"We wouldn't have a chance; it'd just be a massacre, with us on the receiving end. The only way we can break into the big time ourselves is through hyperspace. We've got to do what's never been done before."
That wasn't quite true, from what the xhindi had told him, but near enough. It had been done before, but not very often, and not very recently. However, it had been done, so it was possible to do. Otherwise he wouldn't think of chancing it ... or would he?
"Why do you want money so much, Lennie?" Schiemann asked. "What do we need the big-time stuff for? It's nice and quiet and practically secure the way you've got things running for us, almost like we were honest businessmen. So why go looking for trouble?"
"If I'd wanted a quiet life," Len said, "I'd have stuck with the Perseus. So don't sing me security."
The hand that held the pipe was trembling. "Look, Lennie, at least give me time to think."
"Okay," Len said. He was, in his way, fond of the old man, but there were bigger things at stake. He had to have Lyddy; he had to have money; he had to have ... something he couldn't put a name to, but desperately important nonetheless. "I'll give you six months."
At the end of half a year, Schiemann said no, he positively wouldn't do it. Len said "Good-by." Schiemann said, "All right, but you'll be sorry; we'll all be sorry," and gave in.
So they took the Valkyrie, the two of them—and Balas, of course, but naturally nobody would consult a madman—and headed for hyperspace. Len knew exactly where to go, even though he had no charts. The breakthrough he wanted was in their own sector and it had been carefully marked for him in his mind.
Schiemann left all the details to him, even the selection of cargo. Len chose coal. He knew that what the xhindi wanted was normspace materials, but not precisely what materials. Their normspace value did not matter, because normspace matter changed to another form of itself when it got to hyperspace, and that was where the possibility of enormous profit came in. Something cheap in normspace could become something quite rare and expensive in hyperspace, and vice versa. The distribution of elements was different between the two universes; each one essentially complemented the other.