Tales from the Captain’s Table (40 page)

Silver turned around to see himself facing four Creative Development security guards in uniforms of interlocking pastels, none of whom had facial expressions as cheerful as their outfits.

“Listen, friend,” the largest of them said to Silver, “the CEO sends his regrets, but he knows why you’re here and he has no desire to see you. We’re here,” he indicated himself and his three large companions, “to make certain you leave peacefully.”

“But,” the friendly desk clerk started to object, “we operate on a—”

“CEO’s orders,” the lead guard said without taking his eyes off Silver.

Silver was tempted to allow the guards to escort him out of the factory and to confront the Gallamite after working hours, and had the situation not been quite so similar to the original scene that had led to his death, he might well have. At first he nodded in agreement and headed for the door, listening for the footsteps of the lead guard right behind him. When his ears told him that he and his target were in the right positions, Silver spun and dropped the guard with a quick chop to the side of the neck. While the other three guards were still reaching for their weapons Silver had pulled his phaser and stunned them into unconsciousness.

Silver walked back over to the desk clerk, who was pale as a ghost and frozen in place. Silver reached past him, looked down at his signaling board, and flipped the “all clear” button, informing the security office, inaccurately of course, that the problem he represented had been dealt with.

“CEO’s office?” he asked the desk clerk, who was barely able to stammer out an answer. “Thanks. Take the rest of the day off. You don’t look well.”

The Gallamite’s office was right off what clearly had once been an assembly-line floor, but was now more like an artist’s studio, with holoequipment and replicators and even good old-fashioned marble, paint, and canvas, as well as several dozen artists hard at work. Silver barely took in the surroundings as he headed straight for the Gallamite’s office and kicked open the door.

There he was, the gamemaster, the man who had conned him and set him up to die. He’d put on about a hundred pounds since then, but somehow looked younger than his years. The Gallamite shrugged as Silver walked in, not at all thrown by the abrupt opening of his door.

“You’re here to kill me,” he said softly to Silver. “So go ahead.”

“But you’ll have to get through us first,” came a voice from behind Silver, and as he turned, the artists from the factory floor stepped into the room around him and closed ranks in front of the Gallamite.

“Wasn’t for him,” one of them said, “we’d have starved.”

“Everyone else left,” someone else said, “and took their money off-planet with them. They left us with nothing, and no way out.”

“He’s the one who came up with this,” another said, waving at the factory floor that was now an art studio.

Silver took a long hard look at the factory floor. So that was what was going on here, he realized. What’s the one thing a replicator or a holodeck can’t give you? Something you haven’t thought of yet. What was the one thing it cost almost nothing to make and nothing to export? Art. Designs. Replicator patterns for useful and decorative items that no one had thought of yet. Holographic dramas that could be generated entirely on one or two small machines and then sent out to the rest of the galaxy for next to nothing, but at a high profit. If the Gallamite had really come up with the concept, no wonder these people thought so highly of him.

Of course, going through them to get to the Gallamite wasn’t much of a problem. Silver had a phaser, not a shotgun, and a quick blast or two on light stun would clear the path to the Gallamite and leave nothing on Silver’s conscience. Still, he hesitated to draw his weapon on innocents, and while he did, the Gallamite’s soft voice came out from behind the crowd that had gathered.

“Thank you all,” he said, in the very same soothing voice that had kept Silver putting more chips down on the table all those years ago, “but if you’d just step outside now, I’m sure that this nice officer and I can resolve our problems amicably.”

The crowd seemed uncertain, but the Gallamite’s words sank in and one by one they left, glaring at Silver on their way out.

“So,” the Gallamite said, “either shoot me or take a seat.”

Silver sat.

“First of all,” he said, “I’m sorry. Things shouldn’t have gone as far as they did, and we never should have killed you. I’m glad the condition wasn’t permanent.”

Silver found the apology oddly comforting, even though the smoothness of the Gallamite’s voice left him questioning its sincerity. He felt some of his anger slip away and was annoyed to feel it go.

“However,” the Gallamite said, “I hope you know there were consequences for me. I had killed a Starfleet officer, and suddenly I was out of a job and, for that matter, out of a planet. I couldn’t settle anywhere without my Starfleet warrant popping up, whether in a month, a year, or two years, and bang, once again my life was gone.” The Gallamite held up his hands, cutting off the remark Silver was going to make. “Not in the way that yours was, but in a way. Finally it occurred to me that the one place no one would look for me was somewhere that people were deserting in droves. By all accounts, Carnegie would be almost empty soon after I got here—and that suited me fine.”

“So what happened?” Silver asked. He had to steel himself to remember that this man made his living conning people, and that his words should not be trusted. Still, he was curious.

“So I got here, felt safe for the first time since I helped kill you, and I got bored,” he said. “And I never could resist a gamble. So I bought out this factory for back taxes, applied under the corporate name for a Federation grant under the Assistance to Unaligned Planets program, and started turning this place around, employing the same engineers and designers and artists who created our physical products in the past to make virtual ones that can be produced by our customers on-site.”

“Good idea,” Silver said.

“Thanks,” he said. “But I have an even better one. How about you don’t shoot me, and I’ll cut you in for, say, five percent of the profits? After all, if I’m dead, I can’t make a dime off this place.”

Silver was taken aback. He hadn’t expected to be offered a payoff, and it was clear that the Gallamite, in his own selfish, self-centered way, was doing a world of good—literally—for these people and this place.

Gold paused in his story. His throat was dry, and if it weren’t Yom Kippur, he would have asked for a drink of water before continuing.

“Pausing to heighten suspense,” the Olexan said, thinking Gold had stopped his tale for that reason, “is dishonorable.” His hand began to move toward the weapon at his side, but stopped at a stern glance from Cap, who was, as usual, aware of everything that was going on in the Captain’s Table.

“Hardly,” the Boundarian put in. “Risking, as the storyteller is, the wrath of his audience, pausing is an act of bravery, greatly to be admired.”

“No, it is merely annoying,” Al put in.

“Gentlemen,” the Telspong said softly, “in music, the spaces between the notes are often as important to the enjoyment of the piece as the notes themselves—sometimes more. I see this as a period of contemplation that enhances the overall effect of the story. For a moment, we remain curious what the star of the story did, and that curiosity, in and of itself, improves the story.”

“The only honorable thing would be to accept the offer,” the Olexan said. “Blood money is a standard contract, although typically the victim does not rise from the dead to demand it himself.”

“I would have refused the offer,” the Boundarian said. “Accepting money to abandon a blood debt is dishonorable.”

It was unclear to Gold, as he waited for his throat to recover, whether the Olexan and the Boundarian intentionally took opposite sides on every issue of honor simply for the pleasure of annoying each other, or if these differences were the root cause of the conflict between their peoples.

The table’s consensus was that it was the Telspong’s turn to comment, but he declined. “I prefer,” he said, “to wait and see how a story plays out without attempting to get ahead of it. I find that if I guess successfully, the impact is weakened for me, and if I guess unsuccessfully, I am annoyed at my failure to make an accurate prediction and again the impact is weakened.”

“I,” Al said somewhat fiercely, “am beginning to see how this story relates to my current situation, and would like to hear how this section of it turns out.” He glared the others into silence, then turned expectantly to Gold.

Well, Silver found this situation to be far different from the one he had faced with the Katcherian years ago. The Gallamite was unchanged, simply forced by circumstances into behaving as a benefactor, by accident, almost. Now that he had introduced the idea of selling creativity rather than large blocks of metal, it would spread throughout the planet with or without him. There was a sense in which he was no longer necessary. And for that matter, there were, as the Gallamite had pointed out, active Starfleet warrants out for his arrest. Gold could simply stun him, ask for a beam-up to the ship, and execute the warrant once on board. True, it might upset his captain’s current negotiations, but those negotiations were pro forma anyway and not expected to succeed.

“That five percent,” Silver said at last. “Let me ask you a question—what percentage of the profits do your designers receive?”

The Gallamite’s face showed his surprise at the question, and perhaps a bit of suspicion and defensiveness. “They are amply compensated,” he said warily, “but you have to understand, the major investment is mine, the equipment is mine, I make the decisions as to which product lines we are going to pursue, and so on. Their contribution, while vital, is only a small part of…” The Gallamite trailed off as Silver’s hand started moving involuntarily toward his phaser.

“Here’s what I suggest,” Silver said. “You give your designers the extra five percent you were going to give me, and I’ll forget I found you here.”

The Gallamite smiled widely. “Certainly! Absolutely! Consider it done!” He tapped some keys on the computer in front of him. “There! The designer compensation fund has already been increased by five percent of the after-tax profits from last year, and will be for this year.”

“That’s nice,” Silver said, “but not what I meant. What I mean is that each designer will receive five percent of the profits from their particular creative endeavor.”

The Gallamite’s face fell. “Pay them directly? That will cost me…”

“A lot less than your life, or a life sentence for killing a Starfleet officer,” Silver said.

“But my competitors…they aren’t online yet, but they will be shortly, and…”

“Oh,” Silver said, “I’m quite sure your competitors are in startup mode right now. Once you announce your new percentage plan, not only will you retain your best designers, you’ll set the participation standard for your entire industry, and perhaps the entire planet. It’s likely I’m only asking you to accelerate a payment structure you would have been forced into anyway.”

The Gallamite considered his options for a moment, then agreed. Silver, remembering the guards he had stunned down below and that they were quite possibly awake and angry by this time, called to his ship for beam-up.

“I’ll be stopping by from time to time,” Silver said, “to make certain that you’re following your end of our deal. I’ll leave you this to remember me by.” He took out one of his two remaining black chips and flipped it across the desk to the Gallamite, who, old gamemaster that he was, caught it deftly. His expression was no more cheerful when he saw it than it had been when Silver had tried to tip him with it, all those years ago.
Good,
Silver thought.
Let the coin remind him of the consequences of his actions, as it has reminded me all these years.
As Silver felt the transporter beam dissolve him, he felt his hatred and anger toward the Gallamite dissolving as well.

“Fair enough,” the Olexan said, “a blood price is a blood price, and if the offended decides to spread the wealth, that’s up to him.”

“Nonsense,” the Boundarian said, “a payoff is a payoff, no matter how the money is spent.”

The Telspong tapped on his padd and pulled up the current status of the planet Carnegie. “Carnegie,” he read aloud, “is a center for art and design known throughout the galaxy. The basic design for the fighter craft used by the Federation against the Dominion came from there, as did the winners of the last four Virtual awards for Best Holographic Scenario. The economy of the planet is stable and the distribution of wealth is among the most equitable in the Federation, of which it is now a member. Is it still known in your time?” the Telspong said to the man from the future.