 Why is Jones a change in the pricing structure for supply runs?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction June 1959. The light from the star that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first lungfish ventured from the sea. It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine, and volitized upon striking the blades. The shaft tried to tie itself into a knot, and the blades, damaged and undamaged were spit through the casing. The shadow line between day and night could be seen from the Moon to be drifting across Australia. Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter after Australia. Evans was a prospector, and like all prospectors, a sort of jackknife geologist, selenologist, rather. Once he followed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while that he had a fortune in chromium. His drinking water—kept separate from the water in the reactor—might conceivably last just as long. But his oxygen was too carefully measured; there was a four-day reserve. Four days reserve—plus one is five—plus sixteen days normal supply equals twenty-one days to live. By the light of this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallons of water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers, was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused in the boiler. This one had a tank and coils of tubing in the center of a curved reflector that was positioned to radiate the heat of the steam into the cold darkness of space. This boiling lowered the temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly freezing the water in the tank. Evans sealed the turbine from the rest of the steam system by closing the shut-off valves. If there was any water in the boiler, it would operate the engine that drove the generator. Then, if the pump wasn't blocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler. Carefully he poured a cup of his drinking water into a pipe that led to the boiler, and resealed the pipe. The water that he had poured into the boiler quickly turned into steam, and the steam turned the generator briefly. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. This was to allow the air-conditioning system to function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highly improbable meteor damage.
 It would allow more necessary supplies to reach Earth
 He thinks it would save time in writing contracts  He thinks he can make a bigger profit if he has more control  It would allow more necessary supplies to reach Earth  He wants to be able to carry more expensive supplies