Interstellar corporations are galaxy-spanning conglomerates with interests spread over thousands of light-years. Typical corporate divisions include advertising, consumer services, sentient resources, marketing, market research, merchant relations, operations, production, research and development, sales, security, and transportation. As a company grows and develops, it must issue stock and pay dividends, protect equity and market share, and outwit the competition.

For the independent trader, business is much simpler– at least in principle. Traders operate under the same theory as other businesses: buy low, sell high. Put bluntly, independents fill their holds with cheap goods from one star system and carry them to another system where the going price is significantly higher. Of course, free traders often discover that their lives are not so simple. Merchants may be willing to cheat, swindle or scam a free trader, where they would be less likely to do so to a trader with the full weight of a mega-corporation or a government behind her. Most free traders turn a profit despite quirky local complications and the risks of the frontiers of explored space. In fact, most operate there because the large corporations have yet to move in a destroy a small trader’s chance to prosper. Without a controlling organization, free traders sometimes band together in guilds. Operating together, guild members share information about prices– their most important function. They also update their members on dangerous situations, emerging markets, and other opportunities for profit. Typically, the guild charges a membership fee for its services, including acting as a reference for accomplished traders. Some guilds expand over time, becoming corporations and issuing stock.

When independent trader profits become truly lucrative, the demand for working capital becomes high. For a trader to make $100,000 transporting technical equipment, she must have millions of dollars to buy the equipment in the first place. Most traders have neither the capital nor the collateral to secure such loans. Many are still paying off the loan on their driveship, so many free traders work under contract. Rather than purchasing goods themselves, free traders take a contract from someone else. Usually the price is set on both ends, and the free trader gets a certain percentage of the profits– about 10% plus expenses. It’s never as lucrative as working for yourself, but many traders rely on contracts when times are tough.

Buying and selling data is a tricky business reserved for those with plenty of resources for, and a shrewd understanding of, the value of knowledge. Those who make a living selling information are known as data merchants. These merchants carry data either in special ship computers, on encrypted and biolocked 3Ds, or in secure internal nanocomputers. Basically, data merchants are intelligence agents and couriers who operate with-out the protection of a central agency; they sell information as others sell industrialized parts.

The easiest part of infotrading involves selling information, carrying messages, and delivering news to the frontier. Without drivespace relays, frontier planets rely on driveships to carry libraries, financial records, and calls for economic and military assistance. These are the core businesses of data merchants. Simple data delivery can’t generally provide a living for dealers with small ships, so most data merchants also carry normal cargo.

It’s a tricky business. Information joins food-stuffs as one of the few commodities in the galaxy that grows stale and useless over time. Holding information too long can be just as disastrous as holding out for a few more dollars.

A trader with a ship has one other commodity that she can carry from system to system: passengers. On the Verge, people pay to ride aboard trade vessels or freighters heading in the right direction. This isn’t luxury service; the quarters are barely adequate, the service is nonexistent, and the food consists of whatever the ship’s cook puts on the table. However, it’s an economical way to travel. Rates rise as the quality of the accommodations improves. Aboard a ship equipped with luxury passenger suites, a passenger pays quite a premium to travel in style.