Godt Bytte
Sarna News
| Godt Bytte | |
|---|---|
| Product information | |
| Type | Short story |
| Author | Kevin Killiany |
| Pages | 15 |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | BattleCorps |
| First published | 11 January 2008 |
| Content | |
| Era | Succession Wars era |
| Timeline | 30 May-12 October 2972 |
Godt Bytte is a story by Kevin Killiany, originally published on BattleCorps on 11 January 2008. It was also published in print in the fifth BattleCorps print anthology, Counterattack, in 2014.
| “ | The JarnFolk carry intricately carved pistols as a mark of station, but combat is not the only trade in which they prosper... it takes a man learn the warcraft of trade in the Periphery, and a man Olaf must become. | ” |
Plot Summary
JàrnFòlk trader Bjørn Jespersen has taken his son Olaf along to learn the trade. On the unaffiliated periphery planet Botany Bay he is distracted by the black sand—obsidian glass particles—that he is told will weather down the starport's ferroglass domes in a year or so.
A few weeks later his father arrives on the Oberon Confederation's capital world Oberon VI, where they encounter Hansa competitors. Although the Jespersen Clan has good trade relations with Oberon going back over a century, it turns out the Hansa can undercut the JàrnFòlk prices for machinery and service contracts. Olaf's father puts this down to them using slave labor, and contrasts it against the superiority of the JàrnFòlk technology versus the Hansa's shoddy and ill-maintained JumpShip and DropShip.
Yet later on Sigurd, the Jespersens learn that the inhabitants of the ice moon Sigurd are mining ores from asteroid impacts in the ice. To separate the ore from the dross, they have recently created a new type of low-technology extractor device. Olaf also witnesses how the ore in the ice is being mined from the underground tunnels, a delicate process that must not create too much heat or apply too much force so as to not create cracks in the ice.
Remembering the obsidian sand on Botany Bay, Olaf brokers a deal where Botany Bay receives Sigurd's simple extractors as a water purification technology, while Sigurd imports sand from Botany Bay for a more efficient sandblaster-mining than they ever had. In exchange, the Jespersens can get heavy ores from Sigurd at a fraction of the market price (while Oberon VI is not buying them anymore after upgrading their own extraction industry). Thus Olaf has opened up a great revenue trade that will last for a long time, until the Sigurders find out the real value of the ores.
Featured places
- Alborg (mentioned)
- Botany Bay
- Oberon VI
- Sigurd