The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 107

Part 17

“Give us all the relevant information you have on your program, including facilities, the rosters of trainees, supervisors, and other staff, and the logistics of your supply systems. Have the trainees gathered to watch the Revealing in one hour.”

Zwak frowned, but he passed her the information psionicly, and she immediately passed it to Karz, who passed it to his team-mates. “May I ask the terms of their contract?” he inquired.

“We haven’t discussed it yet,” Povon admitted as she turned to the children, “But the essence of a just contract is that both parties should benefit equally. On that basis, Mark should award you half the value of the labor, costs, and resources that we’ll save under your system, plus a payment for your improvement in the quality of our training.

“On the other hand, that would mean we’d owe you the value of about a billion Sylvan’s continuous labor in ongoing payments, plus the rest. It would be far more than Serminak could pay in any kind of liquid assets. We could give you a few hundred tons of gold as a down payment, but you would have to take the rest in goods, services or resources.”

The four young simply stared at her a moment, then broke up laughing.

“That’s a pretty good offer, Povon, considering that we’d planned to contribute the entire program at our own cost, including borrowing from you five as necessary.” Six laughed. “Give us a second to consider it.

“All right, we’ll emplace and oversee the training program for the next year for only eighteen tons of gold, on the condition that you pay the cost of having it minted into Hilian Crowns. With that to start with, we’ll be able to make as much money as we want, so there’s no use in us charging you any more. We know that Serminak isn’t producing a huge surplus, and besides, it’ll be a good thing to have the government of Serminak owing us a big favor.”

“But we’ll take the favor in writing, in case there’s a change of regime here sometime before we choose to collect on it!” Fire laughed. “And that’s not a comment on instability here, but on how soon I think we’ll need to collect the favor!”

“Done!” Mark laughed, offering his hand to Val, who was closest.

The Governors shook his hand in turn, feeling quite pleased with themselves.

“We’ll have your gold to the mint in Hilia within the hour.” Povon told them with a smile.

“And I’ll have the writ of favor within a week.” Mark grinned. “I want to see how the accounting works out before I decide on the wording.”