Acts of Conscience (6 page)

Garstang finished first and I’d waited for her to be gone before turning off the water and getting out of my own stall. When I did, Rua Mater was there, standing there, just looking at me, dark eyes fathomless, expressionless, beyond my reading. When I tried to say something about being sorry, she’d just shrugged and said something about it not mattering, had gotten into a stall and turned on the water.

Voice in the here and now, recalling me to Dulles. Garstang’s voice: “
Gaetan
.” Flat. Imperative. When I turned, the rest of them were sitting in a row of chairs by an active-access multinode vidnet terminal, Garstang using the machine, Millie leaning over her shoulder, getting inside the nerve induction field. Zell and Phil were sitting beside them, apparently uninterested.

Garstang motioning to me. Come here. I went over and sat beside her, leaning close, almost putting my head on her shoulder to get it inside the field. There was a low, curving horizon formed of rounded, black-ice hills, darkened by night, looking like the far side of the Moon, but obviously not the Moon. Black sky overhead, leached of stars by the fat, bright, slightly-squashed-looking ball of a full Jupiter. Callisto, I thought. Possibly Ganymede, but... right. Jupiter looks too small.

In the foreground, under the barely-detectable glimmer of a very high energy eutrophic shield, was a broad expanse of what looked like white concrete. Probably that ferrocrete stuff they make from Trojan asteroidal debris, rather than the sintered, dark-gray lunocrete common throughout the inner solar system. A big landing field, surrounded by low buildings, surmounted by a couple of dozen spaceships, much like the spaceships standing outside the Dulles Cosmodrome terminal building, here on Earth.

Voice over: “...although Eighth Ray lawyers have now acknowledged the apparent validity of Berens-Vataro claims of having developed a faster-than-light space drive, in depositions before the Board of Trade Regents, ERSIE has laid claim to B-VEI patents, insisting that the new drive is based entirely on physical principles developed by ERSIE founder Dominique Kerechenko more than four hundred years ago and currently owned by her heirs in simple trust for the stockholders of ERSIE.

“CEO Maslett Gilhoolie, in a statement from Trade Regency headquarters in Kiev, further held that since the interstellar drive systems of
Torus X-1
and its sister ships were built entirely from components manufactured by Eighth Ray, under the principle of intellectual property rights, those drives are in fact the property of Eighth Ray.

“Meanwhile, in a related development, representatives of Berens-Vataro revealed that additional colonial embassies have arrived at the B-VEI facility on Callisto and are awaiting transport to Earth, following guarantees that no legal action will be taken against them or the officers of the Berens-Vataro Enterprises, pending resolution of the case by a formal vote of the Board of Trade Regents.

“During an interview, earlier today, B-VEI chairman Roald Berens stated that his new ships, capable of what he deems ‘pseudo-velocities some four hundred times the speed of light in a vacuum,’ will open a vast new frontier to the human realm, whose volume of space has remained almost static at the 35-light-year mark since...”

Heart knocking quite steadily in my chest. Garstang twisted in her chair, staring at me, beady eyed.

Millie Ai-chang’s voice was very soft, almost a whisper. “It’s... real.”

Garstang said, “You... own a few shares of Berens-Vataro, don’t you Gaetan?” Eyelids slitted, she looked at me. Glanced over at Rua Mater. Seemed to hesitate. Looked over at Phil Hendrickx, apparently asleep, then looked back at me.

I shifted in the chair, pulling my head out of the nerve induction field. Sat and stared at Rua Mater, Rua still embedded in whatever dream world had claimed her. Twelve thousand shares. Trading suspended. Value zeroed out, pending...

I tried to imagine what those shares might be worth, if, by some miracle, the Board of Trade Regents should decide that B-VEI
did
own it’s patents. That... No. That can’t possibly be right. Just shy of four
days
to Alpha Centauri? Little calculator clicking away in my head, some piece of toolbelt software that had made itself at home there long ago. Ninety-four hours, ten minutes, twelve seconds.

I forgot about Rua Mater, forgot about Garstang, forgot, for just a moment, about my God-damned prick, and tucked my head back into the induction field. The ruddy-complexioned board-chairman of the Eighth Ray Scientific-Industrial Enterprise was standing before the Forum of the Board of Trade Regents of the Earth and Solar Space, waving his arms, shouting, a very fiery speech indeed.

The roving pickup suddenly tilted up and started panning across the spectator gallery. Newshog types mostly. There. The moon-faced president of the Ancient and Benevolent Brotherhood of Metal Founders, Machinists, and Aerospace Workers Interplanetary. Arms folded across his chest. Right next to him the well-known, gaunt and bony face of Mrs. Cartairs, head of the One Universe Social Justice Party, commonly known as
AusGyp
. Both of them grinning. Grinning like hell.

My heart started leaping again.

o0o

Home again now, the appliances awake to my wants, glass of gin and tonic in one hand, lovely juniper smell in my nose, rising into my head, reminding me of the Manhattan wilderness, gin and fizzy sugar water sharp, bitter on my tongue...

The news was full of this business of the Berens-Vataro Interstellar Drive, media hounds in full-throated pursuit, the Big Story, you see, broken, exploded, splashed to every corner of the net, while I’d been wandering around in the woods, rubbing my pecker on poor, downcast Rua Mater, hoping it’d wake up and... hell. It was awake enough right now, making me want to dump the newsnet crap and run for the nearest pornode.

When I checked the stock ticker, nothing much had changed. The Regents lock was still on B-VEI trading, zero-value flag still flapping away. A couple of stickynotes had appeared, one from the stock exchange operating system, an annotation to the effect that all common stock owners tracking B-VEI had been threaded together, for the convenience of...

A soft prickle of alarm. There’s not supposed to be any Big Brother watching what private citizens do with their money. Local goverments levy point-of-sale taxes. The Regency levies an infinitesimal VAT. But...

A second note was tagged to a general broadcast from AusGyp, protesting this egregious violation of private citizens’ rights, not just all the nameless peons playing penny-ante stocks like B-VEI, but the indicted corporate officers a well. In fact...

I looked at the AI’s scrolling tables. Still doing its job. Um. Even though there’s no job for it to do? What then? I looked down rows and columns, back into the 3D subtables beyond. How odd. My stock manager had continued to place buy/sell orders on B-VEI and some related stocks, manufacturers of components that, apparently, went into the making of those little starships. Including ERSIE.

There was a long list of futures options here. We’ll buy this with proceeds, should B-VEI stock come unfrozen. Sell here. Buy more B-VEI on thus and such a day, when it’s anticipated value equals...

And then a very,
very
hard pang of alarm.

This God-damned thing is preparing a
lawsuit
. Totting up a bill of how much money we
could
have made, had the Board of Trade Regents not voted to close down B-VEI stock. If it stayed closed, if ERSIE won and the officers of B-VEI went to jail... well. Nothing lost but a little processor time.

And if the Regents’ vote went with B-VEI? If the stocks came unglued? Who did the AI think was going to pay me for my hypothetical losses? Where did it think I was going to send the bill? This file here...

Jesus Christ. The form for making a private petition before the Inducements Committee of the Board of Trade Regents. ERSIE, of course, held a full seat on the Board, but, by inducing the Regents to suspend trading in B-VEI stock, it had acted as a private lobbyist in its own behalf. Chapter and verse on that. And over here was a citation on a legal precedent dating back more than three hundred years, suggesting that political lobbyists could be held liable for monetary losses incurred by their actions, provided that the Board of Trade Regents ultimately reversed some earlier decision induced by said lobbyist.

Various pangs and prickles were merging in my head, dissolving into the gin. And the next file in the stack? The proper formulas for filing a class-action suit in the name of every other
ab initio
holder of original-issue B-VEI stock, each holding amounting to no more than 0.1 percent of said issue. Here were several hundred pro-forma date stamps, representing the interests of other people’s AI trade managers.

So what the fuck does it think it’s going to achieve, other than maybe getting me in a lot of hot water? Christ, I’ll have to pay point of sale taxes on every fucking transaction, complete with late filing fees and... A gentle touch in the back of my mind, like being brushed all over by infinitely soft feathers, then the household composite whispered, You have a visitor Mr. du Cheyne.

Visitor. Not a familiar word, I... The apartment said, Mr. Hoseah Rothman, representing the L1(SE) legal offices for the Eighth Ray Scientific-Industrial Enterprise. He wishes to discuss a personal matter with you.

Personal. Oh, fuck. There are no
really
secure channel locks on the vidnet. Not for the likes of me and thee, dear stock trading algorithm. I finished my drink and ordered up another, listing to the icemaker tinkle. Took a sip from my fresh, cold glass, and croaked, “Show him in.”

The door slid open, admitting a moment of corridor bustle. Slid closed again. Waiting right
outside
, for Christ’s sake! Rothman stood there, a quiet thing in a pale gray jumpsuit, very handsome, black of skin, black of eyes, with a tight skullcap of curly black hair and an expression on his face like he was in the presence of a bad smell.

He said, “How do you do, Mr. du Cheyne.”

I think I managed some kind of fatuous grin or another. “Want a drink?” Rattling my glass of ice and fizz up at him.

Rothman’s stinkface twisted a little tighter. “No thank you.”

“Sit down then.”

A long, snotty look around at my apartment. Neat as a pin, the household saw to that. Nothing wrong but my shoes in the middle of the floor, half buried in vidnet imagery...

When did the AI start channel surfing? Did it shut off my stock options when this little shit came through the door? What’s playing now? An old episode of
Planets for Man
. The one about the terraforming project on Mimir’s Well, Eta Cassiopiae A4ii, some nineteen-point...

He said, “I’ll get right to the point, Mr. du Cheyne.”

I felt a hard moment of freezing dread, imagining God knows what, but I smirked and said, “Please do.”

A quirk of distaste on his lips. “Mr. du Cheyne, I am empowered to offer you a par trade in ERSIE Prime stock for your static options on Berens-Vataro Enterprises.”

Par. A little stab of annoyance now, fueled, I suppose, by the gin, as I put down the fourth empty glass. “A hundred-twenty shares? Man, you can just take a flying...”

Voice very sharp: “Static at closure.”

Twelve thousand. I popped open a little window and checked. Felt a slight shock. ERSIE stock was being steadily traded up by the current furor and... “Eight hundred thousand livres?” My voice sounded a lot higher than normal.

“Correct.”

Blink. “Is this because of my...” a wave at the little window.

A chopped look of contempt. “Your little suit hasn’t got the proverbial snowball’s chance, du Cheyne. In fact, if you lodge it, you run the risk of being slapped with a frivolous legal action fine.”

“Then why...”

Look of contempt deepening. “If you can’t figure that out...” A slow headshake. “Just take the offer, boy.”

I sat staring at him, looking at that arrogant little asshole lawclerk face of his, face sneering at me, face full of superiority, feeling my anger sizzle. Because I
can
figure it out, you see. Shithead. Sooner or later, the Trade Regents will vote. If ERSIE wins, it owns B-VEI. If B-VEI wins... ERSIE will want to hold a big enough chunk of stock options to claim a seat on the B-VEI board of directors and...

I said, “I don’t know, Mr. Rothman. I... I’d like to think it over.”

He smiled. “Go ahead. Take as long as you want. Just remember: The Board vote will not be announced beforehand. They’ll just vote and that will be that.”

And, if the vote goes against B-VEI, I’ve got nothing.

He said, “I’ve left my mailtag with the apartment datastore. You just post me your authorization and I’ll make the transaction.” He turned, the door opened and closed, and he was gone.

I sat and stared. Ordered another drink and felt my sweat start up afresh. Glanced in the little window and saw with a start that the value of ERSIE stock had gone up another six mills while we’d been talking.

Three: By mid-morning

By mid-morning of the next day, Jimmy Haas and I had the D-1 prime mover buttoned up and ready to go. He’d been working on it in my absence, working mostly under Rossignol’s direction, though with a bit of help from Todd Sanchez, and seemed a little nonplused when I came back and more or less took over the final stage of operations. Watched me. Did what I said as I ran systems checks on the work that’d been done in my absence, made little changes here and there.

I didn’t say anything when I discovered someone had failed to set the throat diameter on the plasma exhaust. Didn’t comment on the fact that the work record was unsigned, in clear defiance of regs.

But I did open the comparison table to the section on plasma channels and ran the simulator to see what would’ve happened if the ship’s engines had been started with the settings as is. No explosions. Nothing flashy. Just a major overheat, components fusing, safeties running a too-late shutdown.

The exhaust system on a relatively small field modulus device like this one isn’t too expensive, maybe in the range of 14,000 livres. I didn’t say anything. But I knew he’d be seeing. “OK, Jimmy. Let’s go up front and see if it works.”