Wine of the Gods 4: Explorers Read Free

fourteen. Class Three, uninhabited world. There are five bids." The officials started opening the envelopes and reading out the bids. Everyone in the room leaned forward.
    Gerald McCamey was Lon's immediate superior, also attending in person, like it or not. He'd been in on final decisions on the Dallas bids. And very, very closemouthed. But with the bids closed, the need for secrecy was gone. He still kept his voice down. "We've bid fifty-three million for this one." He crossed his arms and looked unmoved as the first bid was for seventy-five million.
    Lon crossed that one off his list, and waited two more worlds for the next on their list. That one they took for eighty million, just edging out Hesperus Enterprises.
    "That was the one with the slightly higher than normal rare elements in the soil. I'm surprised the bidding wasn't higher."  That was from one of the board members.
    McCamey shook his head. "It's too easy to get burned if the arrival location is not representative. And there are so many excellent worlds. I rather thought a few merely good ones would get passed up by the Majors."
    Lon snorted. "And the first thing we'll have to do is move the gate anchor, at least a short distance. The terrain is . . . challenging."
    He sat patiently through a variety of worlds they hadn't pursued. He'd always kept to himself the opinion that buying an entire planet based on samples all taken within a one kilometer radius of an almost random arrival location was insane. A coin flip would have done as well, deciding which worlds to pursue, or not.
    Dallas also won their fifth bid, a bit of a risk due to the high numbers of animals seen. A rich fauna was likely to hide surprises, dangerous predators, primitive humans or worse, Neanderthals or the so called "dwarves" or "elves".  People were just too fascinated by the worlds where other branches of the early hominid family were the winners in the evolutionary struggle. But of this whole sequence of worlds, no natives had been discovered by the first surveys. It wasn't a guarantee, but it lowered the probability of finding a thin population of indigenous peoples.
    They bid on four of the next twelve, and lost them all.
    Their last bid was a different sort of risk. They'd low balled a world with little fauna in evidence, and exceptionally uninteresting soil. Lon nodded in satisfaction as they took world Twelve fifty-three. At a mere nine million creds, they'd certainly find a way to at least break even. "It might be a good idea to take the whole team there first, shake out the kinks and get them settled and working before we hit the others."
    McCamey nodded. "With as many new hires as we'll need , that's a good idea. Twelve-seventeen will need a full up geology team, and Twelve-forty is guaranteed to have dangerous predators."
    Lon stared down at his list. "Actually I think our first move should be for a small, experienced team to col lect drill cores from Twelve-seventeen. Then the lab can analyze them while we take the whole cadre through a shake down on fifty-three. That will give us a better idea of which way to move the gate anchor. We'll need at least a rough survey and road. Even if the road only has to last a few weeks."
    Simon Meese, the Ch airman, had been listening. "Good plan. We'll have to think up some proper names." He gave a nod of satisfaction. "I'd have liked to pick up a couple more, but we've got two hot prospects, in my opinion. Good job, everyone."
    McCamey cornered Lon. "Are you heading straight back?"
    "Yes. The Board will no doubt wheel and deal, but they don't need me for that. Just try and keep them from going overboard."
    McCamey grinned. "You can't fool me. You just don't like having to get multiple partners to sign off on your plans."
    "Exactly. Plus they all want their pet worlds to get priority. We can juggle five worlds fairly well. Ten would be impossible. Don't let them make us the operator for too many of them."
    "All it takes is more