Dark as Day (7 page)

His lifestyle and work habits were legendary. Rising at three, he ate a simple breakfast and proceeded at once to his office in a dark corner of the company’s corporate facility. There he sat at a cluttered desk and worked, through the day, through the evening, and on late into the night. No task appeared boring to him when it involved financial elements. Numbers were the donkey’s passion, and apparently numbers alone. It was rumored—and probably no more than rumor—that he disliked computers, and performed his voluminous calculations by hand. When he ate it was infrequently, alone, and in random amounts.

“The contract provides an option,” Prosper went on, “to continue the work and collect the helium-3 needed to fuel
Starseed-Two
. That leaves us with a difficult decision.”

Alex did his survey of the family members present. Around the table, to his left, were his mother Lena, then the two childless great-aunts, Cora and Agatha, and then Cousin Hector Ligon, with two empty chairs between him and Prosper Ligon. Two more empty seats lay on Prosper’s left. The other four places were occupied by girl cousins Juliana, Rezel, and Tanya, and in the place to Alex’s right Uncle Karolus sat scowling down at the table.

“It’s obvious what we do,” Karolus growled. “We get out now, and cut our losses. We should never have taken that bloody contract. I was against it.”

As Alex recalled, his uncle had been the one who pushed hardest for taking on the
Starseed
contract. However, Prosper Ligon did not choose to argue. “Perhaps you were opposed,” he said. “So was I. And if, five years ago, we had known about the difficulty of mining Jupiter’s atmosphere, even with the best Von Neumanns available, then everyone at this table would surely have sided with us. That, however, is history. The number of Von Neumanns lost during ascent from Jupiter wrote red all over our balance sheet.”

Cousin Juliana was interested only in certain things, but company finance was one of them. If Uncle Prosper ever retired—or, more likely, his dead body was dragged away from his desk to the knacker’s yard—then she was a logical candidate to take over. She said, “The Von Neumanns are not much better today than they were three years ago. If it was a loss operation then, it will still be one.
How much
of a disaster?”

Prosper Ligon’s voice did not waver. “We sacrificed approximately twenty percent of Ligon Industries’ total assets.”

Cousin Hector said, “Wow!”

“Wow, indeed.” Prosper Ligon nodded slowly. His head seemed a size too large for his skinny neck. “However, I am in favor of accepting the contract option to provide helium-3 for
Starseed-Two
.”

Eyebrows were raised all around the table.

Hector had his brow furrowed in obvious thought. He glanced at his cousins, but his comment was directed to his great-uncle. “You’re going to lose
all
our money!”

“Thank you, Hector, for that acute observation. Such, however, is not my intention.”

Cousin Juliana, as usual, came in on Hector’s behalf. “Do you think that our learning curve on the first contract was steep enough to turn another one profitable?”

“We are certainly more familiar with the Von Neumanns’ performance, and with other risk factors. But the big changes are elsewhere.” At Prosper Ligon’s gesture, the lights in the room dimmed. In the display volume behind him appeared an image of Jupiter with its train of satellites.

“Mine Jupiter for helium-3,” he said softly, as though talking to himself in the dim light. “It seemed like the right decision at the time. The isotope is more abundant there than anywhere else in the System. We could construct Hebe Station, for docking of the loaded Von Neumanns and their general service. Ganymede was close enough for overall command and control. We could see acceptable profit margins. There was one great problem, and it was an invisible one.” He swiveled to point at the display. “Jupiter itself. Or rather, Jupiter’s gravity field. The escape velocity from the upper atmosphere is sixty kilometers a second. The Von Neumanns were strained to the limit, and in many cases past the limit. Their loss and the accompanying delays were largely responsible for our financial losses.”

“Hmm.” Karolus snorted from the other end of the table. If Prosper Ligon was a donkey, Karolus was a bull. “The Von Neumanns are no better than they were, you just admitted that. And Jupiter was still the same size, last time I looked. I haven’t noticed any change.”

“Nor have I. But there have been other changes.” Prosper Ligon made some unseen gesture, and the glowing image of the Jovian system vanished. “Every year,” he said in the darkness, “human civilization advances a little farther outward. Every year, the available resources beyond Jupiter increase.”

The room brightened again with light from the display volume, but it had changed. Now it showed another planet, recognizable as Saturn from the flattened disk, complex ring system, and attendant moons.

“The atmosphere of Saturn also contains an abundance of helium-3,” Prosper went on. “The escape velocity is thirty-six kilometers a second—substantial, but little more than half that of Jupiter. This difference creates a vast change in the economics. I have performed a financial assessment. If we switch to Saturn as the source of fuel for
Starseed-Two
and move the ship itself and our own operations there, we will recoup all the losses suffered on the contract to date.”

The rest of the room went dead silent. At last Lena Ligon ventured, “You mean—leave Ganymede?”

The last upheaval had been close to half a century ago, when Gonville Ligon had moved family and empire from the bustling metropolis of Buenos Aires to the stark caverns of Ganymede. That transition had taken place over the strenuous objections of everyone. Gonville, a true descendant of iron-man Alonzo Ligon, had refused to listen. He simply said, “The future of industrial development isn’t on Earth, or even on Mars. It’s in the Outer System. That’s where we’re going. Anybody who doesn’t want to come along, bugger them. They can stay behind and try to scratch out a living on Earth.”

The Great War had proved Gonville right in a way that he had never anticipated. Now Prosper allowed himself a dry little neigh of amusement. “No, no, not at all. I am not proposing relocation. Most of us will remain here. The
Starseed
operation will move out. As to our base there, I have examined the choices.”

His display control marked out the nine major Saturnian moons, ranging from Mimas to far-out Phoebe. “None of these. They are all, together with the co-orbiting companions of Tethys and Dione, either under development or subject to lease arrangements. They are also inconveniently distant from Saturn. My own first choice is
this
one. Its period is about half as long again as a Saturnian day, which will make for easy rendezvous with Von Neumanns arriving with helium-3 cargo.” The marker flashed onto a bright point that showed as the middle in distance of five small satellites. “The moon currently has a leaseholder, but every previous assay has indicated no useful resources. We should be able to make a tempting offer.”

So far as Alex knew, no member of his family had ever taken the slightest interest in the sprawl of the Outer System beyond Jupiter. That idea was confirmed when Great-aunt Cora glared at the illuminated point and said, “No offer for that thing could tempt me. What’s it called, and why do we need it? Why not build our own base of operations?”

“
It
is known as Pandora. As to why we need it, that is a most astute question.” The long donkey-head nodded appreciation at Great-aunt Cora. “We need Pandora because the current leaseholder is apparently a misanthrope of the most extreme kind, who has been dealing with a government official who is either a buffoon or a hater of corporate activity. The lease permits
government
activity closer to Saturn than Pandora, but the leaseholder has the right to prohibit industrial operations. Operations which are, of course, for us an absolute necessity.”

Lena Ligon smiled brightly at Alex, and said to the table at large, “Surely we’re not going to let some government pipsqueak stand in our way?”

“It is, Lena, a signed lease.”

“Breaking it—”

“Would be difficult, and at the very least time-consuming.” Prosper glanced along the table to his left. “I think that we must proceed otherwise. It is my thought that if the current leaseholder is a man, then you, Rezel and Tanya, have the perfect combination of talents to assure his compliance. I also expect every family member to do whatever is asked. Alex, for instance—”

*   *   *

“—stop right there.” Kate held up her hand. It was seven o’clock, and thinking that Alex might be back from his meeting she had dropped in on his tiny apartment. He, more nervous than he wanted to admit, had made strong drinks for both of them. They were sitting now at the little table in the bedroom alcove, while he tried to explain why he might need to make a quick trip out to the Saturn system. So far he was not doing well.

“Too many names,” Kate complained. She was wearing a low-cut dress that showed off her shoulders and breasts, and she tugged at it now as it slipped lower. “Too many names, and too fast. I can’t keep them straight. Weasel and who are supposed to meet with this leaseholder?”

“Rezel and Tanya. Second cousins of mine, a couple of years younger than me. They’re real party types.”

“Yet Uncle Prosper is willing to send them to negotiate a deal with someone nobody in the family has ever met? From what you’ve said I thought Prosper sounded like he knew where he was going, even if he’s a dried-out bag of bones. Now he sounds like he’s crazy.”

“Oh, Prosper knows what he’s doing. Rezel and Tanya have had diplomatic and psychosexual training, and in the past they’ve been very successful. They’re smart, they work as a team, and they’ll do absolutely anything to get results.”

“Anything?”

“Pretty much. Uncle Karolus calls Rezel and Tanya the nympho twins.”

“But you wouldn’t know about that? Never mind. Prosper said they might need you, too. Why not Cousin Hector, he sounds like he doesn’t do much.”

“He doesn’t. People won’t let him. He looks like a berserker hero, tall and blond and with a profile like a Viking. That’s where it stops. He’s Uncle Karolus’s son, but even Karolus says Hector would be better off with his brain removed and replaced with a bowl of fruit.”

“I still don’t see why they want you involved. You’re busy here.”

“I’m just backup. Uncle Prosper doesn’t know who the leaseholder is, but he asked around and got word from somewhere that it’s a kind of freak recluse computer-modeling type.”

“Just like you. But uphill work for Weasel and Stoaty.”

“I think that’s what’s worrying Prosper. No one else in the family will put their lily-white hands anywhere near a computer, so he sees me as a default option. That’s why I may have to hop out to Saturn.” Alex paused, stared at the table, then took in half of his drink in a single swallow. “But I haven’t got to the other part of the meeting—”

* * *

“ ‘The old order changeth.’ ” With phase two of the
Starseed
contract voted on and accepted, Prosper was moving on to new business. He was handing out printed sheets for distribution around the table. “With or without the effects of the
Starseed
contract, Ligon Industries has been losing ground. The printed columns summarize the combined assets for each of the top ten commercial enterprises in the solar system, as they were a decade ago and as they are today. You will observe that two of the current top ten were not present on the earlier list. Delop SA and Sylva Commensals are new entries, replacing Global Minerals and Turbide. Delop are engaged primarily in Saturn system development, and I do not have to describe Sylva Commensals to some of those here.” His eye glanced briefly at Lena Ligon as he went on, “We, I am happy to say, are still in the top ten. I am less happy to note that we have slipped from third to ninth place.”

Great-aunt Agatha Ligon, her hundred and ten years impossible to guess from the trim, youthful body and lively gray eyes, said sharply, “Ninth! Pah! I remember when we were number one.”

“So do several others present.”

“We should never have left Earth! It was a ridiculous decision. I told Gonville so at the time.”

“Possibly. But I would have you note that Global Minerals, which was formerly a top ten enterprise, elected to remain on Earth. It now occupies the thirty-fourth position on the list. Permit me to continue. My analysis suggests two possible futures for Ligon Industries. We can continue as we are, watching our relative size and influence decline over the next decade. Or we can seek merger with some other group, preferably one of the rising powers in the solar system. You may have your own suggestions. I, of course, also have my preference.” Prosper Ligon’s bony finger stabbed at the sheet. “I propose that we pursue alliance and merger with the burgeoning empire of Cyrus Mobarak.”

Alex was surprised, but less so than others around the table. Hector sat with his mouth open. Cora and Agatha muttered, “Upstart,” and “Charlatan,” in unison. Alex’s mother whispered, “The Sun King!” as though the phrase was original with her. Alex knew that it wasn’t. But his mother’s words were echoed in awed tones by Cousins Juliana, Rezel, and Tanya. Uncle Karolus gave a short bark of laughter and said, “Full marks for nerve, Prosper. But Cyrus Mobarak is riding high. Give me one sound reason why he would have the slightest interest in merger.”

“I propose to do exactly that. Cyrus Mobarak has indeed been successful—”

“Damn right.”

“—and he is ambitious. At the same time, he is a self-made man who, although he would never admit it, yearns to be associated with old money and influence. Who, thirty years ago, had heard of the controlled-fusion Mobies, or of Cyrus Mobarak? Did someone here utter the word
upstart
when I mentioned his name?”

Karolus nodded across the table. “I think that was Agatha. But you’re missing the point, Prosper. Merging Mobarak’s operation with Ligon wouldn’t give Mobarak himself any status with the Inner Circle.”

“A simple business merger would not. But what if it was a union of the two families, through shared children? Cyrus Mobarak has two offspring of his own. The elder, his son David, is already committed to a union. However, his daughter Lucy-Maria is young, unattached, and eligible. Lena, we have already had discussions on this matter. If you would like to summarize—”