"I swear, Mac," said Jones, "another season like this, and I'm going back to mining."
"I thought you were doing pretty well," said McIlroy, as he poured two drinks from a bottle of Scotch that Jones had brought him.
"Oh, the money I like, but I will say that I'd have more if I didn't have to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission."
McIlroy had heard all of this before. "How's that?" he asked politely.
"You may think it's myself running the ship," Jones started on his tirade, "but it's not. The union it is that says who I can hire. The union it is that says how much I must pay, and how large a crew I need. And then the Commission ..." The word seemed to give Jones an unpleasant taste in his mouth, which he hurriedly rinsed with a sip of Scotch.
"The Commission," he continued, making the word sound like an obscenity, "it is that tells me how much I can charge for freight."
McIlroy noticed that his friend's glass was empty, and he quietly filled it again.
"And then," continued Jones, "if I buy a cargo up here, the Commission it is that says what I'll sell it for. If I had my way, I'd charge only fifty cents a pound for freight instead of the dollar forty that the Commission insists on. That's from here to Earth, of course. There's no profit I could make by cutting rates the other way."
"Why not?" asked McIlroy. He knew the answer, but he liked to listen to the slightly Welsh voice of Jones.
"Near cost it is now at a dollar forty. But what sense is there in charging the same rate to go either way when it takes about a seventh of the fuel to get from here to Earth as it does to get from there to here?"