Now in one way the original decision to have manned ships paid off; some merchanters had maintained enough contact with Earth to be somewhat loyal to the Earth Company, but few stations were loyal enough to want to pay a tax. Earth was able to enforce the tax, at least, at first.
There was some shooting. Merchanters who would serve Earth were armed.
A great many people who did not like this trend left the nine starstations which began to be called the Hinder Stars.
They went to Pell or further.
But then... then a scientist at Cyteen discovered a principle that made possible Faster Than Light traveclass="underline" an FTL ship.
During the passage of a lightspeed message to Earth that such a discovery might be possible, an FTL ship was launched from Cyteen and had time to tour almost every starstation in far space.
Had it not been for the tax, Earth could have been in the center of things again. But Cyteen was hostile to Earth.
And Cyteen had two things: a discovery in the biology of the planet Cyteen had given them rejuv, a drug that could hold off old age for up to fifty years. Earth wanted it. Badly. Cyteen also had FTL. And that, Earth got, thanks to Pell, which got the secret and spread it.
The shooting then became serious. Some merchanters went to Cyteen and Cyteen declared its independence of the Earth Company.
Earth built fifty superFTL carriers to batter Cyteen to its knees. It named the ships after the nations of Earth.
But Cyteen, older than Earth in the matter of building FTL ships, matched their fleet.
The one thing Earth had was a majority of merchanters on Earth's side, and this included some very good starpilots who wrote new chapters in FTL operation, and who outflew and outfought Cyteen equipment, which was generally a few years more advanced than Earth's.
In FTL technology Cyteen had a slight edge, mostly because of a handful of physicists who were still at work on improvements.
In actual operating skill, the loyalists had the edge, and their ships were good enough, if not the latest.
Merchanters had once been the warships: a few of the old sublights had been converted to FTL; many of the modern merchanters were launched by Pell, Earth, or Cyteen as new ships, crewed by spinoffs of older merchanter families. But the lifestyle changed radically because of FTL.
The voyages of years now ammounted to weeks spent in space.
While merchanters still looked for mates outside their ships, the difference in lifestyle of merchanters and stationers had gotten so extreme that merchanter/stationer marriages were unlikely. Merchanters associated with merchanters, and were confined to the docks at the ninth level of the rim of each wheel-like station. Along one side would be the tending machinery and access ramps of ships in dock; along the other side (in the Green and White sides of the wheel) were bars, restaurants, and hotels (called sleepovers) for spaces. On the dockside of Blue Section (which is always administrative) are the customs office, the spacer banks, security headquarters, and in short, all the nerve centers of the docks. Only military ships of ships with special clearance get to dock in a station's blue dock, and only stationers with special clearance get to live in the eight levels above, many of which have sensitive offices. Station Central is the uppermost of the blue levels.
White contains many shops that serve spacers; the levels above have shops that serve stationers, and residences of shopkeepers and medical folk. The uppermost level of white had the security detention area and police headquarters; the level just below has the medical facilities, the hospitals, and so on.
Green section on the stationer levels contains general residences, restaurants, and shops for stationers.
Red section on the docks is for insystem haulers coming in with ores and other industrial goods: it contains much of the manufacturing. This also tends to socially separate insystem spacers from FTL spacers, who do mix without fighting, but without great enthusiasm either: FTL merchanters are clannish and occasionally dangerous, tending to enforce their own law, particularly on Green dock, which is their territory.
There is little residence (but some) in red sector. Its docks have shops and manufacturers' offices and some station offices which apply exclusively to the insystem ships.
Orange section dock is either for FTL or insystemers, depending on need. It has shops, banks, and some restaurants; above are residences.
The hub has three functions: docking for null-G haulers like oreships which unload their cargoes without gravity, and which will stand off from station during crew liberties. Ore haulers are too big to dock at regular facilities. The hub also has those functions of station lifesupport and power which do not need gravity. And it has a gymnasium and recreational area for null gravity and low gravity sports.
Merchanter ships come in several classes.
There are general FTL haulers. Crew lives forward in a wheel-like cylinder that rotates to supply gravity because these ships do not often use regular engines and the force of acceleration is a nuisance, not a help to them. The cargo compartment is behind, in front of the engines. The cargo space may be of several kinds.
First it may be unheated, in which case contents will freeze in the cold of space. Some goods profit by this.
Such holds are not pressurized either.
Or the hold may be heated to various degrees. This is expensive, usually involving lifesupport sufficient to admit a worker without a spacesuit, but in most that do claim heated holds, the temperature is just above freezing. Few goods need balmy temperatures. Very few haulers can handle that kind of thing in bulk.
Or a ship may take cannisters, some of which have internal regulating systems for heat or air.
Many ships have one heated hold up front and the rest unheated.
Also most goods do not require gravity. Most holds are zero-G.
A very few ships can provide heated holds with gravity, which they get by having one or more holds included in the crew cylinder. This is very expensive transport. Often passengers ride in spare crew cabins (there is not much interstellar passenger traffic at this stage). In rare emergencies, heated one-G holds can be used for passengers.
Ships can come in all sorts of combinations.
There are also can-haulers which are nothing but a crew compartment in front and engine at the rear connected by a long bare backbone with clamps that bind up to ten or twelve huge cannisters in place. Canhaulers unload to small pusherships which then shove the cannisters into the null-G dock of station hubs.
In the normal operation of a merchanter ship, it takes cargo, leaves dock, and spends hours (or in some systems and depending on the power and load -- days) getting to the nadir of the stellar pole far enough out that the jump will not land them in the heart of the star or try to take a planet along. During this time the crew lives normally, annoyed only by the first acceleration that got them going. Normal space engines shut down then and they coast.
When they get to the nadir jump range they get a navigational fix on a star, do the elaborate calculations to determine exact location, and turn on the generation vanes, the large panels suspended on vanes about the ship like old-fashioned rocket fins -- but these provide the field which takes them into jumpspace, the Between.
Subjectively, a few minutes pass. Objectively, a week or month of Universal time has passed. This again varies according to power and mass of the ship and load, and yes, a more powerful (or less loaded) ship can overjump a weaker one and arrive first.