F Paul Wilson - LaNague 02 (16 page)

           
It became a
huge, successful corporation. Through imaginative marketing, tricky financial
maneuvers, and the old tried-and-true business practice of hiring the best and making
it worth their while to stay on, SW moved into other fields, buying up
subsidiary companies and becoming the first interstellar conglomerate. Other
conglomerates had developed since, but Star Ways Corporation was still the
largest.

           
“What do
you want to know? I could talk all day.”

           
“I’m sure
you could. But I want to know where, in light of what’s going on in the current
market, SW can be hurt. If it can be hurt at all.”

           
Grange’s
eyebrows lifted. “Hurt Star Ways, eh? Not so hard these days as it might have
been when you arrived on the scene.”

           
“Oh,
really?”

           
“Yeh. SW’s
mortgaged to the hilt and overextended in all quarters. It needs some new blood
on those boards, and when the financial reports come out” – he chuckled –
“there’ll be a lot of screaming from the stockholders.

           
“I wasn’t
aware of this.”

           
“It’s not
public knowledge yet, but that’s what our informants tell us. And I’ve seen it
coming for years. But don’t worry.
Star Ways
will pull through just fine – minus some dead wood at the top.”

           
Jo mulled
this over. It was encouraging. “Give me some specific weak points.”

           
“I can
think of three right off the top of my head: General Trades, Stardrive, and
Teblinko. General Trades has always generated a lot of income on luxury items,
but has lately run into hordes of competitors and lost part of its share of the
market.

           
“Stardrive
is a different story. That’s their tube drive subsidiary – SW’s oldest
subsidiary, as a matter of fact. When they picked that up, they were able to
outfit ships for both interstellar and peristellar travel – that’s when they
really started to grow. Stardrive Inc. has always had competitors, but lately a
little company by the name of Fairleigh Tubes has been giving it a real run for
its money.” He grinned. “Does that name sound familiar?”

           
Jo nodded
and returned his smile. “Certainly does.” Fairleigh Tubes was an IBA account.

           
“Then we
come to Teblinko Corporation, the pharmaceutical firm
Star
Ways
acquired a few years back – that’s been a
real problem lately. They had to pour a lot of money into it to get it moving,
and it’s only now just starting to pay off. Once Teblinko starts consolidating
its gains, it’ll be less crucial to SW’s over-all profit picture; but right now
it’s touch and go.

           
“If you’re
still looking for more cases, I can–”

           
Jo held up
her hand. “That’ll do for now, I think.” She paused. “Teblinko’s biggest
competitor is Opsal Pharmaceuticals, right?”

           
Grange
nodded. “We did some work for them in the past.”

           
“How come
they’re not with us now?”

           
“Don’t need
us. They’re doing fine, so we put them in the inactive file.” He grinned again.
“But with the way Teblinko is moving up, I expect to be hearing from them
soon.”

           
Jo nodded
absently, making mental notes.

           
“What’s
this all about, if I might ask?”

           
Jo
considered bringing Grange in on it, then vetoed the idea. If she told him what
deBloise was planning, he’d think she was paranoid; and if she explained what
she wanted to do to
Star Ways
,
he’d be fully convinced that she had crossed the line into overt schizophrenia.
No, better keep it to herself.

           
“Just
working out a theoretical problem,” she told him. “And you’ve been a big help.
Can I call on you again if I need some more information?”

           
“Of
course,” Grange replied, taking the hint and rising. He was too canny to be
fooled by Jo’s lame explanation – you weren’t told to drop everything and get
up to the head office because of a theoretical problem – but he was sure he’d
be filled in on all the details if and when he came to be involved.

           
He turned
at the door. “It occurs to me that you might not have a certain factor in your
theoretical problem, a factor that has the potential to put Fairleigh way ahead
of Stardrive: the Rako deal. If that ever comes through–”

           
Jo’s eyes
widened. “Rako! Of course! You know, I’d forgotten all about that. Thanks,
Bill.”

           
When he was
gone, Jo ordered the complete files on Fairleigh Tubes and Opsal
Pharmaceuticals. She also asked the same questions she had asked Bill Grange.
The information came up. It agreed with Grange that General Trades and Teblinko
were the weak links in SW’s chain of subsidiaries. But Stardrive, the
subsidiary Grange had emphasized, was conspicuous by its absence.

           
Jo wasn’t
surprised. Bill Grange approached the market with an intuitive sense that could
not be programmed into any machine, no matter how sophisticated.

           
The records
department informed her that the Fairleigh and Opsal files were now keyed to
her viewer and she could activate them anytime during the next two hours. This
was part of the IBA security routine. Client files were available only to
authorized personnel on specific request and only for a strictly limited time
period. Most contained sensitive and confidential information that would be
invaluable to a competitor.

           
Current
information on Opsal was scanty. It was a reputable firm with a long-standing
history of high quality pharmaceutical production. Teblinko was coming up in
the field and pushing Opsal, but the older company was maintaining its lead by
virtue of its superior distribution system.

           
Not much
help there.

           
She moved
on to Fairleigh. The peristellar drive tube market was a stable one. The
proton-proton drive had remained the best real-space propulsion method for
centuries and the Leason crystal had remained the only practical lining for the
drive tubes for an equal amount of time. Emmett Leason, an extra-terrestrial
geologist, first identified the crystal on one of the three tiny moons of
Tandem. When he could not determine the melting point of the crystal by
conventional means, he knew he had something.

           
Someone
eventually devised a means of coating the inner surface of a proton-proton
drive tube with the crystals and found that the new lining prevented the tube
from vaporizing as had all the previous prototypes. An experimental means of
transportation suddenly became the norm.

           
Leason
crystals became a hot item among prospectors but it was soon discovered that
natural deposits were rare. While these were being mined down to bare rock, the
laboratory boys were hard at work developing a synthetic substitute. They were
successful, but the man-made crystals were hellishly expensive.

           
And that
was how the drive tube market stood. The patents on the synthetic process were
long defunct and anyone who wanted to make Leason crystals was welcome to do
so. But that didn’t make the process any cheaper. As the human race expanded
and colonized more new worlds, the demand for p-p tubes grew steadily, and more
and more companies entered the market. Still, no one was able to reduce
significantly the cost factor in synthesizing the crystals, so they remained
the major contributor to the tubes’ high price tag. It was thus the dream of
every company to stumble upon a mother lode planet of natural crystals.

           
Fairleigh
had found such a planet: Rako. But there was a hitch. As a matter of fact,
there were a number of hitches.

           
One of them
was the Tarkan Empire.

           
Jo frowned.
The Tarks were popping up more and more lately. There would no doubt be a clash
someday – a big one. But not in the near future. The Tarkan Empire was ruthless
and active and probably took the loose, formless structure of the Federation as
a sign of weakness. One day it would overstep its boundaries to test the
Federation’s mettle. The empire’s economy was rigidly controlled and centralized
and such economies needed periodic armed conflicts to rejuvenate themselves.
Free markets tended toward the other extreme: wars meant killing, and killing
meant a reduction in the overall total of available customers.

           
She
activated her intercom. “Get hold of Mr. Balaam at Fairleigh for me.”

           
The
smiling, distinguished face of Harold Balaam soon filled her vid screen. He had
held the president’s seat of the drive tube company, which kept its main office
on Ragna, for the past decade. He and Jo enjoyed an excellent working
relationship.

           
After the
usual amenities, Jo asked, “How’s the Rako situation going, Hal?”

           
The smile
faded. “Don’t ask. It’s costing us a fortune and we’re getting nowhere. I’m
afraid I’m going to be forced to pull the team if we don’t start getting some
results soon.”

           
“Anything
in particular holding you up?”

           
“Yes. The
Rakoans themselves.” He gave her a brief summary of the situation.

           
 
“Sounds like you need a public relations man
out there.”

           
Balaam
grunted. “Know of a PR company that has any experience with degenerate aliens?”

           
“Not
exactly,” Jo laughed, “but if I can have an authorization from you, I may be
able to send somebody out there who can help.”

           
Balaam
considered this for a few seconds, then nodded. “I think we can commission a
trouble shooter through you. You haven’t steered us wrong yet… and if you come
through on this, you can name your fee.”

           
“The usual
contingency percentage will be fine. Just beam the authorization over as soon
as possible and I’ll get right to work on it.”

           
When the
screen was blank, Jo leaned back in her chair. She needed someone to send to
Rako immediately, someone with good judgment, a quick mind, and the ability to
improvise. That was Larry. But he was on Jebinose and so she’d have to settle
for whoever was next in line. Perhaps “settle” wasn’t fair. Larry had the
utmost confidence in Andy and that should be sufficient endorsement for anyone.

           
She hoped
he was available. She was going to send him out to the far edge of the human
sector of the galaxy.

           
WHEN THE
WINDOWS in his a corner office were set at maximum transparency, the view was
impressive. Copia, the capital city of
Jebinose
,
was a showcase for the planet. The average outworld could claim one large city
and it was usually located near its major – and sometimes only – spaceport.
Into this city was poured all the technical skills and available funds the
inhabitants could muster. Some cynics denounced the efforts as hypocritical
window dressing, but to most inhabitants of the planet it was very important to
put on a pretty face for visitors, important to leave an impression of
prosperity and well-being.

           
Copia was
designed to leave such an impression. The rest of Jebinose might be
economically and culturally backward, but Copia had a medical center, a
psi-school, a university, a
museum
of
Vanek
artifacts, and a huge sports
arena.

           
DeBloise’s
office overlooked the northern quarter of Copia; its outer corner pointed
toward the graceful spire that marked the university campus. Delicate violet
and yellow-striped tendrils of Nolevetol deng grass intertwined across the
floor, forming a thick, soft, living rug. Exotic plants climbed three corners
of the room; a huge desk, its entire top surface made of solid Maratek firewood,
filled the fourth.

           
DeBloise
sat behind that desk. Holographs of his wife and two children were prominently
arrayed before him, but his eyes were on the latest in the morning’s long
procession of visitors and supplicants.

           
Henro
Winterman, a leader of one of the sector’s larger merchant combines, didn’t fit
deBloise’s image of a merchant. Merchants should be porcine and endomorphic;
this one was lean and lupine. And vaguely arrogant. But his pompous air carried
a wheedling undertone. Winterman’s group and others like it had formed a strong
pro-deBloise base in the sector’s business community. They had helped
significantly in elevating him to initial prominence in interstellar politics,
but he had gone on from there without their help. And at this point Winterman
was not too sure of his footing with the man who was now so closely identified
with the Restructurist movement.

           
“It seems
that my associates are growing just a little bit impatient, sir,” he said with
the perfect blend of impudence and deference. “We’ve actively backed you for a
good number of years now and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. The sector
continues to wallow in an economic slump and, very frankly, sir, none of us is
getting any younger.”

           
“So?”
deBloise said with raised eyebrows and a completely neutral tone.

           
Certain
economic considerations had been implied when they had offered their support
for his initial campaign to go to the Federation as a Restructurist. Somewhat
less than two standard decades had passed since then and apparently some of the
merchants thought the bill was past due. It irritated deBloise to the point of
fury that Winterman should have the audacity to approach him in this manner,
but he checked himself and limited his reply to the noncommittal monosyllable.
The time had not yet come when he could loose his rage on Winterman, but that
time was coming… it was coming. Until it arrived, he could not allow anything
to erode his power base.

           
“Well,”
Winterman said slowly when it became obvious that deBloise was waiting to hear
more, “my associates and I are quite concerned about the indigenous economic
integrity of our sector.”

           
DeBloise
had to smile at that: Indigenous economic integrity.

           
What an
ingenious phrase! It meant nothing, really, but was infinitely malleable. DeBloise
had used a number of similar phrases and catchwords on his way up; they were
indispensable to the political process when it was necessary to create an
issue.

           
Interpreting
the smile as encouragement, Winterman hurried on. “We know the Restructurist
movement is sympathetic to our goal of eliminating outside commercial interests
from the sector, and we know it’s just a matter of time before the movement
achieves dominance in the Fed Assembly and gives us the backing we need, but
there is a bit of an economic lag in the sector and we were wondering how
long–”

           
“Not too
much longer, Henro,” deBloise said with hearty confidence and one of his best
public smiles.

           
But beneath
the smile he was snarling. He saw the merchant as a filthy, greedy,
moneygrubbing parasite and knew exactly what he and the other members of the
merchant combine meant by the “indigenous economic integrity of the sector”:
they wanted a monopoly on all trade in and out of the sector. None of the
members was skilled or talented enough to achieve that goal either as an
individual or as part of a collective. So – they were looking for a little
Federation muscle to help them. But the LaNague Charter prohibited any and all
interference in the economy by the Federation. Thus their support of deBloise
and Restructurism. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

           
Speaking
continuously as he moved, he rose and expertly guided Winterman out of the
office. With his hand on the man’s shoulder, he assured him of his deep
sympathy and concern for his predicament and of his firm intention to do all he
could for him just as soon as the Movement made some headway toward changing
the charter. He also made a point of reminding him that if that day was ever to
come, it would require the continued support of such model citizens as Henro
Winterman and his fellow merchants.

           
DeBloise
glanced questioningly at his receptionist as the waiting room door slipped
closed behind Winterman.

           
“You’re
ahead of schedule, sir,” she said, knowing what was on his mind. “That reporter
isn’t due until ten-point-five.”

           
He nodded
and returned to his inner office. A mirthless smile warped his lips as he
waited for the chair to adjust to his posture in a semi-reclining position. It
never ceased to amaze him how much a part greed played in politics. That, at
least, was something he was well insulated against, thank the Core. The
deBloise name had been synonymous with wealth on Jebinose for generations; his
personal fortune was more than he could hope to spend in two lifetimes.

           
No, Elson
deBloise had more important concerns than money, but that didn’t mean he would
renege on his promise to use whatever power he achieved after the Haas plan
came to fruition to aid Winterman’s crowd. He’d be delighted to help them gain
a stranglehold on trade in the sector, absolutely delighted.

           
And soon,
as Restructurist control of the Federation increased as it inevitably must
after they achieved their beachhead – the Jebinose trade cartel and others like
it would find themselves under direct supervision of the newly restructured
Federation. The real power over the human sector of Occupied

           
Space would
then be where it belonged – with the new Fed president, Elson deBloise.

           
Money as an
incentive? Never! Then what was his incentive? DeBloise’s mind had developed
numerous diversionary tactics to deal with that question. Most of them were
quite ingenious. But every once in a while his defenses collapsed and the
inescapable truth leaked through: rich and influential men entered politics for
one reason… power. Lower class nobodies became politicos with the power motive
in mind, too, but it was often diluted by a drive for prestige and the
financial advantages that so often attend the acquisition of public office.
Being moneyed and respected at the start, however, left only power as a goal.

           
The quest
for dominion over other men’s lives was not necessarily an evil thing if, after
achieving that dominion, it was used toward certain beneficial ends.

           
DeBloise
had repeated this to himself so many times that by now he actually believed it,
and the thought that a good many people might not share his vision for the
human race did not bother him in the least. He would override their opinions
and in the end they would see that it was all for their own good.

           
As his mind
reflexively skittered away from any in-depth analysis of the moral implications
of his life’s work, his eyes came to rest on the holographs of his wife and
children on the desktop.

           
His
daughter was on the left: a pretty brunette with some wild tendencies. These
were presently being curbed – he wanted no bad publicity involving his family.

           
Rhona, his
wife, was in the middle. She too was a brunette, although she weighed more now
than she did in the holo. Their offspring has been limited to two – one of each
sex – at deBloise’s insistence; it made for a perfectly balanced family
portrait. Rhona had been the eldest daughter of another rich Jebinose family,
and two fortunes, as well as two people, had been united at their wedding. They
were husband and wife now in name only, however. They slept in separate
quarters at night and led separate lives by day; only on public record and in
the public eye were they married. Both seemed content with the situation as it
was.

           
He had
never loved Rhona. At one time he thought he might someday grow to love her,
but as his rise in politics began to accelerate, the discrepancies between the
public deBloise and the private Elson widened. And he found that he preferred
the role of the public deBloise, a role he could not play with any conviction
in Rhona’s presence. She’d known him since adolescence, knew all his fears,
fantasies, and idiosyncrasies. In her eyes, he would never be the wonderful man
who was the public deBloise, and so he avoided her.

           
The homely
face of his son, Elson III, filled the third and final holo. He was proud of
Els – just fourteen, president of his class and active in the Young
Restructurists Club. He encouraged his son in these activities, for he’d found
them invaluable in his own youth. Through being a class officer and the head of
committees, you learned how to handle people, how to get them involved in
projects, how to get them to work for you.

           
His son
would start at the university next year, and that brought back a swarm of
memories for deBloise. He had never planned on going into politics, aiming
rather for a long life devoted to being very idle and very rich. Something
during his years of higher education had sparked him, however. He didn’t
remember exactly what it was, perhaps some of those Restructurist-oriented
professors who were so openly critical of the Federation, spending entire class
periods in an overt attempt to sway developing minds toward their point of
view. Perhaps young Elson deBloise had sensed a path to power within the
philosophy of political interventionism.

           
He entered
the political sphere soon after graduation, not as a Restructurist, however.
Restructurism was irrelevant then as a philosophy in lower-echelon politics on
Jebinose. His name and his position made him welcome in the inner circles of
the local machine where he quickly identified the movers and the shakers. He
made the right connections, spoke up for the right causes at key affairs, and
finally gained enough leverage to be nominated to the Jebinose Senate.

           
Even as he
made his maiden speech before that august body, he was planning the moves that
would take him to Fed Central. Jebinose was not yet in the Restructurist fold,
was not in any fold, for that matter. The planet was situated near some of the
major trade lanes, yet did little trading. There was little there to interest
anyone: no drugs, technological hardware, or chemicals – just those damn Vanek
artifacts, and a single shipload could handle a year’s output.

           
So, traders
rarely stopped at Jebinose. It was a fact of life. But coupled with the current
slow, steady decline of the planet’s economy, that fact of life held great
potential as a political issue of interstellar scale. To transform it into such
an issue would require some fancy footwork and what his advisers referred to as
“the old reverse.”

           
This is how
it would work: It was obvious to anyone vaguely familiar with Jebinose and
elementary economics that major traders didn’t stop there because it had a
simple agrarian economy with nothing to trade. To make an important political
issue of that, you merely inverted the situation: Jebinose had a poor, simple
agrarian economy because the traders refused to stop there; if the traders
could be made to stop and deal with Jebinose, the planet would undergo an
industrial and economic boom. And that’s why Jebinose needs a Restructurist
working for her at Federation Central.

           
You
couldn’t spring this on the populace de novo, of course. You had to spend a few
years laying the groundwork in the media, dropping phrases like “functional
trade sanction” whenever asked about the Jebinose economy, and continuing to
utilize the phrase until it was picked up by others. After it had been repeated
often enough, it would be accepted as matter-of-fact truth. And if they could
accept that amorphous phrase, then they would have no trouble swallowing “the
old reverse.”