I filed the thoughts away for another time and took a bite of my trout. It was juicy and delicious. I ate in comfortable silence with my host, who seemed quite eager for his own meal. Once we were finished eating, Justin calmly opened a can of cigarettes, twisting at the tin with a key popped from the lid. He took one of the filter-free cigarettes for himself, then offered me one by pulling up a paper tab in the center of the can. The cigarettes around it rose with the tab.

With a second of hesitation, I accepted. It was nothing my suit couldn’t repair, if needed be.

It was strange seeing the item coming out of a can, but then a storm of memories flooded through my mind. I had known about canned cigarettes because Silken Sands sold them. It was one of the preferred storage methods for longer lived species under BuyMort. Typically it had been the delves and few remaining elves that bought them.

Something about keeping them fresh longer than paper or plastic containers appealed to the elves, and they almost all smoked them without a filter.

Justin happily lit mine for me, and then turned the flame from his lighter to his own. As we drew and exhaled the smoke, I heard the rooms life support kick into higher gear.

“Nice to be able to smoke and eat this way. My crew has none of those luxuries,” I commented. “Ah well, notes for the next expedition.”

“Advanced life support systems are on sale from my affiliate right now, if you’re interested,” Justin replied with a grin. “I believe its ten-percent off list price.”

“Which is ten-percent higher than it needs to be,” I answered.

Justin burst out laughing and nodded. “Of course! How else are we supposed to get people to buy them on sale?”

I shook my head and smoked. It was decadent, as I had expected. When the leader of a planet like Midnight offers to share a vice, you can usually count on a high-quality experience.

So I drew the harsh, biting smoke into my lungs and exhaled it in a thin wispy line. While I watched it get dragged into a hidden fan in the ceiling, Justin poured himself more wine.

“So,” he said after taking a sip. “How can we help one another?”

I raised my eyebrows at that and chuckled. “That is the question, isn’t it,” I lamented. “Always the question. You had something in mind for me earlier. Does it pay?”

The delf nodded. “It does. I’m establishing an open bounty on the cult, it should help thin their numbers out a bit, but I’d also like to send you after high-value targets we’ve been following. Capture or kill missions, primarily. Some sabotage as well.”

“Done,” I said. “I was going to do that anyway, I’ll be happy to do it under your planetary securities supervision. Keep my public image cleaner.”

Justin smiled broadly. “You do not even know the bounty amounts,” he said with a chuckle.

“Does it matter? I’d be doing it for free and you said your world is rich. I assume it’ll help my pocketbook at the same time I clean up a mess,” I explained, flicking ash into a tin ashtray near the center of the table. “I have problems, this feels like it’ll solve two of em at once.”

“Well, tell me of your needs, and I’ll see how I can fill them,” Justin replied. “I feel a great debt to you personally, Tyson. You saved me, started me on this path. In my eyes, every bit of success I have is due to your intervention.”

“I have no finances, to speak of. No income,” I started, thinking out loud. “And I have plans for the immediate future that I’m not sure how I’m going to fund. Expensive plans.”

“Consider them funded,” Justin said. “Though I’m sure my CFO would prefer I ask what those plans are, before I promise to fund them.”

“I need to get my affiliate back, Justin,” I said, looking at him over my dwindling cigarette. The decision to include him in my plans was immediate. No risk, no reward, and Justin had proven himself more than once. “I plan to challenge Axle in the coming election,” I told him.

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Justin scowled. “The election that is three months away? For the CEO position in Silken Sands?” He raised his wine glass and offered a toast. “You never do anything halfway, do you?”

I clinked my own glass to his and finished my cigarette. Justin pushed the ashtray toward me from the center of the table and I snubbed my embers out. “No, I guess I don’t. This expedition was meant to be a publicity win, something to launch my campaign on. Now . . . I’m not sure how that’ll play with the cult attack.”

“BuyMort loves a spectacle,” my delf friend offered. “I’m sure it will drive your numbers, but you’re right to worry about negative reception. The Cult of Eternal Darkness is not well-known outside of Midnight, and Midnight is not well-known in general. This will all come as a nasty shock to the rest of BuyMort, I am certain.”

“It’s going to hurt my chances too, nobody is going to want me in charge while this cult is running around trying to ‘punish’ me,” I said, before taking a drink. “I have to deal with them.”

“I will help you with that, in certainty. Much of my security apparatus is already well-educated on the cult and its activities. The transition to active enforcement against them should prove to be easy,” Justin replied. “I am CEO of the affiliate, so I’ll have other duties and cannot provide my security forces off of Midnight as easily. They are planetary security, after all. We do have a small navy, however, which is ready to go. I’ve mobilized them already, we have Eternal Night’s gate locked down.”

“That will increase their portal costs at least,” I said. “Thank you Justin, I’m grateful to have you as an ally in this fight. Hey, what is your affiliate, anyway? I don’t think I’ve asked yet.”

“The House of None, of course,” he replied. “Our house has always worked for the betterment of all delves, and now free of corrupted, incompetent command we hold the seventh place on the top ten list. All delves on Midnight are part of it in some form or other, for the profit-share if nothing else.”

“So you pay everyone, not just the employees?” I asked.

Justin nodded over his wine glass. “We find it inordinately healthy for our society on Midnight. Those who wish to launch their own affiliates do so with the full financial backing of our profit-share system, and essential jobs offer a higher share for the ambitious. There is a particularly good coffee associate that provides for our miners and citizenry alike, and it all came about because an elderly miner wished to continue working once his body could no longer handle the mines. I’m proud to say my associate support effort funded his startup.”

I nodded back, slowly, in thought. “I can’t imagine how much innovation has come from that diversity of applied opportunity.”

“Exactly!” Justin exclaimed. “I leave the politics of it behind completely, my only task was to build a strong society.”

“That kind of system has its downsides,” I added. “Much easier to accomplish with a lower population, no offense.”

“Oh none taken, I understand your meaning completely. As an economic system, it does have its problems, without doubt. But my people were due so much back-pay I couldn’t just ignore it for my own benefit. And besides, it’s only a share. I still reap my majority,” he commented, staring into his wine glass as he adjusted his robe’s collar. “Where my policies have indeed given rise to a murderous cult, I would weigh that against all the good those policies have done and the lives they have elevated.”

“Some people wouldn’t work at all, of course. Or work just enough to stave off existential boredom. I bet your arts are broad and varied,” I muttered.

“Our people are quite dedicated to one another, which drives industry as well. A cultural remnant from our experience over centuries at the hands of the great houses. Delves are proud to be miners, it’s a very desirable field. We usually have more applicants than jobs on planetary pride alone,” Justin told me.

“Yeah I bet. I have to hand it to you, Justin Lee. You’ve done well for your people. Very well. This system of yours is a perfect match for your people,” I said, before sipping my wine.

“Almost perfect, but thank you,” he replied.

“At least that came of my wars,” I muttered.

“Much came of your wars, Tyson. Much. War is never easy, but you set us on a path to prosperity on the remaining Midnight. Even though I arrived as a refugee, my own Midnight destroyed, I was quickly followed by the people due to my association with you. BlueCleave still helped us in the early days, and we were ready when they pulled out. Our cities run deep, and our mines deeper,” Justin said, smiling. “I can help fund your campaign, but you’ll want a diversity of donors as quickly as you can.”

“Yes, I can see that. Too close an association with Midnight’s financial system is likely to be a stumbling block with my voting base. Some of them may decide I’ll do the same with them and not want to suddenly be on par with those they consider beneath them now,” I said.

“Of course. A hazard of any economic system that relies upon classes,” Justin said over his wine glass.

I squeezed my eyes shut hard and shook my head. The tumble of intentionally complex financial systems and the resulting cultural responses to them was too much for me to process properly, and I had gotten what I wanted out of Justin at any rate. I relegated the task to my subconscious. Results would happen over the course of a few days, an understanding of the complexity in question would slowly come to me.

Financial backing for my campaign had been achieved. Terna would be able to throw some support in as well, but it would be far easier for her with the House of None doing the heavy lifting.

I smiled at Justin politely and raised my glass to him. “To our campaign,” I said.

He happily raised his own glass. “To your return to power!”