CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

“M urderer!” screamed Termanian as Parmina stiffened and slid down the ornate cabinet at that end of the room.

“Not yet,” Rafe said. “I merely use more efficient knockout drugs than most. You, on the other hand—” He thumbed the load selector again. Termanian threw himself back in his chair, hands over his face.

“He made me do it…he said if I didn’t…”

“Oh, be quiet.” Rafe nodded to the guard nearest Termanian. “Secure him, would you?” He looked down. “Father?”

“I think we might adjourn to the room next door while someone picks up the fallen,” his father said. The rest of the Board turned to look at him. “Now,” his father said. Rafe waited until the near side of the table was clear before moving his father down the room toward that door. Their last firm suspect lingered, looking around uneasily.

“I do know about you,” Rafe said. “But it’s up to you whether you want to cooperate or cause trouble.”

“I…I should’ve said something,” he said. “When Lew first came to me, I should’ve…but it seemed to make sense in a way—and he promised—and suddenly all my pet birds died, and he said how easy it was for pet birds to catch something, and I knew what he meant…”

“Did you know his plans for me, Wickins? For my family?”

“No,” the man said. “I swear I didn’t. I wouldn’t have—even scared, I’d have told someone. It was just Vote like this or Let this project run or Terminate that one.”

“I see,” his father said. “You will forgive me if I must delve a little deeper than that…I had not suspected Lew myself, and it makes me suspicious of others.”

“I understand. I’m sorry, I really am. I had no idea he was capable of anything like…like…”

“Torturing people and killing babies? Neither did I. But he did, and those who helped him in any way, knowing or unknowing, are going to be held accountable.”

“I will resign from the Board at once…”

“Of course you will, but I commend you for saying so quickly. I’m afraid you’ll have several unpleasant days, but I assure you they will not be as unpleasant as mine were. If you will go with these gentlemen—” His father nodded at the two of Gary’s people who stood ready.

“Y-yes. I’m sorry…”

“I’m sure you are. Rafe, let’s go in.”

The room looked more like a lounge, with couches and chairs arranged around the room and a bar at the end. The faces turned toward his father were all, as far as Rafe could tell, full of honest concern and shock.

“I want you all to know,” his father began, “that I had begun an internal investigation into some irregularities about two years ago. At no point in that investigation did I suspect that Lew Parmina had anything to do with the irregularities. I had known Lew for years, as all of us have. He was my protégé; I brought him into management myself, when he was an eager young intern. When we were abducted, I could not believe, at first, what we were told—that he was behind it. However, I was wrong. He was acting against the intent of this Board, and against me. In the days since Rafe rescued us, he and I have been able to crack some of Parmina’s files and see what he had in mind. This evidence—where it does not compromise our internal security—will be turned over to law enforcement. I wish to apologize to the Board for having brought Lew into our confidence, for not having realized what he was. I hope you will agree that I have been sufficiently punished…”

“Of course, Garston,” Vaclav said; others nodded. “None of us spotted it. He must have had incredibly good luck, or an accomplice within the firm, to keep it all so quiet.”

“He’s very intelligent,” Rafe’s father said. “My own guess is that his first goal was simply to rise in the company and end up as CEO; I’m not sure when his other goals became involved. But it was not recent. I’m now convinced that he was behind the attempted abduction of Rafe and his sister Penelope—the incident in which Rafe killed the invaders and saved himself and his sister. And behind the advice to send Rafe away. He wanted to eliminate the competition, as he saw it.”

“So…I’m assuming Oster was one of his people,” Madeleine Pronst said. “Termanian? Wickins?”

“Yes,” Rafe’s father said. “We have some of the other names, but not by any means all. However, more immediately, there’s the matter of the running of the company. As you can see, I am physically impaired. Doctors are unsure if I will regain all function. I am also mentally impaired due to damage to my implant, which propagated into the brain. It does not affect my language functions, and I have passed a competency test, but I am not at full capacity and in this crisis ISC needs someone who is. They tell me that for full recovery—if it’s possible—I must have my damaged implant removed, and I will be much more impaired then for some considerable time. No new implant can be installed until the brain damage has healed.”

“And we are all suspect,” Madeleine said, glancing around. “Perhaps not in your mind, Garston, but everyone on the Board must be, at least for a while.”

“Yes,” Rafe’s father said. “And that’s why I want you to agree to my next request.” He paused, glanced around, and went on. “I want you to approve Rafe as my successor, at least on a temporary basis.”

“Rafe! But he’s not…he has no background!”

“We need someone who knows the business—”

“He can’t possibly understand the complexity—”

Rafe’s father raised his hand, and the hubbub died down. “Hear me out,” he said. “Rafe was brought up in the business; his university studies, to the point at which he left, covered business topics—and ISC was the model used in classes. I know, because I checked at the time. He has done work for us as an undercover agent from time to time, especially in the last five years, investigating situations important to ISC in a number of systems. This has required him to live under an assumed name. Some of which—fortunately—Lew Parmina did not know.”

“Was he on the payroll?” Madeleine asked. “I don’t recall—”

“No. As some of you know, he received a remittance on condition of staying away from Nexus except for brief visits, not more than once every year. In part to protect his cover, I did not put him on the payroll. I found his data to be accurate, and there was no indication that he had ever breached our confidence.”

“I see. Well…” She gave Rafe a challenging look. “Do you think you’re up to this, young man? You’ll have your father’s advice, but—”

“In many ways, I’m not up to it,” Rafe said. “As several of you pointed out, I haven’t been working openly in the company, I don’t know all the right people and procedures. Any one of you—any division head, for that matter—knows more about how things work here at headquarters than I do. In other ways, I agree with my father that I am the only person for the job right now. I know things about ISC and its employees—out in the systems where our income originates—that none of you can. I can untangle the mess Lew Parmina left faster than you can, because I have not only the background but also offworld contacts you lack. ISC is in crisis, not only because of Lew Parmina. You don’t know this yet, but shipboard ansibles are now being used both by a hostile force intent on domination of systems, and by the force that opposes it. I saw the ansibles myself; I know they work. I know that they are being manufactured somewhere off Nexus II, though not yet where. Once technology like that gets loose, as I’m sure you appreciate, it can’t be stuffed back in the closet. We are in a fair way to lose our monopoly, to be seen as an obsolete, inferior system of communication, useful only for those systems too poor to afford better.”

The shock he saw on their faces now was economic; all of them could see the implications of that.

“We have ruled the universe within hundreds of light-years by virtue of controlling communications,” he said. “We wisely did not bother with planetary governments—we simply maintained open communications and insisted on our monopoly. It was a great idea, and it worked brilliantly…until technology advanced. When every ship carries its own ansible—”

“But they don’t link with ours,” someone said.

“They didn’t link with ours,” Rafe said. “The ones we manufactured didn’t. But there was no technical reason why they couldn’t…it was ISC’s decision to limit connectivity to maintain control of the technology. We’ve lost that. At present, I haven’t personally seen a shipborne ansible with the capability to connect directly to our net, but if you believe it won’t happen, you believe in fairy tales.”

Stunned silence. One of the men—Bennett D’Argent, his implant informed him—raised his hand. “You talked about a hostile force. Do you know anything about that?”

“Quite a bit, but that’s not the first order of business. The first order of business is whether or not you’ll confirm me to my father’s role. I certainly can’t do what needs to be done without your support, and I believe I can if I have it.”

“You have mine,” Vaclav Box said. “But you knew that.”

“And mine,” Madeleine said. “I can see we’ve got a crisis; we need all of Garston’s input we can get, and Rafe seems to have skills none of us have.”

The rest fell in line with almost no more resistance; when they moved back into the main boardroom, all its messes cleared away, Rafe sat at the head of the table, with his father’s float chair at his left hand, and called the meeting to order.

The next morning, Rafe woke in his own room, on a bed that he had not realized his body remembered. This would not do, he realized. He wasn’t that young boy. He had been moved to tears that they’d saved his room, kept it for him, but he was no longer the person for whom these mementos had meaning. He ignored the robe his mother had put out for him—obviously his father’s—and padded down the hall to the bathroom. A quick shower…into the suit…A suit, he muttered to himself. It felt more like a costume.

The car would be waiting…he glanced outside. It was. He tapped out the code Gary had given him, and the lights flared and died. So it was the right car. He was sure it would be. Gary had been paid his fee, with a bonus, and he was using Gary’s people for the house security as well as his own.

“You’re not leaving already—” That was his sister. Her bruises had gone an even uglier yellow and green, with a few magenta marks where the injuries had been bone-deep; in the hall light, she looked fragile and ill.

“I have to,” Rafe said. “I have to be at the office on time.” He made himself grin at her. “Can you believe it? Your bad-boy brother getting all dressed up to go to the office on time?”

“Don’t,” she said. She put out her arms, and he pulled her into a quick, fierce hug. “You’re not bad,” she said, against his shoulder. “You were never bad. I shouldn’t have cried, that night—”

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “You were young; you were scared; I killed our pet—”

“But if I hadn’t—”

“This would still have happened,” he said. “It wasn’t you. It was him.” That charming, intelligent, clever snake of a man. That monster, now locked in a cell deep within ISC headquarters. Rafe pushed her gently back. “I have to go; I have to take over. Father said so.”

“Will he ever be the same?”

“I don’t know, but I know we’ll do all we can for him.”

In the car, in the darkness of an autumn morning with cold rain drizzling down, Rafe turned on the light and looked at the data chips, glittering blue-violet, that his father had given him. Backups to the implant his father had had…or, if Lew Parmina had found them first, traps for anyone who used them. He needed the data…Lew would have known he’d need the data. Be careful, his father had said. He put the chips back in his inner pocket.

ISC’s headquarters building was lit top-to-bottom two hours before most employees were due at work. At the main entrance, Rafe’s bodyguard—still one of Gary’s people—stepped out first, looked around, and then opened his door. “You did remember the body armor, sir?”

“I never leave home without it,” Rafe said. “But I’m hoping that the snake had only one head.”

At the door, the security guard recognized him and would have passed him through, but Rafe stopped him. “Son, I’ve had more faces than you have years.” That wasn’t true, but it got attention. “Don’t you ever skimp on validating ID, not with me, not with anyone. Now check my bioscans properly.”

“Yes, sir…”

He chose the lift for ordinary employees, transferring at the seventh floor to the stairs. He needed the exercise, he told himself. Later, he would have to find some way to work exercise into his daily schedule, not only the executive gym but also someone to spar with, someone to shoot against. His bodyguards, one a flight ahead and one a flight behind, would probably be ideal.

At the eleventh floor, the stairway door opened around the corner from the elevators. Rafe’s forward guard stopped before turning and produced a small flat screen connected to a fiber-optic wand with a lens in the end. Rafe peered over his shoulder as he extended it around the corner. Someone was waiting, positioned to watch the elevator…someone suited, but with an ominous bulge under his jacket. A receptionist, pale and immobile, sat perched on the edge of her chair to one side. The bodyguard glanced back at Rafe and cocked his head. Rafe shrugged and ran a finger along his own throat.

A moment later he heard a soft phut!, then the sound of a body hitting the floor, and a cry, quickly cut off. The guard extended the wand again. The man was down, not yet dead but clearly dying; the receptionist had both hands to her mouth and looked about to faint.

The bodyguards both went ahead. No one else was in sight; no one popped out from behind one of the ornamental plants. Rafe followed, smiling at the receptionist.

“Sera Contado? Most upsetting for you; I’m so sorry. You’ll want some time off to recover—”

“Please—I don’t want to look—”

“Of course not. Come over here.” He took hold of her chair and swung it around so she faced the striped curtains at the windows. “Was he here when you got here?”

She nodded, her mouth trembling. “He—he must have been hiding…around the corner…I was in early; I always come in early, and I knew…I thought…you’re new…I wanted to be here…”

“That was very thoughtful of you,” Rafe said, in his gentlest voice.

“And I was sitting here, sorting the calls that had come in, just as I always do…did…for your father. I mean, I’m not his assistant or anything, but the calls do come to me first, and I do my best…”

“I’m sure you do. So you were sitting here sorting calls…”

“Yes. By urgency, you understand. Things you’d need to know about immediately. And…and then…I just saw a sort of shadow and he was beside me, and he had a weapon…he said he’d kill me if I moved, and I didn’t move; I couldn’t move; I was so scared…”

“Of course,” Rafe murmured. Whatever his guards were doing, the sound of harsh rattling breath had stopped. “And you’re still frightened, of course you are. I’m going to call down for some tea—”

“Don’t leave me!” Her eyes, as well as her voice, begged him.

“I’m not leaving.”

“There’s…there’s hot beverage service here always…I could make…”

She would fall over if she tried to stand; she was trembling.

“Just tell me where it is,” Rafe said. “I can make tea.”

“Not you! You’re—you’re the Chairman!”

Rafe grinned at her, keeping it friendly. “Even chairmen can boil water. Is it there? In that cabinet?” He had spotted the concealed doors. She nodded. “Then you sit right there—I’ll just be a few meters away—and we’ll start this day over with a nice cup of tea.” Into which, if he was lucky, he could pour the something stronger he expected would be in the same cabinet.

He glanced at his bodyguards; one was still kneeling beside the corpse; the other was watching him. When he opened the doors, he saw immediately where the man had hidden. The cabinet was intended to house not only a hot drinks service, but cleaning supplies for the reception area as well. The marks of a vacuum and bucket were clear on the floor, but that side was empty. The hot drinks service was in working order, and in less than a minute Rafe handed Sera Contado a fat gray mug with the ISC logo in blue and gold. The intruder had emptied the bottle of brandy he’d hoped to use, but the sugar he’d poured into her tea should help.

“We’ll need to get this to forensics,” one of the bodyguards said.

“We should give law enforcement a chance,” Rafe said. “They’re probably not all bent.”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

“One of you come with me. I want to get Sera Contado out of here before you…move anything.”

His father’s office looked the way Rafe had always imagined it, the way vid shows depicted the offices of senior executives in major corporations. The outer office, with two desks for the assistants and a small seating area for those waiting a meeting with the CEO. The inner office, a large carpeted space with a desk that seemed, at first glance, as big as some of the ship cabins Rafe had traveled in. The seating area, with its small couches arranged around a low table…the vase of fresh flowers there…the bookcases…the windows, with their curtains. A door led into a small passage with a bathroom—a full bath, he noticed—on one side, and a compact kitchen on the other. Beyond was a meeting room, smaller than the Boardroom but still big enough for ten people to sit around the oval table.

And now it was his space. His domain. The domain he had never wanted…or the domain he had not let himself want, knowing it was impossible. It felt too big and too limited at the same time. He handed Sera Contado to one of the soft couches, putting her mug down on the table for her, and crossed to the desk. The top was bare, a smooth expanse of flame-grain wood with smoked-glass inserts for the desk displays.

“I’m going to call down to the infirmary,” he said to her. “They can send up a nurse…and of course you’ll take the day off.”

“Oh, but I can’t,” she said. “I can’t afford—” Her cheeks turned red.

“It won’t count against you,” Rafe said. “Think of it as…as a reward for your bravery. You should be proud of yourself. You didn’t scream; you didn’t faint.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I—I didn’t, did I? I thought I would. I thought, I can’t stand this, and then…I’m still here.”

“I think you should at least rest in the infirmary for a while,” Rafe said. “We need to check the building, and make sure you will be safe when you leave. Is that all right with you?”

“I’m feeling much better…I don’t think I need to rest.” But her breath still came too fast; her color came and went.

“Just for a little while,” Rafe said. “You don’t have to lie down, if you don’t want. Just give us a chance to check things out.”

By the time the nurse arrived, Rafe was already engulfed in the day’s crises. The police were on the way; nothing should be moved. The building security staff, with rough guidance from Gary’s people, were moving through every space—every space they knew about, Rafe thought—with speed that he hoped wouldn’t let them miss something important. No other intruders had been found yet.