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So Kapstaad Chemical is being undersold, and the only way they can stay in business is cut the price they have to pay for wax...." It went on like that, and this time I had real trouble keeping my anger down. In the first place, I was pretty sure there was no substitute for Fenris tallow-wax, good, bad or indifferent.
That's where he collected his cut on the tallow-wax, so that is where he'd have to be tried. Bish is convinced that somebody in Kapstaad Chemical must have been involved, too. Hallstock is strictly a local matter." "That's about what I thought. With all this interstellar back-and-forth, it'll be a long time before we'll be able to write thirty under the story."
"Were you serious when you made that motion about a price of seventy-five centisols?" "I sure was!" Joe declared. "That's the real price, and always has been, and that's what we get or Kapstaad doesn't get any more wax." "If Murell can top it, maybe Kapstaad won't get any more wax, period," I said. "Who's he with Interstellar Import-Export?"
The Ravick people were either saying nothing or arguing that Belsher was doing the best he could, and if Kapstaad wouldn't pay more than thirty-five centisols, it wasn't his fault. Finally, the call bell for the meeting began clanging, and the crowd began sliding over toward the elevators and escalators.
I want you to understand that Kapstaad Chemical wants to give you every cent they can, but business conditions no longer permit them to pay the old price. Thirty-five is the absolute maximum they can pay and still meet competition " "Aaah, knock it off, Belsher!" somebody shouted. "We heard all that rot on the screen." "How about our contract?" somebody else asked.
Everybody who wasn't already in the Co-op hurried up and joined. Then he negotiated an exclusive contract with Kapstaad Chemical Products, Ltd., in South Africa, by which they agreed to take the entire output for the Co-op. That ended competitive wax buying, and when there was nobody to buy the wax but Kapstaad, you had to sell it through the Co-operative or you didn't sell it at all.
"You're tootin' well right it isn't!" somebody directly in front of me said, very distinctly. "I'm very sorry to have to bring this news to you, but the fact is that Kapstaad Chemical Products, Ltd., is no longer able to pay forty-five centisols a pound. This price is being scaled down to thirty-five centisols.
The more wax sold for, the more advertising we'd sell to the merchants, and the more people would rent teleprinters from us. "Eighty centisols a pound," he said. Nice and definite; quite a difference from the way he stumbled around over listing his previous publications. "Seventy-five's the Kapstaad price, regardless of what you people here have been getting from that crook of a Belsher.
Before he could say anything else, Oscar was interrupting: "We can eat for a while, even if we don't sell wax. Sigurd Ngozori'll carry us for a while and make loans on wax. But if the wax stops coming in, Kapstaad Chemical's going to start wondering why...."
When the captain gets paid for the wax he's turned over to the Co-op, he divides the money among the crew. But every scrap of this belongs to the ships that took it, up till it's bought and paid for by Kapstaad Chemical." "Well, if a captain wants his wax back, after it's been turned over for sale to the Co-op, can he get it?" Murell asked. "Absolutely!" Murell nodded, and we went on.
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