Acts of Conscience (10 page)

“...engineering officer Michiko Landry reports the ship’s AI system was able to make the transition to hyperspace and escape the attack by making a short-range jump to the other side of Regulus. The ship was apparently detected there by the assailant, which pursued in normal spacetime, giving the ship’s navigation systems the few minutes they needed to calculate an escape trajectory toward Earth...”

Trajectory toward Earth? Then won’t they know where we
live
? No. No, don’t be stupid. Hyperspace navigation wouldn’t be like cross-einsteinian geodesic pathways, for Christ’s sake...

Voice-over: “Captain Hamilton died from his burns en route and is now in Cedars Sinai hospital on Earth, undergoing full resurrection. Though a complete physical recovery is expected within days, medical technicians doubt a full memory-association chain can be established. Trade Regency representatives are expected to begin questioning Hamilton as soon as he can be awakened...”

I could feel my heart pounding. Jesus. Changes
are
coming. All this tawdry, ordinary bullshit going on here and now... while the whole universe comes down around our fucking ears. Meanwhile, I’ve got three days to find a new job, or else find a new place to live. Fucking Christ. I got up, started getting ready to go. Knowing, suddenly, just where I wanted to be.

o0o

It takes about nine hours to get from L1(SE) to Callisto, much of that time spent making your connections. At the corporate offices of Berens-Vataro Enterprises Interplanetary, cooling my heels, I listened to a nice young man, a receptionist, I suppose, say things along the lines of, “...I’m sorry, Mr. du Cheyne, we just hadn’t expected anyone to...” and “...yes, I appreciate that you own twelve thousand shares of B-VEI stock...” a keen look then, right in the eye: “You
do
understand the current stock issue exceeds three million shares?”

Who did I want to talk to? And why? Now that I’d gotten here, it was hard to put into words. A tour? Well, sure, I’d like that, but... Finally, they found my name in their records and I sat in a crummy little office, looking across a cheap desk at the same young woman who’d come by my office a few days ago, looking to buy my stock. Miss Tallentire.

“Xenia,” she said. “Call me Xenia.” Looking at me, quite puzzled. “I have to tell you, Mr. du Cheyne...”

“Gaetan.” Smiling at here, eying that sleek form speculatively, but remembering Camilla Seldane, who’d given me... something, at least.

She shrugged, “I have to tell you, we no longer have any interest in reacquiring your stock. B-VEI managed to secure an absolute majority share, with ERSIE taking most of the rest, other than a very few small holdouts like yourself. Now, you
can
sell it at parity on the open market, or ERSIE may still offer you a small premium...”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

Puzzled. “Then... Mr. du Cheyne, if you’d like a tour of the facility, I’m sure we could come up with something, but...”

I said, “What I’d like is a job.”

Startled look, eyebrows going up. Then she laughed, skin around her pretty eyes crinkling. “Whatever
for
? Mr. du Cheyne, you’re a rich man by anyone’s standard. Sell the stock. Then find something to
do
.”

“I’d like to work on the new starships. I, uh...”

She reached forward and touched the top of her desk, then squinted down at whatever image was forming in its depths, out of my line of sight. “I see.” She looked up at me. “Look, I’m sorry ERSIE fired you, Mr. du Cheyne. You did us a good turn by at least holding onto your shares when there was no certainty that...” a shrug. “I sympathize but...”

Sympathize
. Isn’t that what they all say?

She said, “We’re not hiring just yet. We...”

“But you’ll need good people. Soon. I’ve got training, class ten certification, and twenty years’ experience as a metadynamic engineering technician. You...”

She nodded. “Sure. But right now, we don’t even have a personnel office. Up to this point, we’ve been hiring on the specific recommendation of existing employees. Friends of friends.”

“But...”

She looked at me impatiently. “Mr. du Cheyne, Berens-Vataro hyperdrive engineering is
very
different from chromoelectronics. Now, we
will
be establishing an apprenticeship program and...”

“I’d like to apply for that.”

“All right. The first three apprentice classes will be filled by recommendation from our existing mechanics, so we can sort of get a running start. If you want to come back in four years and take the entrance examination we’ll likely have worked out by then...”

Four years. I said, “If I haven’t found another job by then, I’ll have had to have my tools put to sleep. They’ll never be the same after that.”

A blank look. “So? Sell your tools and buy new ones in three years. You’ll need a major upgrade anyway.”

“Miss Tallentire... Um, Xenia. You ever have a pet?”

She said, “No.” Long silence. Then she smiled and said, “Look, I’m sorry Mr. du Cheyne, but that’s just the way things are. I really do feel badly for you, but there’s nothing I can do. Let me take you on a nice tour of the facility, introduce you to a few people... You really
do
have the qualifications we need. Maybe in a year... two...”

o0o

Not much of a place, really. Insulating platforms under heavy-duty eutrophic shields, keeping the Callistan environment at bay. A few admin centers. A landing stage with a variety of commercial spacecraft. Machine shops. A couple of medium-sized cranes. A lot of it clearly antique equipment bought from a discounter.

If I didn’t know the story, I’d turn my nose up at this place. Me? Work
here
? You’ve got to be kidding. I’d just as soon work at the bus depot. But, over there, sat the cracked and blackened remains of
Torus X-4
, surrounded by what looked like armed guards. Company cops? Rental forces?

Seeing me stare, Miss Tallentire said, “Those are Regents’ Security. We’ve been having a, um, little trouble with the media.”

Closer to us,
Torus X-1
was a bright disk, shiny and new, hull patches opened, swarmed over by working men and women. Look at that. Toolpacks and testrigs. All the right stuff. I tried to peer inside, past strings of temporary lighting, into...

Tallentire said, “Mr. du Cheyne, this is Gordon Lassiter, shift supervisor for the turnaround refit on
X-1
. She’ll be going to Salieri next week, carrying the embassy team home with the news.”

Tall, skinny man, smiling at me, offering his hand. Wary eyes, probing, looking me up and down. I said, “Hi.” He took my hand in his, gave it a quick shake.

Tallentire said, “Mr. du Cheyne is one of our small stockholders, Gordy, he...”

He said, “You sure don’t
look
like a richbitch, Mr. du Cheyne.”

So.

Tallentire laughed, and said, “Gordy! He’s a class ten mechanic. Formerly with ERSIE.”

“Yeah? Me too. But I’ve been with B-VEI for almost ten years now.”

“Mr. du Cheyne would like to come work with us. I’ve explained to him about the timeline on the apprenticeship program.”

Silence. Watching me stare at the bustling workers. Finally, Lassiter said, “So what do you think of our little ships?”

I said, “They’re... very nice. Could I go aboard?”

A quick look between the two, then Tallentire said, “We have pretty strong regulations against that, Mr. du Cheyne. Sorry.”

Lassiter said, “If you make the grade, you’ll see soon enough. I can’t
wait
to get started on the big new ships! I...” Sudden halt,
oops
forming in his eyes. “Well, I guess I better get back to work. Nice meeting you, du Cheyne.”

Nothing more than a quickly receding back, a sense of
loose lips sink ships
. Tallentire said, “Shall we go?”

I stood still, quietly watching them work. “I expected you’d begin commercialization as soon as you could. When? If it’s all right for me to know. As a stockholder.”

She said, “It’s not really a secret, Mr. du Cheyne. We begin construction on the new shipbuilding ways next week. We’ll begin with a line of interstellar luxury liners and class A manifest cargo carriers, for which we already have some tentative commitments. We expect to have the first deliverables in about six years.”

Six years. “That’s a long time.”

“Yes. And we can’t legally issue contracts until the new ways are completed and we have a certain amount of new financing in place. It’s a pinch.”

“Do you mind telling me how much those ships will be going for?”

She put one hand thoughtfully to her chin, a very pretty gesture, eyes far away. “Um. I guess, since we’ll be publicizing in just a few more days... well, market analysis and preliminary customer contact indicates we can get about twenty-three million livres for the luxury liners. Maybe two-thirds that for a stripped down freighter.”

So. No matter how rich you
are
... “That’s a fuck of a lot of money. Not many companies going to be able to scrape together that much cash.”

She said, “They will if they want to stay competitive, Mr. du Cheyne.”

“I wonder what’ll happen to the stock market?” Wondering just what my AI could do with the 3.2 million I’ve got already. Not that, for sure. What the fuck am I dreaming about this for? Twenty million livres? Why the hell don’t I just buy a fucking ERSIE slowboat and go crawling slug-like off into the cosmos?

She said, “Look at it this way. In a few years, if you decide you
don’t
want to work for us, you’ll be able to plan on some
very
nice vacation tours.”

Vacation tours. Right. I said, “So what happens to these little ones? Going to keep sending them out?”

Silence. Then she said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but... Mr. du Cheyne, the company is quite strapped for cash right now. We’ve shut down the experimental production facility and we’ll be selling these ships for whatever we can get. Regents’ Security has logged a preemptive bid for the hulk of
X-4
; we’ll be advertising the other three in about a month.”

I thought about that.
Surely
a company in B-VEI’s position would be able to float just about any loan it wanted. Wouldn’t it? Or maybe some big bad wolf was floating out there in the economic void, stopping... What the hell. Can’t hurt to ask. All she can do is laugh. Then you’ll go your merry way, get ready to move. Think about what you want to fucking
do
for the next few years. I said, “What would you take for
X-3
here?”

Long, long silence. Then she said, “Um. Mr. du Cheyne? I think maybe we’d better go chat with Dr. Vataro.”

Vataro. As in Berens-Vataro. “What for?”

She said, “Um. The company’s in a tighter squeeze than I may have suggested, Mr. du Cheyne. Dr. Vataro will be meeting with some investment bankers in a little less than one hour, trying to arrange a small cash infusion so we can make it through to our first contract signing without selling any more of our company-held stock. He’ll be signing one of those 18% notes.”

Interesting.

She said, “After that we’ll be able to get the usual fully-secured 4% commercial loans, but... we need the money
now
and it’s going to cost us.”

“So? What does this have to do with...”

She beamed at me, a flash of pretty eyes and a sexually suggestive smile, most likely all in my imagination. “I was thinking you might be able to help us out here. The company holds precisely 50.07% of the voting stock. What we were thinking of borrowing was something on the order of three million livres.”

It took me a minute to realize just what the hell she was talking about.

Five: I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling

I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling, naked, pressed to my narrow bed by Callisto’s absurd point-oh-five gee, dorm room air cool on slightly night-sweaty skin and... Wind of cold wonder striking my back just then, smarmy cramp of unresolvable horniness abruptly forgotten.
I’m here
.

When my feet hit the thin, velvety carpet, I heard the shower start up, dorm AI setting it for the temperature it knew I liked, numbers picked from my memory, I suppose, or maybe even cross-loaded from L1(SE). A friendly voice, a familiar feel to the thing. A lot like the old apartment AI. Flatter affect, of course, it not having had time to grow accustomed to my ways...

Chatter from the stock ticker, already comfortable in its new compspace, updating me on how it was handling the measly 278,413 livres of my diminished account. Angry at me, little one? Is that possible? Probability table spawning, showing me the very low likelihood it would ever be able to build me another three-million-livre fortune...

After breakfast, full orange Jupiter high in a black, moon-pocked sky, Sun somewhere below Callisto’s dark gray horizon, Gordy Lassiter had the sense to be quiet while I stood on the edge of the drydock platform and looked at my ship.

Torus X-3
.

Well. No. I... I’ll think of something when the time comes.

Finally: “Might as well go inside, Gae.”

I turned and looked at him. No urge to tell him my name wasn’t
Gae
? No. I cold see the fire of naked envy in his eyes.
My ship
. I smiled and said, “I guess so.”

Nothing before us now but a shining silver disk, the mirror brightness of chrome rather than the duller burnish of real silver. A flattish silver disk with the cross section of a spiral galaxy, complete with spherical hub. At a guess, I thought the thing measured a hundred meters across the plane of the disk, maybe twenty meters through the central bulge. For a starship, an itty bitty thing. As we walked closer, I could see the silver finish was faintly tarnished here and there, irregular blotches of faint bronze, gold, bits of rainbow glimmer. Tarnished by the energies of hyperspace? I don’t know.

We went under the rim, into shadow, where four stubby landing legs, unfolded from pods attached to the southern hemisphere of the ship’s central bulge stood spraddle-legged on the pavement. Lassiter said, “We haven’t really started pulling her down yet, so when we get inside, you won’t see much at first besides her public face.” We walked around the curve of the hull to where a long ramp of stairs had dropped down on two curved supports from its recess against the underside of the disk, leading up to an open door in the side of the sphere.