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Crazy prices. What was the world coming to?

There I was, thinking like an old man. I shook my head and carried Annette’s breakfast and a wad of her favoured newspapers upstairs. Then I washed and dressed and settled down to my own breakfast and news, trying to figure it out.

I was on my second coffee and first cigarette before I remembered that these, like the fruit juice, were imported. For a wild moment I wondered if the Republic had slapped on taxes or tariffs, then realised that such an outrage would hardly have passed me by. I’d have heard about the riots; heck, I’d have been in the riots.

A trawl through the Economist’s database set me straight. Raw-material prices had risen sharply over the six months since the Fall Revolution, while the prices of finished goods and services had dropped. There were plenty of articles explaining why, which in my absorption in our little local difficulties I’d overlooked.

The defeat of the US/UN, and the collapse of its financial scams such as the IMF and World Bank, had had divergent effects. The primary products tended to come from the less developed areas, the old Second and Third Worlds. Their instabilities made our civil wars look like peaceful picketing. Without the empire to police them, protection costs and risk had gone up. Meanwhile, in the more advanced regions, the reduction in taxes – and the end of the headlock on technological development imposed by UN arms control – had allowed manufacturing to enjoy a spurt of growth. Even nanotechnology looked as if it might come on-line at last, if only somebody could entice its best minds out of hiding.

So much for the price of coffee. What was still bothering me was why we weren’t as poor as we should have been. My income from the university had dropped to a token stipend, as the only lectures currently being given there were from the ignorant to each other. (God, let them grow out of that. Soon.) Royalties from my writings had gone up, but not by much, because most of the increased circulation was of those I’d disdained to copyright. Our pension funds were paying out regularly, but they were pretty basic and they certainly hadn’t gone up. And yet – unlike most people since the Revolution – we hadn’t had to tighten our belts.

I keyed up our bank statements and almost spilled a mug of expensive instant coffee. An ordinary expensive cigarette smouldered undrawn to a butt. Our regular income had indeed dwindled, but the balance was being made up by increased payments from my small, almost-forgotten stake in Space Merchants. I cursed the fund-management software for letting me eat my capital, then called it up.

We weren’t eating my capital. We were using up part of the income, and a small part at that. The value of my stake had increased far more than I’d ever expected, and had almost doubled since the Revolution. We were moderately, comfortably, and inexplicably rich.

‘I don’t see what you’re complaining about,’ Annette said, over a late lunch. No urgent phone-calls; I assumed this meant the occupation was proceeding smoothly. ‘I’m thrilled. I never particularly wanted to be rich, but I’ve always thought it would be nice.’

She looked around the dome, at the stacked books and climbing plants and the dodgy cabling of the electronics, blatantly thinking of improvements.

‘Yeah, well, me too,’ I said. ‘But to make money in space these days is, like, defying gravity. Space Defense was run on defence budgets that are due for the chop. All the space industries, even the settlements – even NASA – were like the shops in a garrison town. Like the whorehouses! The whole system should be in a severe slump. A lot of it is – the battlesats are running on empty, hawking microwave beams to electricity companies or some such. So why is Space Merchants doing well?’

Annette’s eyes had a glint of amusement or sadness. ‘You won’t stop, will you?’ she said. ‘You think you’re on to something, and you won’t stop.’

‘Yup,’ I said, rising and clearing away the plates.