocent” wasn’t really a facial expression he did well. Leo was starting to think that his boss had rigged the pick by having a deal with Gunny up front. “Well sure Larry, I guess I can help ya out. I am only one pleb short anyway. So I’ll go first. Weps takes Eddington.”

Now the silence in the room was complete. Nobody could ever remember a dirty foot being drafted above a trader born. Certainly not above three spacers born. It was crazy. Tiernan nodded with the look of a man who had the whole thing planned well in advance. “OK, great. ComDes takes Warren,” the merchie, “and Torries.” The other merchie. This left the trader born at the bottom of a class of four. In theory, the masters were not supposed to discuss the picks with the plebs but in practice everyone would know the selection order. In this case, it would look like Ramona got picked second or third since ComDev was “supposed” to go first. Now Gunny had gotten his dirty foot without everyone knowing he had picked her first. On the other hand, the next pick was going to reverberate around the ship.

Thorsten continued as if nothing of note had happened. “OK. I-Proc, you’re up next.”

Kelly looked like she had found the original patent for oxygen. “I-Proc is happy to take Swabian.” No wonder, who would have guessed with fourth pick she’d get the “number one” seed.

The meeting continued with normal business for a while including a discussion of future ports of call. Leo tried to be interested but was completely consumed by the outcome of the draft. Having Ramona right next door in Weps was the best possible outcome for him. He had consciously tried to not think about it but now that the draft was done, he realized that he was very taken with Ramona already, which was strange since he barely knew her. If she had been drafted into ComDes, he would have been responsible for her and thus any sort of relationship would be bad form. Not strictly barred but certainly “not done” and a good way to piss away your chance of making master trader. Similarly, a draft into I-Proc is generally considered a death sentence and nobody ever wanted to go there. Weps was perfect. ComDes worked with the Weps folks all the time and their pits were right next door on the trading floor. If there was to be any sort of relationship, it could happen or not on it’s own.

Leo’s internal musings about his personal life meant he pretty much missed the close of the meeting. When he looked up, Tiernan was looking at him with a half-grumpy half-amused look. “You with us Journeyman Timur?”

Leo sat up straighter and tried to look like he was paying attention. “Yes, master trader. Nice move with Gunny, I don’t think anyone saw it coming.”

Tiernan took a moment to look self-satisfied. “That’s the way to play it Leo. Never go into a negotiation session unless the outcome is already assured to be in your favor.” Abruptly, he shifted gears. “You should be thinking about your masters boards in a few months. You still have some against you because of that stunt you pulled in Segini Minor a few years back. You need to do it better and cleaner than anyone else to ensure your board is a foregone conclusion. Right, son?”

Leo knew that Tiernan was trying to help but he really resented the way people brought up ancient history all the time. What was done was done. Besides, his lifetime score was the highest of all the Journeymen on the ship. His truculence must have shown on his face because Tiernan snorted. “Don’t get all stubborn on me Leo. This isn’t about right or wrong, fair or not fair. It’s about getting the outcome you want, right?” Leo nodded. “Then listen to the old man and rig the game in your favor. Tick all the boxes and dare those bastards to fail you. Right? Right!” Leo sat up straighter. He really wanted to make master and Tiernan was trying to help him which he didn’t have to do. “OK. Pep talk over. For the next six months, you are going to get every shit job that comes my way. You will be doing buoy maintenance, courier duty and whatever other low level crap I can think of. And starting right now, you are the best fucking onboard mentor on the ship! Read me?”

Leo stood. “Yes, master trader. I read you, zero latency.”

Tiernan gave him a mock salute and with a loud “harrumph” marched out of the meeting room. Leo thought he heard him mutter something like “fucking kids” but wasn’t quite sure. As he gathered up his own things he was startled by a hearty slap on the back. “Buck up son! If you were in Weps, we would have had you scrubbing the corridors with a toothbrush for a month!” The booming baritone of Gunny Tomlin was unmistakable.

“Uh, thanks Gunny. What’s a toothbrush anyway?” For a second, Leo thought Gunny was going to tear him a new one but then he let out a loud gaffaw.

“You space born are all the same. Electricity is free, water is expensive. Down on a real planet, it’s the opposite. Water is free for the taking but it takes time and money to make electricity. Why use a sonic scrubber when a cheap brush can clean your teeth just fine?” Oh. It was a dirtyfoot thing. “So, how is your onboard mentoring going for Apprentice Eddington going? If she’s going to be one of mine, I want her squared away pronto.”

Ah, so he had heard the little pep talk from Tiernan. Cross-pit mentoring was one of those “must have” items to be considered for a masters spot. “Just fine Gunny. I am meeting with her later today. She has tons of shipboard experience so her first few weeks will be a breeze as she re-quals.”

“Son, listen to me good. If you want to be the best fucking onboard mentor on this ship, we are not going to wait two weeks for her to re-qual. She will be fully qual’d in two fucking days. Read me?”

“Yes, master trader.”

“Zero latency?”

“Zero.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Carry on.” He did not salute but looked like he expected Leo to do so. When no salute was forthcoming, his exit was as precise as only a military man can be. Each stride the same length, crisp 90 degree turn into the hallway. Leo couldn’t decide if Gunny was really that gung-ho or if he had just cultivated the persona for so many years it had become a habit.

While Leo was not looking forward to “every shit job” that Tiernan could think of, the idea of spending some quality time with Ramona wasn’t exactly his idea of rough duty at all.

Ramona was up early and hadn’t slept well. A couple more short naps was all she had managed. The time adjustment added to the nervous energy of her first day on the ship were combining to make it difficult to sleep. She could have taken a pill but didn’t want to get into a habit of that. Her militia experience told her she would settle down into a watch routine if she let her body work things out. In the meantime, she was flying through her quals. She had spent four hours on them before finally trying to sleep and now she had almost an hour before she needed to report. The system had updated with a reporting location and a person to report to. Assuming correctly that being precisely on time was imperative, she had walked up to her reporting location and timed out exactly how long it would take. Adding a few minutes for getting lost or having people in her way, she knew exactly when she had to leave.

It was time. Checking her utilities in the mirror panel, she ensured that everything was correct according to the new onboard instructions she found on her message queue. The Reggie patch was new and looked good on it’s spot on her shoulder. The apprentice pips on the collar looked strange to her since they looked more like Militia officer tabs than the Specialist stripes she wore on her old uniform. Military style spit and polish didn’t seem to mean much to the Guild but she wasn’t going to fail to follow correct uniform instructions just in case.

Watching the chrono out of one eye, she made her way up to the trading floor as instructed. She was about thirty seconds ahead of schedule which allowed her to eyeball the room and find her master trader. “Gunny” was famous on the ship but Ramona had never met him. She had a picture but that wasn’t the same thing as being able to see him in person. After a quick scan, she saw him across the large room. Twenty seconds to 08:00 and her reporting time. She measured the distance, measured her pace and… “Spacer Eddington, reporting for duty, Gunny.”

Gunny took a long and obvious look at his chrono. It read 08:00, exactly. His parade ground voice carried easily across the large room. “Welcome to Weps, apprentice candidate Eddington. I expect you to be at least fifteen minutes early for any duty or watch. You read me?”

Faced with the standard military fifteen before rule and Gunny’s very crisp order, her military training kicked back in. Before she could think, she barked out “Sir, yes sir!” Feet a regulation shoulder width apart, she cracked off a drill company perfect salute and stood at attention.

Gunny smiled and continued in a lower voice, “At ease Eddington. We’re not really in the military. Just wanted the squishies to see what happens when you push a real spacer. I am very glad to have you in my trading pit.” With an unfeigned grin, he stuck out a calloused hand for a firm handshake.

Ramona relaxed a bit. Sergeants were sergeants across the galaxy. She knew how to deal with a top kick. “Thank you gunny. I was afraid that we would be dealing with some fifteen before the fifteen before nonsense. I’ll leave that crap to officers, I have always worked for a living.”

Gunny let out a loud guffaw, sergeants were sergeants everywhere. Gunny led her around the weps pit and introduced her to the rest of the weps traders present. Although the new trader orientation program on her console seemed very comprehensive, it was nice to meet people who actually knew what the job was all about. Unsaid knowledge and expectations make the difference between merely competent and truly excelling at any task.

On the surface, the concept of being a data trader was very simple. The goal was to buy patents for less than they could be sold for. In theory, this simply meant buy low and sell high. However, since IP has no physical existence (beyond some bytes on a computer), there were no real guides about how much a given set of IP was worth. There was a theoretically limitless sell side market since the IP could be sold as many times as you wanted. Thus, acquisition costs should not be an obstacle. However, in practice most designs had a limited lifespan. In addition, patents expired, which prevented monetization of IP beyond a maximum window. This implied that you needed to make a profit on the item in question within a few years. There was also differences in which systems preferred which technologies. To some extent, there was a subjective measure of the value that could not be represented by any algorithm. Some things just had more value than others even if they appeared on paper to be exactly the same. Hence, the humans in the loop on the trading floor. Most of the sell side activity was completely automated but buy side was very tough to automate completely.

In the case of weps, the items being bought and sold had some sort of military value. Mostly weapons, but also military specific designs for sea, land, air and space craft of all types. Even things like protective undergarments worn beneath space armor could be part of the weps IP pantheon. Thus, the weps pit was always busy and was considered one of the “glam” positions on any Data Ark. Ramona wasn’t really aware of the cachet associated with the position yet, but she could certainly understand why trading in military IP could be a very lucrative business for the Guild.

Gunny took Ramona over to one side of the pit and introduced her to a young-ish trader who also wore the single pip of an apprentice. “You might have met Christine already in the apprentice spaces.” When both women shook their heads, he continued. “Well, she’s also an apprentice here and she’s about six months ahead. I’m going to make you two partners for a while so she can bring you up to speed. Some of us older traders have forgotten what’s hard and what’s easy about the system so I like to pair up the young’uns at first. Plus, this way you can talk about me behind my back.” With a conspiratorial wink he left them alone and went over to harass some journeyman traders on the other side of the pit.

In actuality, the term “pit” was a bit of a misnomer. It wasn’t really sunken into the floor. Rather, it was a roughly trapezoidal space with a long line of consoles around the longer sides and a shorter line of consoles facing inwards. On this day, the traders were wandering around with a very casual air. There wasn’t much going on here in deep space. Mostly, people seemed to be chatting and gossiping but Ramona assumed there was some real work going on.

Christine was short and squat. Ramona speculated she was from a high-gee planet. With mouse-brown hair and eyes to match, she wasn’t someone you would call a raving beauty. However, she had a humorous glint in her eye that made Ramona think she wouldn’t be lonely very often if she wanted company. “Welcome to the Reggie, Ramona. I gather this is your first trader vessel?” Ramona nodded. “Yeah, me too. I’m from Isoguard. Us dirty-foots have to stick together, eh?” Ramona smiled, she wasn’t really sure what dirty-foot meant in the guild but it wasn’t very complimentary where she was from. Still, she learned in the militia that you either endured nicknames or embraced them. Either way, you’d have a nickname and probably not one you wanted. “So, I’m a long guns specialist. We did a ton of trades while we were in-system so I thought the simplest thing would be to replay the in-system run in sim mode and then walk you through the sequence. That should give you an idea of what we do. Then you can ask questions as we go. Make sense?” Ramona nodded enthusiastically and the two women settled down side by side and started the simulation. Christine was pleased to find that Ramona was a very quick study.

Watching from the ComDes pit, Leo wondered what Christine was showing Ramona on her console. Based on how focused they both were, he assumed it was a simulation of the last in-system run. That’s where he would have started but everyone had a different idea about how to best orient a new nugget. Looking at his pad, he checked when Ramona went off shift, 13:40. He put a note in her queue suggesting they meet to go over her quals and answer any questions. Technically, she had 90 days to finish her paper quals across the ship and change from a passenger to actual trader aboard the Reggie. Gunny had been adamant however that Ramona could do it in two days. While each exam was fairly short with only 10-20 questions each, studying for such a diverse set of topics usually took a few weeks at least and not a small number of apprentices flunked out of the program at 90 days because they failed to pass all the quals. As an experienced spacer, Leo knew that wouldn’t happen to Ramona. She already knew most of the subjects. All she had to do was to learn the things specific to the Reggie. Leo was pretty sure the Reggie dwarfed any vessel Ramona had served on in the militia but the basic concepts were likely to be the same even if the exact procedural details were different.

Leo sighed and took a look at his to-do list. There were a long list of things he had put off while in-system. In theory he had plenty of time while in deep space for them all but it was always daunting to see the huge pile the first day out-system. Not to mention that all the admin crap got put off until the trading desk closed. Oh well, nothing for it but to get started.

“So, where does an apprentice trader get something to eat around here?” Leo looked up, startled. It was 13:41 and Ramona was leaning over his console with a small smile.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“About 30 seconds. It’s a short walk.” Apparently, the first session hands on with Christine agreed with Ramona. She seemed relaxed but focused. Leo hoped she had spent some time talking to Christine about life aboard ship. Having a friend early on could make the difference between a good cruise and a bad one. Leo led Ramona out of the trading floor and down into one of the cafeterias. The Reggie was a big ship and had several places to eat and/or be entertained. They even had two pubs onboard. Data Arks spent the vast majority of their time in deep space so the crew had to have opportunities for R&R along with all their other needs while onboard.

“The food selection can be a little intimidating at first.” Leo walked Ramona up to the orders section and walked her through the menu selections. “You can sort by ingredients, by flavors or by region. Here, I can set it to Raeburn and you can get something from home.” Leo hesitated. Not sure if he had just made a mistake. Of course, all of the latest fads from Raeburn wouldn’t be there. Only things from before they had been banned. Machine printed food wasn’t for everyone but it was nutritious and offered variety that was simply not possible from natural ingredients on a deep space vessel.

Ramona made a face. Oh crap, Leo worried he had offended her by bringing up Raeburn. “I’m not really a fresh nugget you know. I’ve had plenty of time in the deep dark.” She took a moment to figure out the menu options and then picked out a few “faves” to put on the first page for herself and made her selection.

“Uh, sorry. Not used to apprentices who are already spacers. Most apprentices don’t have much space experience.” Leo and Ramona moved to an empty table in the large room. Many other traders were also coming off shift so the room was filling up but not yet crowded. “This is one of the more popular choices with the traders. Most of the café’s offer the same food so it’s mostly just a change of scenery. The ship drivers are mostly up forward or back down by the engineering spaces but you are free to use any café you want at any time.” Leo was feeling an unaccustomed level of nerves talking to Ramona for some reason. Usually, he was all business with the plebs, but this one was different.

“No worries Leo. Just giving you a hard time. Actually, that food console is the first bit of kit I recognize on this bucket. Almost identical to the ones we had back in the militia. Do you guys just install new gear for the hell of it or what?” She tucked into something that looked suspiciously like enchiladas verdes, one of Leo’s favorites.

Leo hadn’t thought about it before, but he supposed Data Arks did get gear refits pretty frequently. When the cost of materials was basically zero and the designs were free, it was hard to justify installing something you knew was inferior when replacing a failing unit or doing a major overhaul. The Reggie had a very large fabrication capacity for a ship of her size so she could basically manufacture almost anything the ship or crew needed, given sufficient raw materials. Almost any system they visited was more than happy to trade raw materials for Guilders so there was never an issue there.

“So, Ramona, how are your quals going?” He had caught her with a full bite of enchilada so there was no answer forthcoming except a nod and a hand gesture that he couldn’t interpret. “Since you’re a spacer, I’m assuming most of them are review but there are a couple of things that are unique to the Reggie that you might need some help on.” Another nod. “So, I’m happy to do some review time with you. Most of them are later in the cycle so perhaps tomorrow?” Leo took a big gulp of his water, his mouth was very dry for some reason.

“Yeah, I failed the fire and collision duty stations qual the first time because I just winged it without studying.” Leo nearly spit out his water. Fire and collision? That was one of the last quals on the list! “So, a little review would be great if you have the time. I’d like to get these things out of the way so I can focus on real work.”

Leo managed to get the water down. Not sure what to say, he was silent for a bit. “Umm, you know that you have ninety days to pass the quals, right? I mean, you’ve been on the ship for what, 20 hours now?”

Ramona looked over to her pad, “18.5 actually. Why mess around? I know all this stuff, it’s just a matter of clicking the right buttons on the right form.” Leo realized that it wasn’t a question of IF she was going to break the record, but simply a question of by how much she would break it by. Well, there was no reason to try and slow her down.

In the end, she passed her final qual twenty three hours and thirty minutes after entering the Reggie for the first time. Not only was that a record, she had better than halved the previous best time. A stunning achievement regardless of her previous deep space experience. The time was so extraordinary there were more than one grumble of cheating. How else could she have beaten even trader born plebs? Not possible in the eyes of some. Naturally, her full record set was pulled up and showed very clearly she was taking the exams completely by herself. Leo had been careful to not be in the room for each qual attempt. Even if he wasn’t helping, there was no point in giving the appearance of impropriety.