It was interesting to watch color drain out of someone’s face. Kiva had read about it in books, but had never seen it happen in real life until now. Donher’s face went from ruddy and sweaty to pale and clammy. “I’m not sure I have that, ma’am,” he said.
“Oh, I am entirely certain that you do,” Kiva replied. “You were planning to leave the planet and never come back. You’re going to have to start somewhere else, where you have no franchise and no assurance of having prospects. The only way you and your family will survive long enough to generate those prospects is with a heaping pile of ready cash.” She stopped and considered Donher. “I’m going to guess you’ve probably got ten or fifteen million marks in a personal data crypt right now.” She pointed. “It might even be in that vest pocket right there. Am I wrong?”
Donher said nothing to this.
Kiva nodded. “Then back to business. Four million to let you out of your franchise obligations.”
“Yes, Lady Kiva.” Donher bowed, signaling that he assumed the deal had been struck.
“We’re not done,” Kiva said. “How many people are you bringing with you?”
“Myself, my wife, and our children. My wife’s mother. Two servants.”
“How many children?”
“Three. Two girls and a boy.”
“What a nice family. A half a million marks for each person we transport.”
Kiva watched the color march back into Donher’s face. “That’s outrageous!” he finally managed to sputter.
“Probably,” Kiva admitted. “But I don’t care. Your little family unit will be with us for nine months while we travel to Hub. That’s nine months of food, of oxygen, of space, on our ship.”
“That’s another four million marks!”
“Your math skills are impressive, Donher.”
“I can’t afford it.”
“Oh, well.”
“Surely we can come to some accommodation, my lady.”
Kiva laughed. “I’m sorry, did you think this was a negotiation? It’s not. You want off the planet. These are my rates. If you don’t like them, you’re welcome to look elsewhere. I understand the Tell Me Another One is departing soon.”
“Actually ma’am, it’s been detained,” Magnut said. “The duke had its captain arrested. He seems to think she allowed pirates to board the ship and take a shipment of weapons.”
“Is that so.”
“Apparently the deal was originally with the executive officer, who attempted a mutiny and failed. The captain decided to follow up on the deal with the pirates anyway. Better money. Allegedly.”
“Huh.” Kiva turned back to Donher. “One less option for you, then.”
“Lady Kiva, I can offer you three million marks for passage. With the four million marks you already require, that’s more than half of what I have.”
“Then I guess you’re leaving your servants behind,” Kiva said. “Unless you were planning to take one and leave your mother-in-law behind.”
The color began to drain from Donher’s face again.
“You were!” Kiva crowed. “You were going to ditch your mother-in-law! You utter dog.”
“I was not,” Donher protested, weakly.
“A word of advice for you, Donher. With that face of yours, you shouldn’t play cards with anyone on this ship. You’ll end up in debt. So, we’re up to seven million marks. You planning to bring anything with you? Any cargo?”
“If you’ll allow it, ma’am.”
“Of course I’ll allow it. One thousand marks a kilo, and I’ll collect a half million marks up front to allocate the cargo space. Any mass allowance you don’t use, we’ll refund.”
Donher had learned by this point not to argue. “Yes, ma’am.”
She pointed to Magnut. “Gazson will collect before you leave here and otherwise make arrangements. All of it, in full. We depart in five days. Gazson will give you the exact time. If you and your family aren’t on the ship twelve hours prior to that moment, you all stay here, and we keep the money. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then we’re done. Go back to the floor of the hold and wait there for Gazson.”
Donher bowed and left. Magnut closed the door behind him. “That was impressive, ma’am,” he said to Kiva, after Donher was back on the hold floor.
Kiva snorted again. Then, “What did we learn here today, Gazson?”
“That Sivouren Donher really wants off the planet?”
“We learned that he wants off the planet badly enough to pay seven and a half million marks for it,” Kiva said. “And that means there are other people like him who are willing to pay just as much as he is, if not more so.”
“Are you thinking of taking on more refugees, ma’am?”
“Refugees? No. Exiles? Yes.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Roughly half a million marks per head, Gazson.”
“Ah. So we are running a cruise line, then.”
Kiva smirked and pointed down at Donher, standing forlornly once more near a stack of haverfruit crates. “We just bagged seven and a half million marks off this one dumb bastard,” she said. “That’s twelve and a half percent of our financial loss for this entire fucking trip, erased. A few more like him and we’ll actually make it into the black. That’s worth putting up with their entitled asses for a few months.”
Magnut motioned toward Donher with his head. “That one’s actually got travel documents for his family and servants. Not everyone who wants to go with us and can afford it will have those documents. Even if they were allowed to leave, most government offices are closed, so they wouldn’t be able to get them.”
“This is our problem?”
“When we get to Hub and unload these … exiles, if they don’t have travel documents, we can get fined for illegal conveyance. So, yes, it could be our problem.”
“We can only be fined if they can prove we knew they weren’t allowed to travel, right?”
“Sort of,” Magnut said. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“But basically,” Kiva said. “If they have travel documents and they just happen to turn out to be fake, but we weren’t able to tell, then the house can probably get those fines dismissed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kiva raised her eyebrows, signaling to Magnut without incriminating words ever being spoken that he should find and procure the services of someone who could make passable faked travel documents on an expedited basis, to make sure these forgers charged an outrageous amount for them, of which the House of Lagos would take a “finder’s fee” cut, and that, of course, if the forged documents were ever to be traced back to them, Magnut himself would take the fall rather than implicate Kiva and by extension the House of Lagos.
Magnut’s heavy sigh and curt nod signaled that he understood this perfectly well.
“Then send out the word that we’re accepting exiles. If they want on the ship they better hurry. And they better bring cash.”
*
A lot of exiles did want on the ship. And they were happy to bring cash.