"And there's no system-wide controls on that sort of thing?"

He makes a so-so gesture. "Indentured servitude is legal. There are probably workers' protection laws he's not following the spirit of, but I wouldn't be shocked if he's got lawyers ready to argue that he's following the letter of them. Even if he's not, law enforcement in the Rim is wildly inconsistent. In big cities on fully-terraformed worlds like this one, sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Higgins' Moon sees law enforcement officers less often than once every few months, and probably when they do show up it's not too hard for Higgins to make sure nobody talks to them who's going to say anything he doesn't like." 

"That does sound tricky. How expensive and how time-consuming is it to get from rock to rock?"

"The two trade off, to an extent. If you need to get where you're going as soon as possible and you have the money, you can be on a ship immediately and get to another planet in the Kalidasa system in a few days or elsewhere in the 'verse in a few weeks. If you're willing to wait around for cheaper transport, it can be anywhere from days to months before something suitable shows up, but it wouldn't cost more than a couple hundred credits." 

"Is the journey itself slower in the second case?"

"Not necessarily, but probably."

"How good are ships at spotting other ships. Or non-ship objects in space." 

"Pretty good? You don't want to get into collisions." 

"Point against going around under my own power, then." 

"Can you give us a sense how far local currencies go in terms other than ship trips?"

"I would expect a grocery run for a family of four for a week to cost about a hundred credits. A university education will cost you several thousand credits," he says thoughtfully. 

"Several thousand, not tens of thousands?"

"A university education in the Core will cost you tens of thousands," he amends. "The university here will cost you less than ten thousand if you're only going for a bachelor's degree and nothing more advanced."

"Okay, I guess I'll go with the mental conversion of 'a credit is about a dollar' till something suggests otherwise. And platinum?"

"Plat to credit conversion varies some--some places won't take credit at all; most places in the Core won't take plat as currency, although you can sell it for the metal. Ships are more likely to take credit than most places on the Rim because credit doesn't have mass to haul around, but they'll often take plat, too, to have some somewhere that won't take credits. Usually places that'll take both will take them at a rate of five plat to two credits."

"All right." She writes that down. "Do you have a guess how far my ability to make pearls and such will get me?"

He considers this. 

"Depends," he says slowly. "Firstly, if you continue selling pearls in any given place the value of pearls will drop, of course. Second, not every place is going to have a use for pearls--the fact that they'd theoretically be valuable in a big city isn't much use if you nor anybody you know will ever go to one, and the only traders who connect you to them would cheat you given the chance. But those places will probably buy seeds, if you can sell them seeds for plants they don't have yet that'll grow well in the climate available. My biggest concern is that word will get out that you in particular keep selling pearls and such and either some Alliance officer gets it into their head that you obtained them illegally or a crime lord scoops you up wanting your source." 

"What kinds of tactics are crime lords likely to use? I'm pretty confident of my ability to defend us physically, but I haven't been here long enough to know what else they could do to us." 

He sucks on his teeth. "Well, as long as they don't know that, they probably won't try anything too esoteric...a fairly standard kidnapping attempt is what I would expect to start."

"I'm probably somewhat proof against a standard kidnapping attempt too but this does mean Xander shouldn't be without one of us."

"Joy."

"I mean, even if you do get kidnapped, we'll get you back," she says, patting his hand. "Even if you get murdered, I'm around, so it's not so bad." 

"You really know how to reassure a guy."

"--I mean, it's better than the alternative, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Sorry, I'll try harder." 

"Xander is just being a pill, Lucy, it's not on you."

"--Anyway. Do you have any particular advice on avoiding mob bosses. Or, like, what needs fixing."

"Fixing?"

"Well you have here this city that's full of awful stuff in the air, so I know some stuff needs fixing." 

"Uh...greater political equity for the Rim? Better protections for poor people against big companies? I guess?"

"And how would you go about fixing that?" 

"Well, uh, empirically, I wouldn't, I would just be a history professor, but I suppose you'd want to go to the Core Worlds..."

"And... do political activism? Does that work reasonably well here?"