the start of a beautiful business venture

Caban asked me to come with him and check out his new ship. I knew exactly what he was asking. How easily I could have said no, and stayed to rot in my room in Rookston. But the town…I had drifted into one of the many midden heaps of the galaxy, and now I would drift out again. So I took my knapsack, left a coin for rent, and went with him to the shipyard. I find once again that all I own fits in that old knapsack and my old skull.
Roller is a junker. A tiny ship, but heavy. Well-made, for the time, but a heap nonetheless. There were two levels, the lower with a fair-sized cargo space and engine room. The engine looked well enough, he told me it would fly. The upper deck was nothing but a hallway, an escape hatch at one end, a tiny water closet, and a bunk room barely big enough for the food and water supplies crammed inside its musty interior. The bridge, as he called it, was dominated by the controls and viewscreen at one end, and between that and the far wall were two chairs and counter bolted to the floor, as well as two lamps. In the corner was a low bed. The whole room was perhaps fifteen paces long.
The cargo hold was full of coconuts. I found this completely inexplicable, he merely shrugged with the eternal confidence of a young Runner. Who knew there was such a market for coconuts?
I showed him without being asked that I could operate the controls no trouble. He asked which systems I could use and I knew that he was sizing me up for a job. I’d take it. I’d known the man for an hour, but I had a good feeling about him. I still do.