Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (9 page)

Karjalainen
moved the entire operation to Mars based on one simple idea.  The idea was
this: to make the new world on Mars better than the old world of Earth. 
Earth was riven with factions and irrational belief systems, ingrained over
centuries or even millennia, and these caused untold misery and unnecessary
problems.  On the new world these issues could be headed off at the pass,
snuffed out at the very beginning, before they grew into something dark and
destructive.

The move was
funded by selling off the parts of the company that wouldn’t work off-Earth,
with the remainder being moved or torn down and replaced at the new
location. 
Hjälp
Teknik’s
most valuable assets were intellectual property and personnel, more than a
quarter of whom signed up for the move.

Karjalainen
had headed to the new world with his young family and re-established
Hjälp
Teknik
there partly as a
business decision.  More importantly it was a mission, in every sense, to
make sure that humankind, in that most unforgiving place, could be all that it
could be.  That it could rise above the petty squabbles of the old world
and look forward to the new world in which people cooperated, interacted
rationally and forged a bright new chapter in the history of mankind.

The business
had faired so-so.  It was not a resounding success due mainly to its
dependence on manufactured goods.  The real money (just ask Venkdt) was in
raw exports.  Mars was rich in minerals like silver, iridium, palladium
and most importantly deuterium.  Venkdt extracted these and shipped them
off to Earth, making huge profits.  Over time it became clear that
Hjälp
Teknik
, despite its
reticence, had to get into the minerals game if it was going to survive, but it
found it difficult to compete with the mighty Venkdt Mars Corp.

Hjälp
Teknik
had gone into the deuterium
market.  Deuterium was five times more abundant on Mars than it was on
Earth, and far more than five times easier to extract.  Deuterium, a heavy
isotope of hydrogen, was essential fuel for the nuclear fusion reactors which
generated the great bulk of the power used on Earth, particularly in the
USAN.  It underpinned the whole of USAN society and was essential to
it.  As such it was literally worth more than gold and had been a key
driver in the early settlement of Mars.

Hjälp
Teknik
diversified, moved into minerals
and expanded a little, but was always in the shadow of Venkdt.  Venkdt had
been the only game in town for almost a hundred years and, despite some jitters
when
Hjälp
Teknik
first
arrived, happily remained so.  The research station, latterly the
garrison, had not been in competition with Venkdt and benefited greatly from
the improved facilities that came in their wake.  Once it was clear that
Hjälp
Teknik
was not a major
threat Charles Venkdt was happy to affect a collegiate stance, proclaiming that
everyone had to stand together in the great adventure of the new
frontier.  In private, he was more reticent.  Venkdt was a little
rattled that there was competition in his backyard and, although he was always
very polite in public, deep in his heart he knew that he hated Jack
Karjalainen.  He hated the hippy-drippy attitude.  He hated the
lofty high moral stance, which he thought was a sham, and he hated the way Jack
Karjalainen just knew he was right.  Right, with moral certainty, about
his beliefs.  Right about his business decisions.  Right about every
damn thing he ever did.  It rankled with Venkdt, who knew that he himself
was filled with flaws.  That was true honesty; looking in the mirror and
knowing what an ass you could be.  Looking at your customers, and knowing
what asses they could be.  And standing back, looking at the whole
goddamned big picture and knowing that it was all a huge, juddering, wrong-headed
mess.  To see the world as it is, faults and all, and to make practical
steps at working with all the inefficiencies, the greed, the malice and the
sheer stupidity, and get it to somehow work - that, to Charles
Venkdt, was truly noble.  Pretending that everything was perfectible and
that the good people were being held back by the bad people, who just needed to
be understood and helped to become all they could be, seemed naive and
irritating.

Karjalainen,
with his unshakeable belief in his own rightness, had always seemed taller than
he was.  No longer.  He was now a shrunken husk of the man he used to
be.  If he had been able to stand he would have appeared even shorter than
his hundred and seventy six centimetres.  He was propped up in his bed
with pillows, and the bed was surrounded by monitoring machinery, some of which
was connected to him by thin cables but others of which were working
remotely.  He was sleepy, by this late afternoon, and his eyelids hung
heavily over his slow moving eyes.  A breathing tube was taped to his
face, running from his nostril over an ear and out of sight.  A shaft of
light from the Plexiglas skylight lay on the lower half of the bed and the
reflection from the stark white sheets filled the room with a low glow. 
Distantly, Karjalainen heard a muffled discussion between two voices coming from
outside the room.  One voice was a nurse.  The other was one of his
legal advisers.  He couldn’t make out the words, but the rhythms and tone
were clear.  His rep was asking and becoming insistent while the nurse was
denying, but her resolve was fading away.  There were two final syllables
from the adviser character, delivered staccato like a one-two punch,
followed by short pause and one syllable from the nurse.  After that, the
door opened and three figures quietly and slowly slipped into the room.

Oatridge came
to the head of the bed while the other two remained at the foot.  They
stood in silence, heads slightly bowed, as if Karjalainen were already dead and
they had come to pay their respects.  Oatridge coughed, very quietly and
deliberately.  Karjalainen lifted his heavy eyelids and swivelled his eyes
toward Oatridge without moving his head.  He swallowed, using a great deal
of concentration to do so, and spoke.

“Well?”

“Mr Venkdt
informed the meeting that he was going to hold a plebiscite, asking the entire
Martian population whether they would like to secede from the USAN,” replied
Oatridge.

Karjalainen
frowned and turned his head away to the side.  “On whose authority does he
think he’s acting?”

“No
one’s.  He’s decided to do it independently.”

Karjalainen thought. 
“And what are we going to do about it?  Have you informed the garrison?”

“I’m not sure
what the garrison would be able to do, sir. 
Venkdt’s
own security division more than outmatches them.”

“So he holds
his election, gets his result.  What then?”

Oatridge took
a breath.  “I guess he would announce the secession and that would be
that.”

“Where would
that leave us?”

Philips piped
up.  “That would leave us in a very tricky position indeed.  We’d be
forced to join a - I don’t think I’m being melodramatic
here - a revolution that we want no part of, or we’d be left
sharing an inhospitable planet with an opposing force - I’m
sorry about the language,
but .
 . .”
she shrugged and pulled a ‘what can you do?’ face, “. . . an
opposing force who, frankly, we are no match for.”

Karjalainen
thought.  “Venkdt wouldn’t give us any trouble.  But our position
would be very difficult.”  His remark hung in the air.  “What are we
going to do about it?”

“We’re
already looking into what we can do to stop the plebiscite ever happening.
 Legal, practical, those sorts of things,” said Oatridge.  “And if we
can’t stop it we’ll campaign rigorously for a ‘no’ vote.”

Even at his
advanced age, and at the extreme end of his ill health, it was still possible
to pick up the ‘what am I paying these people for’ vibe that was flowing from
Karjalainen into the room.  With great effort he moved his head again to
look at Oatridge.  He shaped his words deliberately.  “If you
campaign, you legitimise the election.  And you make us look like damned
fools, because the result will be ‘yes’ and anyone can see that.  I’ll ask
again: what are we going to do about it?”

Strich
and Philips exchanged glances, glad that
Karjalainen was locked onto Oatridge and wouldn’t have the energy to turn his
head toward them.  Oatridge was too professional to panic but he did not
have an answer.  He looked into Karjalainen’s old and watery eyes. 
“I don’t know, sir.  I think we’ll have to play this one by ear.”

Karjalainen
closed his eyes.  Whether it was tiredness or exasperation the three did
not know, but after a quick and wordless conference they took it as their cue
and left the room in silence.

Maya Foveaux
was watching the sunset from her window.  Unusually for a Martian building
the headquarters of Venkdt Security was mostly above ground.  It had been
expensive to build and was difficult to maintain but the architect thought, and
persuaded her client, that it was important that a security division should be
able to literally oversee that which it was protecting, and that the protected
be able to look up to see their protector.

The window in
Foveaux’s office was short but very wide, and it framed the Martian sunsets
beautifully.  When her workload allowed it Foveaux would take a few
minutes to stand and watch.  It calmed her and gave her some time to think
and reflect.

With the
light fading she turned away from the window and returned to her desk. 
Glancing at her terminal she noticed three new emails had arrived in the short
time she had been away.  One was an addition to a tedious chain that had
been going back and forth all day.  She didn’t really know why she was
copied into that one.  Some officious type probably thought their dubious
argument would somehow carry more weight if the boss was copied in.  They
were wrong.  At the back of her mind Foveaux had marked them down
sycophantic, indecisive and unconfident.  The other two emails were from
her ex-partner and Charles Venkdt.

Maya opened
the one from the
ex first
, partly to get it out of
the way and partly because it would be trivial, where the one from Venkdt was
more likely to be important.  Venkdt had only contacted her directly a
handful of times before.  At the moment the ex, despite her best efforts,
was contacting her daily.

She glanced
over the salutation and the first line and immediately got a sense of what the
email was about.  It was the same self-pitying, pleading begging for
forgiveness and reconciliation that she had seen in previous emails.  She
stopped reading and quickly composed her reply:

“Please do
not contact me again.”

She hit
‘Send’ and immediately forgot about it as she opened the last email, the one
from Venkdt.

“Ms
Foveaux

I
would like to meet at the earliest opportunity to discuss matters arising from
a proposed plebiscite taking place within the next few months.  The
plebiscite exists in something of a legal grey area, which may lead to some
unrest.  I would like to brief you in full on our plans, and provide you
with any additional resources you may need to ensure that the operation runs
smoothly and with any disruptions held to a minimum.

Please
liaise with my assistant to arrange a time.  I look forward to seeing you
soon.

Charles Venkdt”

Maya closed
the email and fired off one to her assistant, asking that the meeting be set up
as soon as possible.  Any prior arrangements were to be shifted to make
way for the meeting with Venkdt.  That was to be the number one priority.

Maya shot a
look back over her shoulder.  The sun had disappeared below the horizon.

It was early
evening at the hospital.  The outpatients and admin staff had left for the
day and the clinics were over.  It was calmer and quieter than the
bustling day shift.  Bobby had come through the transport bay, where he’d
left his cab, and he was approaching reception.  When he got there no one
was at the desk, though he could hear a voice coming from the back office
talking on a comdev.

As he waited
he looked around.  The reception area was clean and mostly white. 
The lighting was tastefully subdued and he could hear, just around the corner,
a machine busily polishing the floor.  He looked at the floor in
reception; spotlessly clean.  He wondered if this area was deliberately
kept to a high standard in order to create a good impression on people just
like him, or if it genuinely reflected a commitment to high standards
throughout the hospital.

The
receptionist appeared.  “Hello, sorry about that, can I help you?” she
said.

“I’m here to
see Jack Karjalainen,” said Bobby.

The
receptionist scanned her terminal.  “Is he expecting you?” she asked as
her eyes moved down the screen.

“I don’t have
an appointment, if that’s what you mean,” said Bobby.

The
receptionist looked up.  “Mr Karjalainen only takes visitors by
appointment, I’m afraid.  If you want to leave your details I can let his
people know, and we can maybe arrange something for another day?”

“I’m his
son.”

The
receptionist took a closer look at Bobby’s face.  She half-recalled
him from somewhere but couldn’t quite place him.  “Is this the first time
you’ve visited?”

“Yes, it
is.  I’ve been away.”

She gestured
to an area on the reception desk.  “Could you just hold your comdev over
here for me, please?”

Bobby
complied and the receptionist read from her screen.  “Robert Harvey
Karjalainen.”  She scanned further down the screen.  “And you are
indeed Mr Karjalainen’s son.”  She let out a low hum as she thought to
herself.  “Well, Mr Karjalainen’ other son Anthony, your brother, is the
only person allowed to visit Mr Karjalainen unannounced so,” she thought, “I
guess it would be alright for you, too?”  It was phrased like a question,
but Bobby decided to hear it as a statement.

“That’s
great,” he said.  “Thank you so much.  Which way is it?”

The
receptionist hesitated, then pressed a key on her terminal.  “Your comdev
will take you right to it.”  Bobby thanked her and started to walk
away.  The receptionist muttered ‘Robert Harvey Karjalainen’ to herself,
and only then did the connection click into place.  “Are you Bobby
Karjalainen;
the
Bobby Karjalainen?  The commander?” she excitedly
called after him.

Bobby turned
and shrugged with an easy smile.  “I guess I am,” he said.

“Very pleased
to meet you, sir,” the receptionist said as he turned back and continued
walking.

Jack
Karjalainen was sleeping when Bobby entered the room.  He approached his
father taking slow, measured steps and took a seat by the head of the
bed.  He listened to his father’s slow and shallow breathing as he looked
at the man he had for so long despised.  Beneath his hatred there remained
the stubborn stump of love.  He was saddened to see his father reduced to
this.  As a teenager he had often fantasized about his father being in
this sort of position; weak and helpless, and close to death.  In those
fantasies he would tell his father what he really thought of him.  He
would use the most cutting words he could, and he would attack at what he
thought were the weakest points in his father’s emotional armour.  He
would
hurt
the man, the way he felt he had been hurt by him.  Now
he just felt sorry.  Sorry that he was old, sorry that he was suffering
and sorry that he was going to die.  Most of all, he was sorry that the
old man had been such an asshole that he had managed to alienate his own son in
the last few years of his life.  He was sorry, too, that due simply to his
intransigent personality he had not been able to allow for his son being of a
radically different disposition to his own.  They were very dissimilar
people.  He should have just accepted that.  Instead, he clashed with
Bobby at every turn and made things miserable for both of them.

And now here
they were.

Karjalainen’s
head was facing Bobby.  He coughed and rolled his tongue around his dry
mouth like he was searching for something.  After a few minutes he opened
his eyes and fixed them on Bobby.  Bobby stared back, and smiled.

“How did you
get in here?” said Karjalainen.

“I’m family,”
Bobby replied.

Karjalainen
closed his eyes.  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“I am here,
Dad.  I couldn’t not come.  You know that.”

Karjalainen
waited.  “I know that, do I?  So you still know what I think?”

Bobby let it
go.  “How’ve you been?  You’re not looking so good.”

“I’ve been
better.  I’m comfortable.”

Bobby nodded.

“You’ve seen
Anthony?”

“Yes. 
I’m staying at the house.”

“He’s happy
with that?”

“I don’t know
about happy, but that’s where I am.”

Karjalainen
grunted and opened his eyes again.  “You shouldn’t have gone over there,
Bobby,” he said.

“To the
house?”

“You know
what I mean.  Always the wise guy.  You shouldn’t have gone to
war.  You let us all down.”

Bobby
nodded.  It was what he had expected.  “It’s done now.  Didn’t
you do a few things you shouldn’t have, in your time?”

“Not the
same.”

“It’s all
over now.  I’m back, and I wanted to see you.”

“You’re not
in the will if that’s what you mean.”

Bobby
shrugged.  “That’s not what I mean.  You know it, too.”

Karjalainen
stared at him, then closed his eyes again.

“I just
wanted to see you again, Dad.  That’s all.”

Bobby
couldn’t tell if his father had heard the last remark, or if he had drifted off
to sleep.  Maybe he was just faking it to avoid dealing with the
situation.  The truth was that Karjalainen, in spite of everything, loved
his son and Bobby, in spite of everything,
loved
his
father.  They were both too bloody minded to admit it.

Eventually it
seemed that Jack Karjalainen actually was asleep.  His breathing was once
again slow and shallow and his mouth hung open, his dry old tongue lolling out
of it.  Bobby sat with him for another hour, and kissed him on the
forehead before leaving.

Bobby had
never liked the
Hjälp
Teknik
Building, even when he was a child.  As he strolled down the over-lit
corridors he remembered countless occasions when he had come to work with his
father and had to wait around in bright, airless rooms while the adult world
went about its occult business.

He found the
conference room easily, though it had been more than ten years since he had
last been there.  It seemed much smaller than he remembered it.  On
entering he saw Anthony seated at the far corner of the tables that were pushed
together in the centre of the room.  He was deep in conversation with a
late middle-aged woman.  As they noticed Bobby they immediately
stopped talking and drew slightly apart, and a ripple of paranoia planed across
Bobby’s consciousness.  As if to cover, the woman quickly stood and held
out a hand.  “Bobby!” she said.  “It’s so good to meet you
again!”  She was full of smiles and firm handshakes.

Bobby looked
to Anthony and said, “Hello,” then back to the woman, who was finally letting
go of his hand.

“I’m sure you
don’t remember me,” the woman continued.  “The last time we met you were
about,” she gestured, “this high!”

Bobby tilted
his head quizzically.

“My name’s
Toni Philips, Toni with an ‘I’,” she said.  “I’m one of your father’s
legal team.  Well, I’m the head of your father’s legal team.”  She
glanced at Anthony.  “It still feels weird saying that!  You used to
play in my office, from time to time, when you were little.  Do you
remember?”

Bobby
thought.  “I don’t think I do,” he said, “but it sounds like a lot of
fun.”  He didn’t remember ever having fun at
Hjälp
Teknik
.

“I used to
take you to the refectory and get you ice-cream.  Look at you now!”

“Well, I’m
pleased to meet you,” said Bobby, “again.”

Bobby took a
seat across the tables from Anthony and Toni.  Anthony affected to be
busily studying some of the papers in front of him.  Toni sat with her
elbows on the table, her hands together, fingers interlocked with her chin
resting on them.  “Okay.  Down to business, then,” she said. 
She addressed her spiel to Bobby.  He assumed that she had already gone
through a lot of it with Anthony, or that Anthony was so close to the operation
that he didn’t need to be briefed.  “Your father, Jack Karjalainen, is
nearing the end of his life.  The nature of his illness has afforded him
time to consider his legacy, and to formulate a plan for
Hjälp
Teknik
moving into the future.  As his
representative, he has asked me to explain that plan to you.”  She paused,
and moved some papers.  She found her place on the next sheet and
continued.  “On his death, Mr Karjalainen’s entire portfolio, including
his majority shares in
Hjälp
Teknik
,
will pass to Anthony.  The house in Allentown will also pass to
Anthony.  Mr Karjalainen’s secondary residence in Dog Sur,” she leant into
Bobby, explaining unnecessarily, “
the flat
,” before continuing, “shall
pass to Robert.”  She paused for breath.  “The position of Chief
Executive Officer of
Hjälp
Teknik
shall be given to Anthony, subject to ratification by the board.”  This
last point was academic, Bobby noted.  With a controlling interest in the
company Anthony would be able to overrule any decisions made by the board.

Toni Philips
quickly looked up at the two men.  “Your father writes,

‘
It
is my hope and belief that, under Anthony’s stewardship,
Hjälp
Teknik
will prosper and continue to build upon the
good works started in my lifetime. 
Hjälp
Teknik
was founded on the belief that things can, and
should, be better.  We have always sought to provide goods and services
that help the maximum number of people for the minimum cost.  The bright
new frontiers of Mars and the asteroid belt beyond can provide potentially
limitless resources to a forward-looking organisation with faith in the
people it serves.  It can allow them to look toward a future filled with
hope, and away from a past too often filled with despair.  My son, Anthony
Karjalainen, will guide
Hjälp
Teknik
toward this future
.’”

Bobby thought
about clapping, but knew sarcasm wouldn’t go down too well. 
“Congratulations, Anthony,” he said.

“I’ve been
working very closely with Dad for the past few years,” Anthony replied. 
“He wants the change to be as seamless as possible.  I’m running most of
the day to day stuff now anyway.”

Bobby nodded.

“You
understand -” Toni started, but Bobby cut in.

“I
understand.  Anthony gets the business, I get an apartment.”  He
shrugged.  “It’s about what I expected.”

Toni turned
to Anthony.  “Your father is placing a great deal of trust in you. 
He believes in you, Anthony.”  She reached out and patted Anthony’s arm,
her brow furrowed in pity.  “I know these are difficult times, difficult
for us all, but we have to think about the future.  Your father is being
very brave about all this.”

Bobby shifted
in his seat.  “Is there anything we should be doing?”

“For your
father?” asked Toni.

“For anyone.”

Toni
thought.  “There is nothing that needs to be done at this time.  If I
were you two I would be spending as much time as I could with my father. 
There isn’t long to go now, and,” she caught herself before continuing, “the
time we have with our loved ones is so precious.”  Toni, for the first
time, looked sad.

Anthony
looked across the table at Bobby.  “Stay at the house for now.  If
you want to move out to the apartment you can.  It needs remodelling,
really.  Stay at the house while we sort the apartment out for you. 
Stay as long as you like.”

“Thank you,”
said Bobby.  It rankled that Anthony made giving him comparatively nothing
sound like a grand gesture, but Bobby knew this was not the time to get into
that.  He did not mind being largely frozen out of the will.  He had
expected it.  Maybe he was being paranoid but the line ‘My son, Anthony’
had really stuck in his craw.  He felt his dad was, even at this late
stage, having a pop at him.