The Sagittarius Whorl Page 5

  He finished off his drink. "They pay through the snoot for Rampart Mandate planets. So why not?"

  "If their long-range expansion strategy includes forcible penetration of the Milky Way," I said in a low voice, "there are lots of reasons why not."

  "Nobody believes they'd make war except you, son. And you don't have one smidgen of proof to back it up."

  I enumerated what I considered to be valid evidence. "Uno: the ruthless way they went after PD32:C2 to erase their allomorphism. Dos: their refusal to allow unrestricted inspection of their home worlds or Spur colonies by humanity. Tres: the vastly overpopulated planets of their home star-cluster. And if they continue to eradicate their allomorphic trait and no longer have half their people in hibernation at any given time, they'll need even more room! ... Do you have any idea how many top-line transports the Haluk have purchased from Bodascon over the past couple of years? Nearly three hundred! And that doesn't count the starships they're building on their own, copying human high technology"

  "That's not proof, that's unsupported inference—worthless as a bucket of mule piss."

  "I'll find evidence that not even the ostriches in the Assembly can ignore. Don't think I haven't been working on it! And now that the Gala case is won, I intend to work even harder."

  Simon turned his back on me and headed for the booze table. He uncorked the bottle of rare old Hirsch bourbon and half filled his Waterford tumbler. No water to dilute it this time. He moved toward the open French doors. "Let's step outside. I need a breath of fresh air, and you could use cooling down yourself."

  I padded reluctantly after him, bringing my beer. The patio flagstones were chilly, and a cutting breeze came from the west. Discreet gas-flame lanterns mounted on low posts had come on automatically at dusk, giving soft illumination to the expanse of irrigated lawn, the surrounding gardens, and the driveways that led to the other buildings. The main house stood on a rise and had a magnificent view of the mountains that completely surrounded the ranch. Now, with night having fallen and no moon, the sky was crowded with incredible numbers of stars and banded by the Milky Way. The Perseus Spur, at the galactic rim fourteen thousand light-years from Earth's solar system, was visible if you looked carefully to the north; but the small Haluk Cluster that lay seventeen thousand light-years farther out from the Spur's tip was hidden by intervening dustclouds. No one had known it existed until human explorers crossed the Black Gap.

  My father gave a sigh that was just short of being theatrical. "Damn, that sky's a pretty sight. I never get tired of high-desert nights."

  "I do," I said evenly, "when I'm standing on a cold stone pavement in my stocking feet."

  He chuckled uneasily. Then came a very long silence while he lowered the level of his costly panther pee and I finished off my beer. His voice was somber when he finally said, "Do you really hate me so much, Asa? That you'd abandon Rampart when it needs you, just to get even with your old man?"

  "I don't hate you, Simon. You and I just have different priorities. We always have. A long time ago you tried to bully me into accepting yours. When I rebelled, you washed your hands of me ... until you were desperate for my help."

  "That's true enough. And you came through like a champ, several times over. I'm damn grateful."

  "Then let it go at that." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my tone. "It's not true that Rampart needs me now. Eve has done a marvelous job as CEO during the past three years. She's restructured top management and gained the full confidence of the Macrodur financiers. There's no reason to believe that she and her team won't be able to handle the Gala consolidation just as competently, provided you continue as chairman and give her the benefit of your experience. There's nothing inherently rotten in Galapharma, you know. Its basic corporate infrastructure is sound. Alistair Drummond was a megalomaniac and a crook, but he was also a brilliant businessman. And he was right to believe that Rampart and Galapharma are ideal corporate harness mates. All Eve has to do is weed out the handful of bad apples who were direct participants in the conspiracy, and integrate Gala's management into Rampart's."

  "You make it sound simple—but it's not. Your sister's an outstanding executive officer and she's come far in a very short time. But she's still just a beginner in the top Concern ranks, about to start swimming with some very large sharks. She wants you to be part of Rampart just as much as I do."

  "I doubt it."

  He looked at me with what seemed to be genuine puzzlement. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You read my interview with the Journal reporter. Eve has, too, by now. Did you think I was just playing mind-games with the guy when I talked about the Reversionist Principles—and possibly applying them to Rampart if I accept the chairmanship?"

  He didn't reply.

  "Come on back inside," I said. "My feet are freezing—as you know damned well—and I haven't had my supper yet. Starry vistas don't make me choke up the way they used to."

  He followed me and closed the French doors behind us. "I wouldn't mind a little snack myself. I'll talk to Rosalia."

  "Chili con carne and a big salad for me. She knows what I like."

  "I'll just have me some shrimp nachos with Navajo sheep cheese and salsa."

  He contacted the cook through the old-fashioned intercom. Domestic robotics had been taboo in the original Sky Ranch main house because my late mother Katje believed that they deprived human beings of jobs and had the potential to invade privacy. When Simon rebuilt after the explosion, he restored the place exactly as it had been before.

  I stood on the hearth and warmed my feet, declining his offer of another shot of whiskey and accepting more beer. Then we arranged ourselves on opposite sides of the petrified wood table and waited for the food.

  "So you really did mean it," Simon said tentatively, "when you threatened to screw up Rampart's Insap policy if you became chairman."

  "Not screw up. Modify humanely. Preindustrial natives should get more than a few jobs when their planet is exploited by humanity. They deserve a stake in the profits. Plus subsidized education options for those races that can take advantage of them. Anything short of that is unjust—and I'm not alone in believing that's true."

  "Dammit, Asa, it's just not practical! Usually it takes years before a newly developed world starts showing a profit. What about our human stakeholders and the Macrodur finance people? You think they'll just lie down, roll over, and let you scratch their rummies when you spring this crackpot scheme on 'em? And what the hell will happen when Insaps on our new ex-Galapharma Orion Arm worlds decide they want the same deal as the Perseus planets?"

  "We give it to them. In a prudent manner, over a reasonable period of time. Education first, then stakeholdership."

  "It won't work! Way back when interstellar commerce first got going, a few limp-weenie outfits tried to organize human-alien cooperatives and suchlike shit. The Insaps got uppity ideas, wanted a bigger and bigger piece of the enchilada. First thing you know, the humans had full-blown worker insurrections to deal with. Preindustrial xenos can't be treated like human beings! Some of 'em are barely rational. Others are stuck at the tribal or feudal social level and only respect an iron fist. Some have goofy counterproductive customs that preclude any kind of discipline. Most don't understand free enterprise at all!"

  "I didn't say I thought the modification would be easy. Perhaps the policy won't be feasible with marginally sapient peoples. But if I become Rampart chairman, the board members will have to accept the policy."

  "Even if it throws the Concern into chaos?"

  "I'll do my utmost to see that doesn't happen. But yes— I'm willing to take a huge risk in hopes that Rampart's example will spread to others of the Hundred Concerns. If you and Eve and the board of directors are afraid I'll fail, then forget about me. Keep your chairmanship. I'll do what I can to promote Reversionism in other ways."

  I sat back then waiting for the bluster, the combination of wheedling and threats that he'd used to bulldoze me in the
past. Either that or he'd withdraw the nomination forthwith.

  All he said was, "Son, I can't retain the chairmanship. I'm no good for it anymore. I'm too old."

  I couldn't help a snort of disbelieving laughter. "You're healthy as a horse! You could carry on for another twenty years."

  A slight, rueful smile lifted his thin lips. "Nothing wrong with me physically. I'm old inside my skull. Tired. Running out of steam and moxie. It happens ... But I'm smart enough to recognize that I'm past it, and that it's time for me to step down. Rampart'll get a new chairman one way or t'other. Eve doesn't want the job, and neither does Gunter Eckert or Caleb Millstone. They're happy where they are. You refuse, what might happen is we'd have to accept Ellington or some other Macrodur nominee because of the twenty percent stake they got from me in the venture credit scheme."

  "Well, shit," I muttered, mainly because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  "Adam Stanislawski likes you," Simon said. "Ellington does, too. Most of the other Macrodur wheels were mighty impressed with your legal tactics against Gala." He scowled and looked away. "Of course, that was before you came out with that chuckleheaded interview in the Journal—all in living color, no less, posed against an Arizona sunset with a carbine in your armpit like Wyatt-fuckin'-Earp. God knows what the Macrodur directors think about you now."

  "The reporter posted our live conversation?" I was aghast. According to stubborn tradition, conservative news media such as the Journal nearly always reported news in a readonly format. Sensational video clips were for the tabloids.

  "Ee-yup," Simon drawled, nodding at the magslate on the coffee table. "Check it out if you like. You sure come off as one trigger-happy cowpoke, son,"

  "Rats!" I didn't bother to pick up the slate. Jordan Sensen-brenner had got the last laugh after all. "I guess I did shoot myself in the foot this time. Sorry. I'll take full blame for my idiocy, try to smooth things over with Macrodur if I can."

  "Do it soon." The brief flash of amusement faded from Simon's face and he looked draggle-tail weary.

  "I'll go to Toronto tomorrow," I said. "And I hereby swear off impromptu interviews—at least until I decide what to do about your proposal."

  "You better make up your mind pretty damned quick."

  "I won't be stampeded, Pop. You know me better than that." His eyes lit up as I made rare use of the paternal familiar. "When I gave that interview, I was pretty certain I'd reject your offer. Now..." I shook my head. "You'd still want me, knowing what I'd do with the chairmanship?"

  "I figure you're bound and determined to give Reverse activism a try. But I don't think for a minute you'd run Rampart into the ground just to make some quixotic philosophical point. Shit—maybe you're right and the Hundred Concerns are wrong! Stranger things have happened."

  "I need time to think," I insisted. "There are things I could accomplish in the political arena that might be difficult to pull off if I were a mere businessman."

  "It'll be half a year at least before the Galapharma dismantling protocol is finalized and the Concerns merge," Simon pointed out. "I guess I can hold the fort that long. Nothing much can happen till then."

  "I guess not."

  Clairvoyance has never been my strong suit, nor Simon's, either.

  "So take a nice long vacation," he urged me. "God knows you earned it."

  "I might go out to Kedge-Lockaby for a couple of months. I'll be fairly safe from media harassment there. The locals in the Out Islands aren't fond of busybodies. I can drive my submarine and scuba-dive and weigh the options. If you need my input for something of cosmic importance, my next door neighbor on Eyebrow Cay has a subspace communicator. He'll know how to find me. You remember him: Mimo Bermudez."

  A nod. "The old smuggler. Nearly as squirrelly as you."

  "My best friend. Another man with quixotic principles."

  We sat in silence for a time, watching the fire. Then, on impulse, I asked him, "Did you ever hear of another elderly smuggler named Barky Tregarth? He operated out in the Spur over forty years ago, peddling contraband weaponry and materiel to the Haluk and Qastt."

  "Damn! I haven't thought about Barky for years. How'd you hear about him? From Bermudez?"

  "Yes." And Karl Nazarian had known about the old crook, too.

  Simon's brow wrinkled thoughtfully. "Hamilcar Barca Tregarth, teller of tall tales! Spun this crazy yarn about going to the Haluk Cluster on a bet, back when Galapharma owned the Spur. Said he ran rings around their patrols, then managed to sweet-talk the Haluk leadership into letting him land on one of their major worlds to refuel. Even claimed the aliens gave him the key to the city because he reminded 'em of some legendary Haluk hero. The poor bastard never did collect on the bet—and it was a sizable one. Seems nobody believed his story when he got back to the Spur. The souvenir he claimed he got from the Haluk could've come from anywhere."

  "Did you meet Tregarth personally?"

  "Once. Before his alleged trip. I had a drink with the guy in a saloon on Hadrach, maybe half a dozen years after Rampart got the Perseus Mandate. Jesus, he was a piece o' work! Sharp as a Buck knife and talk an arm and leg off you. My Lord, Barky'd be over a hundred twenty years old if he's still alive."

  "Do you think his story about going to the Haluk Cluster might have been true?"

  "Most folks thought he was lying in his teeth. Especially those in on the bet. But Barky sure as shit ran a lot of guns to the eleven Blueberry colonies in the Spur when Rampart was just getting started. Zone Patrol finally nabbed his ass— when?—maybe just after the turn of the century. Somebody broke him out of the Tyrins slammer before he came to trial. He was Thrown Away in absentia. Never operated in the Spur again." Simon eyed me dubiously. "What's your interest in Barky Tregarth, anyhow?"

  I was saved from having to answer by a gentle knocking at the inner door of the living room. It opened and the cook, Rosalia Alejo-Mertz, came in with a food-laden serving cart. "I hope you two are hungry," she said. "I brought some extra things I happened to have cluttering up the kitchen. Spit-roasted turkey slices, duck liver pate, and wild strawberry shortcake."

  In an instant Simon forgot about Barky Tregarth. "Rosie, you angel! Me'n Asa are hungry enough to eat a folded tarp and burp grommets!"

  We began helping ourselves to huge portions of everything. Rosie smiled at us benignly and left us to our supper. Time for further distraction away from the Barky Hunt. I said, "Tomorrow I intend to have a little chat with Adam Stanislawski at Macrodur, see if I can do damage control for the Journal gaffe."

  "Good idea," Simon said. "At least get his reaction to your nomination, so we know where we stand."

  I spooned chili into my face and talked with my mouth full. "I've decided to make a surprise visit to Galapharma Tower, too."

  Simon stopped short in the act of devouring his fifth shrimp nacho. "Why?" he asked suspiciously.

  Oops. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that. A Freudian slip? My wise old pal Mimo Bermudez would have called it seeking Big Daddy's approval even as I spit in his eye.

  "It's something I've been planning for some time, contingent on our winning the court case. There's an informal request I want to put to their top brass—preferably Lorne Buchanan, the CEO—while they're still reeling from the verdict. If Gala gives me what I want, I'm ready to promise that Rampart will mitigate bloodshed among Gala's management during the consolidation. Maybe try to stave off criminal prosecution, too."

  My father's eyes narrowed. "Informal request? What the fuck kind of informal request?" "I'd rather not say." Because it involved sharp practice at best, and trade-treaty violations at worst. But it did have the potential for uncovering Haluk double-dealing, so I reckoned the risk was worth it.

  Simon exploded. "Dammit, Asa! You're not the boss hand of this outfit yet. Tell me what you're up to!"

  Well, I'd opened my big yap.

  "I'm going to suggest that Gala immediately give me everything they have concerning the allomorph trait eradication and d
emiclone procedures that they developed for the Haluk. Most specifically, I want the genetic marker that Emily Konigsberg incorporated into the demicloning process. The thing that ID's the fake humans. The marker was Drummond's secret way of keeping tabs on the Haluk scheme. Emily told Eve that the alien leader, the Servant of Servants, knew nothing about the marker. I also want complete details about the clandestine demiclone labs that were in operation prior to the Dagasatt blowup. Karl Nazarian and his crew obtained some intelligence about them from the data-dump of Chispa Dos, that starship I stole from the Galapharma agent. But it needs verification from another source before we can present it as hard evidence."

  Speechless with consternation, Simon gaped at me. I plowed on.

  "I also want to know how many imitation human beings those demiclone labs produced. Someone at Galapharma knows! Its security people were in charge of most of the demi facilities, and its agents tracked every gram of PD32:C2 illegally sold to the aliens."

  Simon relaxed in premature relief. "All those incriminating Gala files were sealed by the Secretariat for Xenoaffairs as part of the new Haluk nonaggression pact."

  "I intend to unseal them—very carefully—and pass on selected excerpts to an influential friend of mine in the Commonwealth Assembly. Efrem Sontag is Chairman of the Xenoaffairs Oversight Committee. He'd go along with immunity for the Gala execs involved if I asked him to."

  "What the fuckin' hell do you hope to accomplish?" Simon exclaimed furiously.

  "You were wrong when you said I was the only one dubious about the Haluk. Sontag has already initiated a secret probe of demiclone shenanigans, based on intelligence supplied by me right after the Dagasatt affair. He also believes that SXA's cover-up deal with the aliens stank to high heaven, even if it did pave the way for the new trade treaty."

  "But... Christ on a crutch! Something like this could swamp the consortium if the Haluk find out!"

  "Nonsense. The aliens won't like it, but they'll hardly stop buying human products. You're going to have to trust me on this, Pop. We need this information. I know Gala was supposed to have surrendered all the incriminating data to Xenoaffairs, but you can bet your left nut that somebody in the Concern kept copies—just in case Gala won the civil case and it needed an ace in the hole sometime in the future. As an edge against other consortium members, maybe. Or even against the Haluk themselves. Alistair Drummond didn't trust our needy blue buddies either."