Today we are finally heading home.
“Exie, light it up.
Let’s get outta here.
We’re going home” [Sure thing, Host.
We’re outta here] are you copying me?
Sounds like it’s copying me.
The rest of the trip home was uneventful.
Just me making nozzles and capacitors, valves and junctions.
Over and over again.
And when that was too boring I’d play in the cargo hold, trying to pull individual heavies out of the field-refined ore.
It’s important to understand that when you drop off ore at the processors location, they only pay for the materials over 500g.
Anything with less than that is ignored and not paid for.
This ends up being a lot of money for the Refiners, that they don’t recompense the miners for.
There are multiple elements and alloys that are valuable but only in tiny amounts, so these small amounts end up worth a lot, sometimes more than all the rest of the materials combined.
The Refiners pretend poverty, “oh it’s too expensive to separate these small amounts” but in reality this is one of their primary revenue streams.
At this point it’s Baked-into the system and none of the Refiners are willing to give it up.
So, like a cartel, they coordinate to keep all the ‘small change’ for themselves.
This obviously adds up to huge profits when combined with the millions and millions of small mining outfits unable to refine their own metals.
Greedy basturds.
In order not to give them any more free money, I’ve been practicing resonating with the ore in my cargo hold.
Trying to find the differences in them.
Trying to find the tiny amounts of individual elements and alloys, calling to the smallest quantities of minerals in the cargo hold.
Eventually after a couple days, I managed to pull some wisps of materials, some tiny dollops of metal, out of the ore.
After calling for days, all the materials I’d managed to collect were arranged in front of me: 2 small “dice” of dull silver metal and 1 fist sized chunk of yellowish, bright and shiny metal.
Unsure of their composition, they are put in a small wooden box, waiting for the chance to identify them and sell them.
The “dice” seem similar to Osmium and not sure of the fist sized rock, maybe its palladium..
That would be nice.
That goes into fuel cells and other energy releasing reactions, very small amounts add up quickly, like 10,000 credits an ounce quickly.
The small fist sized lump feels at least a couple pounds.
I’ll have to get these checked out once I’m back and have some time.
Right now I’m finally within Communication range of Luna’s repeaters, about a day out from arrival, and am prepping for cargo delivery, docking, fuel restocking, and all that.
Besides business, there’s a few personal messages finally received after a month incommunicado.
Mostly they are from my sister, asking how I’m doing and when I’ll be home, but there’s one from a friend named Uncle Lin.
He’s a long time friend and fellow miner.
He took me under his wing when I was starting years ago and kindly helped me learn the ropes.
Time waits for no man, and its relentless beat catches up to all of us.
He’s been talking of getting out of the business for years, at the same time as he buys equipment to improve his operations, like he’s gonna keep going forever.
Better miners, better field smelters, he always keeps constantly upgrading his equipment.
Wondering what he’s up to, I send a quick reply asking if he’d like to get together for lunch the day of arrival, then move on to reply to my sister.
I send her a message letting her know I’m back and I’ll see her tomorrow after delivering the ore and docking Bessie.
It’s a bit of a process docking the ship and post voyage clean up.
There’s two big holds in the main cargo hold for all the ore.
You don’t want that stuff rolling around on the floor; a lot of it is hazardous and some is even radioactive.
It also makes things easier when you unload.
They hook up two big hoses and one blows air in and the other sucks the ore out.
Easy squeezie.
Most miners operate like this, only the bigger outfits have private refiners to get the maximum profit from ores produced.
They can even allow others to use their equipment when they don’t need it.
It’s actually very profitable, but the downside is you have to have enough material to run in order to make it truly worthwhile(profitable).
These refiners take time and money to set up, management and labor, as well as channels to buy and sell all of it.
It’s a lot.
But once up and running they are basically printing press for credits.
There’s no shortage of independent and small time miners looking for processing.
Some of them might even give you the full value of those smaller and much more expensive metals that the bigger refiners just keep.
It’s all about money.
And connections.
Speaking of connections, I’m excited to see my new sister.
My new bodies’ memories of her are very kind and caring.
She’s a hardworking, diligent, and considerate little sister.
My previous life’s sister was 8 years older than me and she helped raise me as a kid, in single parent homes the eldest siblings usually get babysitter duty.
By the time we were adults we were the best of friends even though living far apart.
Truly the treasure of my previous life.
Thus I’m beyond happy to find my new sister is such a good kid.
I’ll try to not corrupt her too much.
Just a little bit.
You know, have fun but also be serious.
And also help her reach whatever life goals she wants to set for herself.
Anyway, it’s complicated but that’s what older siblings should do, look out for their younger siblings.
I can use my previous sister as inspiration, so it feels doable.
Enough daydreaming, back to work, only 24 hours till arrival.
I’ve been trying to pull all of the miniscule amounts of ultra heavy metals out of both ore compartments on Bessie for the last 5 days, off and on.
In between making various parts for Exie, I’d come to the ore compartments and call them as practice.
At first it was hard to isolate and resonate with them, but they were hiding in plain sight until I felt their resonance.
Instantly they lit up like lighthouses in the dark, announcing themselves.
Then it was hard to separate them from the other alloys they were mixed with but eventually they relent and slowly float towards me.
Just a few tiny BBs, it seems all of it is out now.
Adding this to the previous amount ends up with one lump the size of a golf ball and the other slightly larger than a fist.
I currently don’t know exactly what they are but I’m certain they’re valuable.
Finally unable to bare not knowing, I bring them to the field scanner attached to my space suit.
It’s just a simple cheap scanner for investigating random rocks while out on the asteroid.
The smaller one scans as platinum group alloy with high osmium content.
WOO HOO score While the larger one scans as a palladium and iridium alloy.
Hot damn!
Osmium is worth 8000 credits per pound give or take and the others are between 1400 and 1800 each pound.
There’s gotta be a few pounds here in my hands right now.
Before the age of space resource mining these minerals were worth tens of times more than this, the prices eventually stablized once the space ship building industry matured to match the use of these metals with the extraction.
I’m Rich!!