Homestar Saga

Chapter 7: Girl Talk

"Why are we still doing this?" Lissa demanded. They would be hitting the next Jumpgate soon, and she wore her voidarmor for the occasion. She still didn't look comfortable in it, but she'd acknowledged the necessity and that was good enough.

"Do we really need to have this conversation again?" Yvian asked.

"We really do," Lissa folded her arms, sitting back in her chair with a stern expression. "I've been helping you for eight months, and you still haven't given me a straight answer."

"I told you," Yvian said. "I want to be a trader."

"Gribshit," Lissa informed her. "I'm your sister. I know you better than you do. Do you really think I'll believe that we're going through all this on a whim? That there's nothing else to it?"

"Well, what do you think's going on, then?" Yvian scowled. These arguments had become more frequent over the last few weeks. Lissa was getting more insistent. Yvian wasn't looking forward to another one when they were so close to their goal.

"I don't know what's going on!" Lissa snapped. Then she closed her eyes and took a breath. She started again in a milder tone of voice. "I don't know what's going on, and that's the problem. What's the end goal here? What are you trying to do? I want to help, but I can't do that until I know what you want."

"I want to be a trader," Lissa's eyes narrowed at Yvian's answer. "Why is that so hard to understand?"

Lissa opened her mouth to speak, eyes flashing. She closed it, then closed her eyes as well. When she opened them again, she said, "What I understand is we've lost two point three million credits trying to be independent traders. Trying to guess what prices will be after weeks of travel time isn't working. We don't have the contacts or the information to make predictions like that. We're gambling."

"We're getting better at it," Yvian said, defensive. "As long as the price doesn't change in the next 9 hours, we'll make forty thousand credits on this run."

"And lose a hundred thousand on the next one," Lissa predicted. "Like I said, we're gambling. The only difference between this and playing the stock markets is we're actually flying there instead of just putting up money."

Something must have shown on Yvian's face at the mention of stock markets. Lissa's eyes widened. "No..." Yvian said nothing. "You didn't." Yvian said nothing. "How much did you lose?"

Yvian stared down at her console. She watched the distance to the Gate tick down. "Thirty million."

"By the Bright Lady," Lissa swore. "You know how the markets are. Why would you take such a risk?"

"I didn't risk it all," she defended. "Just thirty million."

"That's still a lot of money," Lissa pointed out.

"Sometimes you have to take risks," Yvian said. "I don't see you doing anything with your money."

"Oh, really?" Lissa cocked an eyebrow. "So you didn't notice that I paid the Freedom Republic off to get rid of the bounty on our heads? Or that Mom's retired, now that I set her up for life? You should call her, by the way."

"She should call me," Yvian disagreed. "She's the one who said she never wanted to see me again."

"You should call each other," Lissa compromised. "The rest of my money's in an Index fund. I'll be making ten percent off it for the rest of my life."

"An Index fund?" Yvian had never heard of it.

"It's what the big players use to keep their money making money. Mark turned me on to it."