15. Professional Ethics (Two-in-One, 8K)

015.M40, Nuceria, summer, the twenty-second day after that once-in-a-century downpour.

"Yes." The man calling himself Eric Winslow nodded. "One standard unit is fifty tons of water, at five hundred Imperium credits per ton, or equivalent goods. What do you think?"

What else could she think? That price was so low it was practically charity!

Patti Bular, the water-trade agent jointly selected by eleven major towns in the Nurlah Desert, stepped forward with a beaming smile and took the right hand of this outsider dressed in local Nucerian robes.

She could no longer be bothered with anything else. At the moment, her greatest and most urgent desire was to secure every drop of water in this man's possession—yes, the rain had only stopped twenty-two days ago, but the stored rainwater would eventually run out. Preparing ahead of time was never a mistake.

Besides, the price he was offering was simply too good!

Patti Bular had been in the agency business for a full thirty-three years. Even in the earliest years of her career, water had never been this cheap per standard unit. Water peddlers were shrewd bastards to the extreme; even water that had been recycled and purified countless times, utterly unfit for drinking, would never be sold at such a price.

And this Eric Winslow—Patti had personally inspected the goods he brought just minutes ago. That water was no inferior product. Its proper price should have been four thousand Imperium credits per ton.

"I'll take it all, sir!" Patti declared loudly. "However much you have, I'll take all of it!"

Eric Winslow smiled, but shook his head.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, ma'am. The Free Woodland Alliance bought two standard units, and a group of archaeologists reserved one standard unit. In other words, I only have the last two