"Asahel Frost has made a will!" Alistair Drummond thunders. "My legal people just found it in the public record and called it to my attention. Why didn't you inform me?"
He decides to tell a prudent lie. "Because I didn't know about it myself until this morning."
"So much for your bloody brilliant plan! ... And if that weren't bad enough, my investigators in Toronto have managed to ferret out another Rampart bombshell. I wonder if you can guess what it is."
Drummond's face on the vidphone screen is a mask of ferocity, deeply tanned from his Arizona sojourn except for the area that was shielded by sunglasses. The ice-colored eyes set in startling ovals of pale flesh are no longer unreadable; they have the glaring wide pupils of a goaded predator poised to strike.
"The venture credit prospectus!" the Galapharma CEO says. "Did ye think I wouldn't find out about it, ye treacherous buggerin' lump of shite?" A torrent of curses, some of them impenetrably Scottish, pours from the phone.
But he remains withdrawn and silent, oddly immune to the beast's raging, mulling alternatives now that Asa's death can no longer ensure passage of the takeover vote. There must be another way to exert the necessary leverage. There must be.
Drummond leans closer to the telephone's video pickup. His hair is disheveled. He wears the black cowboy shirt with its top pearl snaps open. A vein in his neck is throbbing. After his lapse into Caledonian, he has reverted to the purest Home Counties diction, full of withering contempt. "The prospectus. My agents inform me that Adam Stanislawski is about to accept. Do you know what that means? Of course you do! You helped draft the prospectus. You stood by as it was submitted, knowing it could mean the ruin of all my plans—of Galapharma itself. And so you're dead, you conniving scrote!... No, that's too easy! Why should I have you killed when your own family will see that you're sent to Coventry Blue?"
Then he has it. Thanks to Drummond's ranting.
His voice is a whipcrack. "Alistair, shut up."
The enormity of his insubordination actually silences the beast.
"You won't lose Rampart. I've thought of another way. And Macro's venture credit infusion will only increase the value of your new acquisition. Stanislawski won't withdraw out of spite after a Galapharma merger. He's a practical old Polack—and a political whiz. If he's decided to enter a venture scheme based on PD32:C2's prospects, he must have already sent up a few trial balloons in the Assembly concerning a new treaty with the Haluk. And liked what he heard. Alistair, we can still win this thing. I can do it for you."
The Galapharma CEO has listened impatiently. Madness flickers in the black wells of his eyes, striving to take control; but in the end the rational portion of his mind supervenes. He blinks and pulls back from the phone lens. Stalling a little further, he screws a fresh giggle-stick into his jade cigarette holder, lights it, and takes a deep drag. Behind him is the understated elegance of his villa at the Arizona Biltmore.
"Very well." As though he doesn't really care. "Tell me your new idea, lad."
"Simon has scheduled the board meeting for this afternoon, at the Sky Ranch. I'll get his proxy before then. And Asa's, too." He explains how.
Drummond is openly skeptical. "You haven't got it in you!"
"Try me."
"Hmph. All right. But if I decide that you've failed—or you attempt to pull some scam—I'll institute my own fallback action. It won't fail."
"I'll call you when I have the proxies in hand. Would you like to attend the board meeting and make your ultimate pitch in person?"
Caught by surprise, Drummond bursts into uproarious laughter. "Oh, yes! I accept your kind invitation." He is still laughing as the phone display goes dark.
There was really only one costume appropriate for both Toronto and Arizona on that memorable day. So I was wearing my good old poplin briar pants, the Navajo-motif Pendleton shirt—getting a little frayed around the collar by now—and my beat-up Gokey snakeboots. I'd worn the duds a lot during my six-month stint as a Rampart VP, prowling Spur worlds in search of baddies. They were my armor against creeping corporate respectability.
The day was a touch too warm for the waxed-cotton hunting coat, so to complete my outfit I borrowed one of Mimo's belts that had a massive silver buckle, along with a bolo necktie with a cabochon Mexican fire-opal on the slide. I carried a briefcase in which I'd stowed a notebook, a hard copy of Ollie Schneider's deposition, and a Kagi pistol in an innocuous-looking closed holster.
When Matt Gregoire showed up in Chispa's boarding vestibule with Ollie Schneider in tow, she studied my ensemble with a knowing little smirk. "Killer threads! Seems to me I've seen them before."
"When first we met," I concurred airily. "When you and Ollie and the Rampart Board of Directors first clapped eyes on the dreaded Helmut Icicle back on Seriphos—and froze your livers."
We cackled in unison. Schneider stood there looking dejected—as well he might. After we finished with him, he was going to lodge in the CCID Detention Facility in Elora until the resolution of Rampart's civil case against Gala-pharma. It was a glamour slammer where the inmates were pampered, but it wasn't freedom.
Matt looked marvelous in corporate mufti, an oyster silk pantsuit and a matching silk boatneck tee that set off her cinnamon skin to perfection. Her only jewelery was a pair of small Tyrinian gemshell ear-studs. She wore a stun-glove on her right hand, and her other wrist was linked to Ollie's by an unobtrusive security cable.
The ship's computer said: Ground transport has arrived.
The three of us went into the excursion bay and cycled the lock. Outside on the deck of the submarine hangar was a gleaming black robolimo. The front door opened and out stepped my cousin Zared Frost. He smiled at us without offering to shake hands, which was understandable under the circumstances.
"We drew straws to decide who'd do escort duty. I won. Welcome to Earth."
The President and Chief Operating Officer of Rampart Starcorp was a moderately tall man in his mid-forties. His carefully styled hair was glossy chestnut. An aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and a thin, decisive mouth made him the most good-looking member of the Frost clan. He was also one of the smartest. Only a limiting innate conservatism and a deficiency of that elusive entrepreneurial quality called "drive" had kept him from being designated crown prince of the family empire.
His own father, my late Uncle Ethan, had sadly kissed Zed off as having "not a lick of fire in his belly." Ethan's will had divided his quarterstake between his wife, Emma Bradbury, and Simon to ensure that Zed would not gain control of the Starcorp. But my cousin had never given up his ambitions.
Now he swept open the door to the rear limo compartment and ushered Matt and Schneider inside. "I'm sure you two won't mind if I have a few private words with my cousin Asa on the way into town."
Matt said, "I understand."
Ollie gave a bored shrug.
When Zed and I were seated side by side in front, I said, "We'll have to make a short detour before going to Rampart Tower. To pick up Schneider's lawyer. He's in the Simcoe Block."
Zed gave the destination to the car and we sped up and away to the Oshawa Collector. Moments later we were thirty meters high in the limpid summer air, westbound on the upper level of Queen Elizabeth Way, heading for the corporate spires of downtown Toronto.
"I'll make this short and sweet, Asa," my cousin said. "What will it take for you to vote your quarterstake in favor of the Gala merger?"
I pretended to consider. "How about your head on a platter with an apple in your mouth?"
Zed turned and seized the strings of my bolo tie in both hands, hauling me toward him. "I'm serious, damn you!"
Matt Gregoire was rapping anxiously on the closed glass partition separating us. I appreciated her concern, but I wasn't worried.
Reaching around and entwining the fingers of my left hand in Zed's designer coiffure, I hoisted him ceilingward out of the leather bucket seat beside me. He shrieked—more from shock than from real pain. Hair is a merciful hand
le. Try yanking a large wad of your own some time.
"In less than five seconds," I told him, "your nose will be smashed against the navigation console of the car. Or you can let go of my tie and we'll take it from the top."
He turned me loose. I reciprocated. He flopped back into his seat, making soft gasping sounds.
"Violence is not your metier, Zed," I remarked. "You're an amateur and I used to be a pro. Also, my muscles have pumped up a bit from living strenuously on high-grav planets, whereas you have mainly exercised your charisma."
"Fuck you."
"Why should I vote for the Galapharma takeover?" I asked him.
"It'd be best for all of us." He turned away to stare out the windshield, smoothing his mussed hair continuously with a trembling hand. "You know what happens to people who get in Alistair Drummond's way."
"Some of them get marooned on comets," I said lightly. "Some get semimorphed into Haluk. And some are given poison and die in their sleep."
"Don't you think I know that?" he cried hotly. "His gorillas have threatened me, too—and Jenny and the children! Even my mother! After Emma made her foolish little speech praising Eve at the last board meeting, I was told to modify her thinking—or expect to receive my inheritance from her before the next vote on the merger is taken. Drummond is insane, Asa! What kind of a man would order the deaths of two harmless old women?"
"A desperate one."
"Then let him have what he wants! We can't fight him. What difference does it make if Rampart becomes a division of Galapharma? For God's sake—we'll profit hugely from the deal, all of us!"
I said, "You don't understand the Big Picture."
"Andyou don't really give a damn about the Starcorp!" he bellowed. "Or Simon, or any of the rest of us except your precious big sister. I've worked my ass off for Rampart for twenty-three years! You thumbed your nose at it and went off to play cops and robbers until you fell on your face. Then you have the monumental brass to come waltzing back out of nowhere, pulling a snow-job on Simon, telling the rest of us you know what's best—"
"Saving Eve, rousting Gala spies and saboteurs from Rampart's woodwork, corraling the one material witness who can nail Drummond's hide to the barn door." I chuckled without humor. "Some brass. You could use a little yourself, Zed— stuck up your spine."
"You—you—you cowboy}"
I guess it was the worst epithet in his vocabulary. I had the feeling he would have laid hands on me again, if he'd dared. His eyes were darting wildly. One hand clenched into a fist and the fingers of the other scratched reflexively at the fabric of his pants leg. Cousin Zed was a man approaching the end of his rope.
I didn't say anything. After a while the anger and tension leaked out of him like grain from a punctured feed bag. He slumped in the leather seat and I saw tears trickling from his eyes.
"Asa," he finally said in a hoarse voice. "I'm scared out of my fuckin' mind. So are Dan and Beth. They've told me so. Drummond's brutes must have threatened Simon and Eve, too. Please! Be reasonable. You can solve everything—"
"I'm doing my best to do that," I said. "In my own way."
"You'll be the death of us all." He said it almost matter-of-factly. "Unless I can convince you to vote in favor of the merger."
"You can't."
He eyed me askance, his face full of desperation. "You wouldn't even have to go to the board meeting and face down Eve and your father. If you gave me your proxy I could—"
"Zed. No."
He gave a great sigh. "Then it's on your head. Whatever happens."
"If it makes you feel any better to believe that, be my guest. But there's a quote by a Brit named Edmund Burke that I used to have mounted on my office wall at ICS. Joanna embroidered it for me—can you believe it? It said: 'All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.' I got to feeling pretty pessimistic about that philosophy after I got Thrown Away. Now I'm maybe ready to give it another shot."
"You're a self-righteous bastard." His voice was faint, resigned. "You don't care who gets hurt."
I nodded. "Simon would probably agree with you."
"Go to hell," he said dully. "Go to hell."
After a while the limo's computer said: Now arriving at Simcoe Block. Please indicate the office you intend to visit so that the proper skyway may be selected. Default is the underground parking lot.
I said, "Law offices of Falwyn, Singh, and Bloomberg."
We zoomed up the spiral skyway with inertialess ease and exited at Level 62. A uniformed flunky came to greet us.
"I'll wait with the car," Zared Frost said in a dead voice.
So Matt and Ollie and I left him.
Our business didn't take long. Jaswinder Singh, a bearded man wearing a butterscotch-colored suit and a matching turban, had a mournful expression and dark liquid eyes that took in my casual garb with cosmopolitan insouciance. After the introductions, he embraced his old college chum— hampered only slightly by Schneider's being shackled to Matt—and commiserated briefly.
One of the incriminating sealed packets sat on Singh's desk. (Ollie had told him to destroy the other one.) The lawyer had Schneider open the container and verify its contents. Then Singh said to me, "As I understand it, you now wish me to accompany you to Rampart Tower, where the formal offer of immunity will be vouchsafed by Rampart's CEO."
"That's correct," I said.
"Very well. I'm ready to proceed." He rummaged beneath his desk and produced a case to carry the packet in.
"There's one other small thing you might do, if you're willing," I said diffidently. "It would save us considerable time and enhance our goodwill toward the prisoner. Rampart would expect to be billed for your services, of course."
"What's that?"
I opened my own briefcase and took out the notebook primed with the dime of Schneider's deposition. I handed the hard copy transcript to Singh for his examination, explaining what it was and how it still required interrogator-validation by an independent officer of the court before becoming admissible evidence.
"Matt Gregoire and I are the interrogators of record and both of us hold praefectus status," I concluded, powering up the notebook. "I'd like you to do the validation. I know my request is somewhat unorthodox, but I have good reasons for not using a Rampart legal officer in the procedure. You may duplicate and retain the data for your records if your firm intends to act on Schneider's behalf during the upcoming proceedings."
Singh frowned at the scene on the notebook's flatscreen as the preliminary statements played and the recorded questioning began. He flipped briefly through the bound sheets of
the hard copy, then tapped the notebook's Pause pad and spoke to Schneider.
"Ollie, do you want me to validate this deposition? It would be better if I examined it closely first—"
"Nah. Do it, Windy. I really want Rampart's goodwill enhanced. And if you'll represent me, I guarantee I can pay my bills ... if you don't object to sheltered funds."
Some subdued laughter. I tried without success to imagine this dignified, middle-aged Sikh lawyer as a hell-raising undergraduate named Windy.
Jaswinder Singh lifted his hands in a gesture of agreement and called in an assistant with the proper data-amending equipment. Ten minutes later it was done. Schneider's validated deposition was transmitted safely to Rampart's legal department computers and incorporated into the body of the civil suit, just as Eve and I had arranged it during my flight to Earth.
And there wasn't a thing the family fink could do about it.
Rampart Tower in Toronto pales in comparison to the grandiose structure on the planet Seriphos that serves as the working corporate headquarters. The tower is a nice enough building, a hundred stories high, with three skyways providing direct access from the high-road network in addition to a hopper pad and the usual basement connection to Underground Toronto. But in those days, Rampart itself only occupied the top fifteen floors in the tower; the offices below were leased out. It was a fairly typi
cal setup for a Starcorp of moderate size that had great expectations.
Our small group was subdued as we disembarked at the uppermost exit of Rampart Tower's skyway. Simon's assistant, Guido Cabrini, met us in the glass-enclosed porte-cochere, accompanied by two uniformed InSec guards.
"These gentlemen will relieve you of your prisoner," he said to Matt. And to Singh: "You and your client will be taken to one of our lounges until your presence is required. There will be something to eat."
Cousin Zed had slipped away almost as soon as the limo stopped moving. Matt and I followed Cabrini's suggestion that we freshen up in the opulent executive washrooms before going into the meeting. When I returned to the foyer, Matt was already there, admiring the spectacular view while Cabrini pointed out landmarks.
"—and just to the south of us, at the edge of the Inner Harbor, is Galapharma Tower. Four hundred stories high. The Concern's offices fill every square meter of space."
Mart's lips were twitching suspiciously. "What a striking architectural style the Gala building has. So... erect!"
Guido Cabrini grinned. "It does have a rather emphatic masculine aspect, doesn't it? Capital wags have many colorful names for it. The Galapharma headquarters in Glasgow is three times larger, but not nearly so evocatively designed ... Would you please come with me to the conference room? The attendees are just finishing a buffet lunch."
We followed him down a sunny corridor decorated with potted plants and generic artwork. Since this uppermost floor was dedicated to the most rarefied commercial machinations, it gave the appearance of being nearly deserted. The occasional ranking minion wafted by, doing a double take at my nonconformist appearance.
The conference room was a huge circular chamber enclosed in floor-to-ceiling window. The 360-degree view of the Capital Conurbation and the glorious blue lake was breathtaking. In its center was a fanciful stone construction that would have served as a multiple fireplace in winter; in August it was an artificial waterfall adorned with native and exotic flowering plants. Around the room's perimeter were furniture groupings—couches, low tables, and serving cre-denzas, as well as com units, computers, and other equipment, well-camouflaged so as not to disfigure the ambience of managerial elegance. A much larger circular table with more than a dozen chairs and individual recessed data terminals stood on the room's north side—perhaps coincidentally out of eyeshot of Galapharma Tower.