Oil Money

The Oil Money is named for the only thing about it anyone cares about: the cloud-whale pods are out there fat with oil and worth a hull apiece, and this is the cheapest thing on the Rim that can go get them and come back. Not a warship — too precious, and the pods don't shoot back. Not a harvester — no teeth. The Oil Money splits the difference: three harpoon mounts on a slow, deep-range working hull, a hold big enough to flense a whole pod into oil and baleen on the way home, and just enough plate to shrug off a panicking whale's tail. It will never win a fight against anything with guns, and the crews know better than to point it at the big lonely shapes that haunt the deep neon banks — an Oil Money that picks a fight with a full-grown Cloudwhale comes home as salvage, if it comes home. But turn it loose on a pod of pilot-whales and it pays for itself in a single run, try-pots smoking, hold filling, the oldest trade in the galaxy carried out into the dark.