Kelpable
"Lodestone Matrixfire of the Lintillian?"
"Yes, who are you?"
"My name is Max Candlestorm, I'm from the Polity, the Glasscastle colony have asked me to explain what happens next."
"This is bullshit. It's all bullshit. I don't answer to any authority beyond my captain, and she hasn't said a fuckin' word."
"Okay, so you're wrong, and also you're stupid. You had, what, a hundred years of brain-time to study the regulations before you joined up, and you don't even know what laws you're under? That's just incompetent."
"Hey! You're supposed to be on my side."
"Why? You've dragged the whole Caravan down in the opinions of the colony. Fuck your get rich quick scam. What did you think was going to happen?"
"Don't I even get to argue my side?"
"Does it have any redeeming features?"
"Look. The Kelp was legal when I bought it. I brought it here. I found a buyer. I sold it. I'm not part of the colony, so I don't get why they've locked me here."
"Okay, so, first. Different colonies do law differently. Gladstone 7 basically walls off a field and tells us to get on with it, Captain's law applies, trials are however your captain wants to do it. Colonists are on their own if they deal with us - which is how you got the Kelp, it's not legal there either. Here - as the banner notice said when we landed - you're under the laws of the colony, and Glasscastle deems Kelp a restricted substance. You're fine to own it, or trade it within the caravan, but if you sell it to a colonist you're breaking the law."
"So I'm fucked then?"
"Well, they've got verified trade records, a tape of you making the trade, a box that's labelled "Engineering supplies" with a MixTrace that matches a box of Kelp and a warrant to open it. If you plead guilty now, they'll halve the time."
"They're going to lock me up?"
"Nah. Colonys generally don't want to keep us around that long. They'll set up a Bounty."
"They want me dead?"
"Not that kind of bounty, no. They'll lodge a Bounty - a kind of hanging trade - with the Polity for evidence you've spent six months outside of the wire. Your credentials are suspended until the bounty is accepted by another ship in the Caravan, when they present the evidence, they'll get the bounty."
"Outside the Wire? Six fucking months? I have to stay in fucking meatsack for six fucking months?"
"What you do with your meatsack is outside the scope of the bounty."
"Do I at least get the Kelp?"
"Don't be fucking stupid."
Nicholas Avenell