“Mr. Oldham!” Ross protested, aghast. For a superior to lose his temper publicly was unthinkable; it covered you with embarrassment.
“Manners be God-damned too!” Oldham screamed, breaking up fast. “What do you know about the state of our books? What do you know about the overhead I inherited from my loving father? What the hell do you know about the downcurve in sales?”
“These fluctuations——” Ross began soothingly.
“Fluctuations be God-damned! I know a fluctuation when I see one, and I know a long-term downtrend when I see one. And that’s what we’re riding, right into bankruptcy, fellow. And now these God-damned dummies blow in from nowhere with a consignment exclusively for Haarland—I don’t know why I don’t get to hell out of this stupid business and go live in a shack on Great Blue Lake and let the planet go ahead and rot.”
Ross’s horror at the unseemly outburst was eclipsed by his interest at noting how similarly he and Oldham had been thinking. “Sir,” he ventured, “I’ve had something on my mind for a while——”
“It can wait,” Oldham growled, collecting himself with a visible effort. So there went his chance to resign. “What about customs? I know Haarland hasn’t got enough cash to lay out. Who has?”
Ross said glibly: “Usual arrangement, sir. They turn an estimated twenty-five per cent of the cargo over to the port authority for auction, the receipts to be in full discharge of their import tax. And I suppose they enter protective bids. They aren’t wasting any time—auction’s 2100 tonight.”
“You handle it,” Oldham muttered. “Don’t go over one hundred thousand shields. Diversify the purchases as much as possible. And try to sneak some advance information out of the dummies if you get a chance.”
“Yes, sir,” Ross said. As he left he saw Oldham taking a plastic bottle from a wall cabinet.
And that, thought Ross as he rode to the Free Port, was the first crack he had ever seen in the determined optimism of the trading firm’s top level. They were optimists and they were idealists, at least to hear them tell it. Interplanetary trading was a cause and a mission; the traders kept the flame of commerce alight. Perhaps, thought Ross, they had been able to indulge in the hypocrisy of idealism only so long as a population upcurve assured them of an expanding market. Perhaps now that births were flattening out—some said the dirty word “declining”—they all would drop their optimistic creed in favor of fang-and-claw competition for the favors of the dwindling pool of consumers.