Northwest of Pickle, perhaps twelve kilometers distant, was a site designated NUTMEG-414 (mothballed). It was one of a handful of similar outposts on the microcontinent, all in a temporary state of disuse. "Check that out," I told Karl.
The computer obediently reported that Nutmeg-414 was a Rampart collection and processing site, closed down five years earlier after the raw materials were largely exhausted. While the place was operational, robot pickers had gathered diseased fruits of the exotic tree Pseudomyristica denticulata from the surrounding dense jungle. An automated on-site factory chewed up the rinds and eventually produced cultures of Vector PD32:C2, a virus useful in genetic engineering. Nutmeg-414 and nine other mothballed facilities on Grant were tentatively scheduled to be reopened in two years, after which time the exotic plantlife would have renewed itself naturally.
Karl said to the computer, "Describe Vector PD32:C2. Include commercial applications and production statistics."
A mind-numbing blast of scientific jargon, combined with spreadsheets, appeared. He studied it and shook his head. "PD32:C2 is produced at 327 active sites on eleven Cravat microcontinents. There are 178 other sites that are on hiatus. The viral vector has a very broad-spectrum transferase used principally by terraformers tinkering with the zygotes of exotic animals. Says here that it's also been proposed for use in 'an experimental human germ-line manipulation procedure.' "
"What do you suppose that means?" Matt said.
"Check it later," I said. The headache was making me irritable, and I could feel my physical strength seeping out of my boot heels. Damn it all to hell. I had no time for this sickie shit.
The old man was eyeing me doubtfully. "You all right, son?"
"Fine and dandy. Bring up the last entry from Eve's log."
It was from five and a half weeks ago, and referred in considerable detail to the Qastt pirate ship with the suicidal Haluk aboard. Eve didn't seem to show any exceptional interest in the incident, and there was no hint in the diary that she planned to undertake any unofficial investigation of her own.
"Not much to go on," Matt commented ruefully.
"It's plenty," I corrected her, "when you add my Haluk encounter to the overall equation."
Karl said, "You're still determined to search for Eve on Cravat?"
"Matt and I will leave tomorrow, first thing. I've got a suitable starship. We'll drop in unannounced on Bascombe and get him to take us to the pothole. It's as good a place as any to start, and Bascombe himself needs to be put through the wringer. Meanwhile, you carry on here."
"Now wait a minute!" Karl protested. "There's got to be more to this new outfit of ours than pinning a deputy-sheriff badge on me while you and Matt go galloping off to the other end of the Spur. We've got an intelligence-gathering apparatus to set up, new personnel to approve. To say nothing of deciding .. . direction our internal investigation of Rampart Central and.. . should take..."
Whoa!
Karl's voice fading. My visual input flickering. Room tilting off plumb. Something icy blooming behind my breastbone and an iron spike piercing my right temple. I clutched the edge of the computer console just in time to keep from keeling over.
Brain says: Stay upright eyes focus pain go away come again some other day shit shit shit...
Through a blur, Matt Gregoire's face registered shocked understanding. "Why, you're ill, Helly! You're still recovering from the dystasis treatment, aren't you? For heaven's sake, sit down." She took one of my arms and Karl grabbed the other. They drew me back to the easy chairs at the fireplace.
"You push yourself too hard after one of those tank sessions," Karl chided me, "you'll find yourself back in the hospital. Maybe we ought to postpone the planning until tomorrow."
"No, we'll do it now. Tomorrow I'm off to Cravat. Just give me a minute to regroup." I took off my hunting coat, rolled up my left shirtsleeve, and selected a fresh fix from the medicuff. The drugs in the armlet took hold and turned me moderately bright-eyed again. Karl and Matt were silent. Their expressions said it all.
"I'm okay," I assured them. "The doctor back on Kedge-Lockaby said that this weakness will pass. The armlet has everything I need to keep me going."
"On Cravat?" Matt said dubiously.
"I've got a great nurse-bodyguard. Wait till you meet him. Now, can we start making plans?"
* * *
During the next three hours we created the new Department of Special Projects. It would work completely outside Rampart's normal protocols and have its own independent communications system. Karl rustled up a crew of six savvy, well-seasoned, indisputably loyal ex-security agents whom I interviewed one by one on encrypted vidphone. They agreed to report for duty tomorrow. Three of them, former Internal Security research operatives, would investigate the vanished pals of Clive Leighton and covertly probe Rampart for other Galapharma conspirators—paying special attention to Zared, Dunne, Rivello, and their close associates. The other three, retired ExSec field agents, would attempt to ascertain whether sabotage had taken place. None of the new people would be privy to the Haluk angle.
Karl himself would check out the more obscure uses of Vector PD32:C2, as well as the other Cravat biocommodities. He would also compile dossiers on the six people allegedly kidnapped by Haluk, plus the deceased scientist Emily Blake Konigsberg. Two broader research projects of his involved an updated report on the Haluk themselves and their relations with the Qastt, plus a data-search for any other human residents of the Spur who might have gone missing under circumstances that implicated either alien race.
I expressly forbade Karl to undertake any further inquiry into the background or whereabouts of Quillan McGrath, alias Branson Elgar. Now that I was actively on the trail of Galapharma maggots inside Rampart, the big Concern would have a greater motive than ever for eliminating me. The logical man to do the dirty deed was Bron, and I didn't want him scared off.
No indeedy. One of my principal duties as Vice President for Special Projects was to act as bait in my own trap.
Now that I was a citizen again and, like Matt Gregoire, a security officer at Rampart Starcorp's alpha executive level, I was what the lawyers term a praefectus conlegius of the Commonwealth Judiciary. It was now perfectly legal for me to take suspected lawbreakers into custody, squeeze them like lemons, and turn over the evidence gleaned through interrogation to CCID prosecutors.
If he didn't manage to kill me first, McGrath/Elgar might just be the key to destroying Galapharma Amalgamated Concern.
* * *
When our schedule of operations was complete, I asked Karl and Matt to take a break and summoned Simon to a private meeting in the little conference room adjacent to Karl's office.
My father arrived looking subdued and anxious. He sat quietly as I described the new organizational setup and the assignments, and after I'd finished, he asked, "What do you need from me?"
"Your authorization for unlimited expenditure and for Rampart employee cooperation with me and my agents."
"Way ahead of you. You asked before, remember?" He handed me three small plastic rectangles, niobium Rampart credit cards made out in the names of Helmut Icicle, Matilde Gregoire, and Karl Nazarian. Three more cards, bright scarlet, were "Open Sesame" documents endorsed by him, enjoining all Rampart employees to cooperate with me and my two top associates on pain of instant dismissal and disenfranchisement.
He said, "Anything else?"
"Karl will need a secure location for our offices and the best computer and encrypted subspace communications equipment available."
"He'll have it within twenty-four hours. How about star-ships? Additional personnel?"
"Taken care of, but the less you know about them, the better. Are you heading back to Earth right away?"
"Yes. Daniel and I have to huddle with the legal department and prepare an official response to Alistair Drummond's tender offer.., Dammit, Asa—if only Rampart had managed to get Concern status! Then Gala wouldn't be able to touch us."
I'
d forgotten that Simon had mentioned that prospect when he'd visited me in the hospital. "Is there any hope of it being approved?"
"We've lobbied our brains out in Toronto for over two years. Every time we seem to round up enough delegate votes to get the application out of committee, some glitch hamstrings us. Delegate Kovalev, our man in ICS, resigned from the Assembly because of ill health last year. His successor turned out to be in the pocket of the Hundred Concerns."
"Tough luck."
"We lost another vote when Söderstrom was linked to a Reversionist group selling embargoed computer equipment to the Insaps of Wigan-Sleet. He was impeached and may end up indicted for treason .. . But in a real way, we're our own worst enemy! You probably know that Rampart's earnings picture over the past few years isn't as solid as it could be, which doesn't help our push for Concern status. Over seventy more Spur worlds ripe for immediate exploitation. But we've had to rein in plans for expansion because of all the setbacks."
"Mmm."
"And then there's me—maybe the biggest obstacle of all! A fuckin' dinosaur clinging to the corporate leadership. Not willing to name a successor."
It surprised me that he was aware of the problem, although it should not have. Shrewd and strong-willed as he was, Simon could never fill Ethan's boots.
I said, "Would it help Rampart's status-upgrade case if you named Eve President and CEO?"
"So you figured that out, did you?"
"By a process of elimination. Eve's the only one suited for the job."
"Damn right! She'd have to prove herself, of course. Clean up our messes. Get some significant new operations going.
Demonstrate to the galaxy that Rampart still has plenty of gumption—that we deserve to stand up there with the best of 'em, steering the government of the Commonwealth as one of the Hundred Concerns. Eve had a lot of ideas that we talked about last fall at the Sky Ranch, some of them pretty radical, but—" He broke off, shaking his head. "Asa, just tell me what else 1 can do to help you find her."
"If you give Alistair Drummond a few crumbs of hope— schmooze the old python—it may forestall any adverse action against Eve by her captors. We've turned up some long-shot clues to her whereabouts that I'm going to follow up on personally."
His weathered face brightened. "Tell me! Does it have anything to do with those goddamn Haluk?"
"I'm not sure. I may have the answer within a few days."
"Call me on Mogollon Rim. You have my personal sub-space code."
"If we find Eve," I said, "you'll be the first to know. But for God's sake, don't mention the Haluk angle to anyone. Not even the family."
"If you say so."
"I absolutely insist! And that brings me to another crucially important matter we haven't touched on yet, one that also pertains to the family. You realize, don't you, that Mom's quarterstake is pivotal in preventing the Board of Directors from accepting a hostile Galapharma tender offer?"
"Of course. But Katje always votes the way I tell her to. She trusts my business judgment." He scowled. "So far."
"You'll have to put Mom in the picture. Tell her what's been going on, including your suspicions about Zared's disloyalty, my close scrapes, the warning message you got, the possibility that Eve may have been killed. Then—"
"On hold!" Simon said furiously. "That bastard said Eve was on hold, not dead! And why should I tell Katje? It would only get her riled up."
I forged ahead, ignoring the outburst. "Mom has to understand the seriousness of the situation: that all of her children are in deadly danger—and so is she—if she still plans to will her quarterstake to that collection of xenocharities without reserving family control of the voting rights."
His eyes widened in dismayed comprehension. "Oh, hell. I see what you're driving at."
"If she dies—perhaps in some convenient accident—and her shares pass absolutely to the charities, their directors will jump at the chance to exchange Rampart stock for Gala-pharma's, which is more valuable. Zed controls Emma's 12.5 percent, and he'd vote for the merger as well. Those two blocks of stock would counter your own 37.5 percent. That would give Thora Scranton and the minor stakeholders the deciding votes. Would Thora stick with you—or go with Zed and the charities and agree to the takeover?"
"Thora would stick with Eve," he said bleakly. "She's got her doubts about my leadership. It was one of the reasons why I'd decided to step down as CEO." He was silent for a moment. "Do you really think Katje is in danger?"
"Your note from the hired gun said 'three at risk,' " I reminded him. "Dan and Bethany are the other two, and they'll have to take strong precautions. But I think we can neutralize any threat to Mom if you convince her to change her will immediately, putting her shares into a trust benefiting the charities. The trustees can be Dan, Beth, you, Gunter Eckert, and herself. With the establishment of a trust entity, any motive for killing Mom or trying to coerce her vote through threatening you or her children vanishes. Not even Galapharma would dare to murder all five trustees."
Simon shook his head. "Katje might not agree. Most of her so-called charities are nothing but Insap-coddling Rever-sionist front groups. She won't let anybody else control the money pipeline to her precious radical causes."
But I knew the answer to that one. "Set up the trust with Mom as sole disburser of benefits. She'll retain control of the money, but the votes will be controlled by the other four trustees."
A smile quirked my father's thin lips. "You know, with a setup like that, we could even elect your sister Bethany to the Rampart Board of Directors as representative of the trust. Remove Katje! I've been trying for years to find a way of securing that quarterstake your mother inherited from Dirk. There was always a danger she wouldn't go along with me in the voting, out of spite or even some half-assed Reversionist political agenda. But if she thinks it's the only way to keep you children safe from those Galapharma maniacs—"
At that, I exploded. "God damn you, Simon! This isn't about votes and boardroom finagling, it's about my mother's life! She matters. Eve matters. So do Dan and Beth. Apart from them, the Rampart Interstellar Corporation doesn't mean jackshit to me! Can't you get that through your thick head?"
The hooded green gaze glittered. "What about me? Do I matter?"
"Don't push your luck," I said.
Amazingly, he burst out laughing. "Any other orders?"
"No." I turned away, drained of emotion as well as stamina, lacking even the energy to hate him, wishing more than ever that I could tell him to go to hell. Every bone in my body ached. My own quotient of gumption was at minus ebb. I checked my watch. It was 1752, and I had been at Rampart Central for nearly five hours. I was sick and tired of planning and palavering, yearning for sleep the way a man lost in the desert craves cool water. But I still had to meet with Mimo to organize the perilous trip to Cravat, and confirm that Ivor Jenkins had agreed to sign on with us.
Simon and I left the conference room and went back into the main office. Matt and Karl were standing by the holo window watching the tranquil scene in silence. A chestnut mare had joined the black stallion, and a long-legged colt was frolicking in the illusionary sunshine, trampling the asphodels. In the distance were mountains with snowcaps.
The former security chief eyed me with concern. "Helly, you look beat down to the anklebones. Go get some rest before Maintenance has to scrape you off the carpet."
"I'm okay."
Matt Gregoire said, "Don't be a stubborn fool!"
"I'll rest tomorrow. Right now, you and I have a dinner date with a smuggler."
"A what?"
"Our chauffeur to faraway places, Captain Guillermo Bermudez Obregon. You'll like him. He sings old-fashioned Mexican ballads, drives a brand-new Bodascon Y660 cutter, and really knows how to use his ship's cannons."
She looked helplessly at Simon, who merely shrugged.
Crossing to the transport entry, I pressed the call-pad and said to Karl, "I'll talk to you before liftoff tomorrow. You know what to do. D
o it."
Karl pretended to be insulted. "Is he always like that?" he asked my father querulously.
"Seems like. God knows where he gets it from... Well, us two old geezers better sit down at your computer and find this Mickey Mouse outfit a good hidey-hole. Then I think we ought to go out and get shitfaced together."
"Good thinking," said Karl Nazarian.
Chapter 12
It was going to take El Plomazo thirty-one hours to reach the planet Cravat at maximum pseudovelocity of sixty ross. I spent the first twenty-seven of those hours unconscious in my cabin, allowing my body to restore itself and enjoying sweet REMories of my Kedgeree island home, courtesy of Mimo's dream machine.
When I finally surfaced around noon ship's time on the second day out, 1 felt almost normal. I called Mimo on the intercom. "Hola, mi capitán! You guys have lunch yet? I'm famished."
"That's good news," he said. "A hungry man is one on the mend. We'll be eating shortly. How does pasta, salad, and cit-rumquat sorbet sound?"
"Perfect. What's a citrumquat?"
"Join us in the dining salon in half an hour and find out. Meanwhile, you might like to look over the information sent by your friend Nazarian via subspace encrypt." I thanked him, pulled the data out of the ship's computer—unlike the lost saucy Chispa, El Plomazo communicated in stern masculine accents—and made a hard copy. There were also two holovid dimes from Karl's archives with background on Cravat's natural history and the production of PD32:C2.1 put them aside.
The first section of the printed report was a background summary and statement of the operation's objectives. A tidy mind, old Karl's. There was no new information on Eve's disappearance or on Clive Leighton and his buddies, although our new team was beavering away. Two of the field agents had been dispatched to Rampart worlds where Galapharma-inspired sabotage might possibly have taken place. The other four were working with Karl in the secret lair Simon had found for our establishment in the subbasement of the Veti-varum Public Database.