I rose to walk barefoot along a curving Tahitian beach in the early dawn and by the time the nameless, forgettable girls had awakened to a breakfast of fruit, I was at a conference table a thousand kilometers away, discussing interest rates and tax credits.
I do not think I have been callous in my treatment of the young beauties who, in effect, sell themselves to me, or at least rent. They are pleasant companions, and the wisest of them know the time spent with me is an investment. I make outright gifts of stock or jobs, and I open investment opportunities for brothers and fathers, and sometimes husbands. Our relations are businesslike, a bartering process in laughter and sex and companionship.
By no means were all of my female friends in this classification, although I have become friends with many women I met in this manner. Many of my friends are the wives and mistresses or companions of friends, wise and wonderful women whose friendship I value as much as that of any man.
But there is always the matter of sex. Sex has a beginning, a middle, and an end, both in individual acts and in affairs. When the time came that a woman no longer interested me, or I no longer interested her, I might make a suggestion to a film producer, if she was the right type, and wanted it. She might go from my bed to having her name across every teleset on four continents. I might bring some rich-bodied, hot-mouthed wench together with a sensatron artist like Coe, give the necessary commission, and the aid of my Publitex firm to “glorify” it, and another star would be born as payment for a week in Madagascar or several delightful days of rutting in the Atlantis undersea world. It was incidental that my publicity company made money, that an artist was helped, that the sensatron could be donated, and that my Voyage Productions had a new star. I might do the same sort of thing for someone who had merely pleased me, or someone I admired, without any sex or ego-caresses. It was something I seemed to do by reflex, separating the wheat from the chaff, plucking the good from the poor and making it better.
All this was because of my money, and my money was, in part, because of all this. Money, beyond a certain point, is only wealth. Wealth, after a certain point, is pointless. It’s there, you know it’s there, but you don’t really know how much it is. You really only care when it isn’t there. Money is a burden, a responsibility, and just occasionally, a joy.
I bring up the matter of my wealth merely to provide a frame of reference. It is well known that I am one of the world’s five hundred wealthiest men. It is not so well known that I am one of the world’s most frustrated artists. The presstats often run features on me, tied in with some unorthodox venture, and one of their favorite clichés is “The Man With the Midas Touch.” This is an oversimplification that I find annoying. They seem to think that all it takes to make money is money. But many a millionaire has been reduced to trust income by making the wrong decisions too many times. Many a minor investor has risen by a series of right decisions at the right times. The sensation press likes to refer to these meteoric rises as a run of luck, a fortunate throw of the dice. Luck does play a part in any venture when not all the factors are known. My modestly endowed archeological team digging at the Martian ruins near Bradbury was “lucky” enough to discover the treasure that has come to be called the Royal Jewels of Ares, although no scientific proof exists that they are in any way royal, or even if a Martian royalty existed. It is this kind of luck that keeps me in the eye of the presstats, the darling of Uninews, and the target for more get-rich-quick schemes than you would believe.
Every man with even a one-star credit rating is a mark for swindlers, cheats, ambitious women, and the tax man. Every rich man learns to protect his treasure with information, suspicion, wit, force, research, guile, early warning systems, intelligence, and, often, ruthlessness. When you become what the press services have dubbed the super-rich you are the automatic magnet for countless secret dossiers, plans, lusts, schemes, hatreds, and envy. You are shot at just because you are rich. You are insulted, seduced, ignored, catered to, and charged extra—not because of you, but simply because you have money.
But, all in all, it is better to be rich than poor, and it is better to be super-rich than just rich, because it lets you do things few other people can do. For one thing, it gives you some degree of privacy. In a world bulging with eight billion people, and more on the way, real privacy is almost impossible except to the very rich and the incurably insane. Being rich, I have been able to indulge myself shamelessly in those two things I deem most important: art and women.
It was when I went to Mars that everything changed.
I didn’t need to go to Mars. Several chairmen of several boards begged me not to, when I mentioned it as a possibility. At least a dozen women saw it as a hopeless tragedy, not because of any great personal concern or love, but because it would thwart the timing of certain ventures they had in mind for me. My friends, who knew me, shrugged and wished me luck, but I don’t think any of them really expected me to actually go. Few men of my status had ever even considered it seriously. I had no pressing business on Mars, I just wanted to go. But being the locus of hundreds of lines of power and responsibility makes you a hostage to your own money, and to those who depended upon the stability of my “empire.” The only way I could go was to sneak away, and that wasn’t easy. I knew that even my own security guards might consider it a higher loyalty, since my life might be in danger, to prevent me from going by leaking the news. Certainly all my company presidents and most of my stockholders considered it unnecessary that I endanger myself. If I went, they went, and I don’t mean to Mars.
But the adventure of going beyond the Moon excited me. It always had, but somehow I had just never had the time before. Or made the time. When I was a small boy I saw for the first time a recording of the landing at Touchdown and I had never forgotten the feeling of excitement. Through the crackle and pop I heard that corny but stirring line, “Today Mars, tomorrow the stars!”
My preoccupation with the fourth planet had lead me to invest heavily in almost anything Martian, although my natural caution kept me away from some of the more fraudulent schemes, such as the Martian Estates, the Secret Knowledge Foundation, the Deimos affair, and the ludicrous “Canal Dust” panaceas. It was my Martian Explorations teams that discovered the ancient ruins at Burroughs and Wells, and explored the huge Nix Olympica cone. I must admit it was I who suggested to Mizaki and Villareal, and later to the Tannberg group, that they utilize the names that had so intrigued and delighted us all in our youth. Yet it was really not me, but my money that spoke. All I might expect is a paragraph in art history, like one of the Borgias, or a pope. I was merely the patron of such sensatron artists as Cilento, Caruthers, and Willoughby. It was my money that assisted the creation of Vardi’s gardens, Eklundy’s Martian Symphony # 1, and Darrin’s massive Rocky Mountain sculptures. It was not I who had created those works of art. I was no more than a laser operator hanging from a Mt. Elbert cliff or a cement finisher working under Vardi’s glare. I provided the brick and electrodes and fusion power. I knew that what any artist really needs is the time and material to do what he must do, the appreciation of someone willing to pay for it, and, most importantly, the freedom to be able to. And that was what I supplied.
Now I wanted the freedom to do something for myself, and going to the Red Planet was it.
The more I thought of going, the more I desired to do so. I was also somewhat impelled by being once again in the news, the result of a retrospective exhibition at the Landau Gallery of Michael Cilento’s works. The mystery of his disappearance was dramatic enough to insure another round of publicity and I was being enmeshed again. It was simply the time to go.
No passports were needed for Mars. The traffic was not all that heavy, and the Chinese, Russian, and American bases are far enough apart so that there was no real friction. All the trip took was reasonable health and an incredible amount of money. Sending Eklundy to stand on the lip of Nix Olympica and to sleep in the Grand Hall had cost over a million Swiss francs, but we received his
symphony in return, plus the recent Icemountain Concerto, and others that would come. To let Powell walk the rugged John Carter Range had cost even more, but I had thought it well worth while.
I could not simply buy a ticket and go, however. Even after the trip had been reduced from seven months to one month, and had become much less of a dramatic affair, people such as myself would receive far too much publicity. I realize this is supposed to be a free world, freer and more democratic than any in history, but some people are freer than others. I was not one of them. There were those who would raise such a fuss that there would be vibrations down all those lines of power, all through that giant financial and industrial net. There would be fear, breakages, shiftings of power, and even, possibly, deaths. When Jean-Michel Voss thoughtlessly disappeared for a mere eight days, cuddled into a SensoryTrip with a girl of each race and a Memorex-Ten, the rumor that he was dead spread out from Beirut, across Syria and Turkey, and caused the collapse of the shaky Bajazet government, the sabotage of the Karabuk steel plants, and the Ankara Revolt that cost over a hundred thousand lives. Indirectly, it slowed the formation of the Middle Eastern Union and the disruption of their plans for a Martian colony at what is now Grandcanal City.
No, I had to be extremely careful. My Golden Congo Company was in delicate negotiations with United Africa people. My Baluchistan oil company was in trouble with the new government there. The new governor in Maryland was conducting a publicity-seeking probe into the Hagerstown arcology project. General Motors was unsure of cooperating with my General Anomaly complex on the new turbine patent.
No business is static. Life is not static. Even as one project is completed, it begets new projects. The beginning or end of one venture in a life such as mine is a unit in an intricate house of cards, and I was the dealer. Even when I had little or nothing to do with a project personally, when I was but a tertiary mover, or a simple stockholder, I was still related. If something happened to me, “it” happened all over. I needed to arrange things indirectly. I called Carol Oakland at Martian Explorations. “How is the documentary on the Vault coming?”
“It’s almost done, sir. Avery will have a closed circuit screening in a few days. We will inform your office. They will have the new edition of the Royal Jewels book out next month, Mr. Thorne. We presume you wish Publitex to handle it.”
She had given me a good opening. “Yes, of course. In fact, I think you could have them handle the Star Palace project as well. Perhaps we should send someone out there in person. Who’s available?”
She smiled. “For that kind of trip they’d all be willing. Kramer, Reiss, possibly Harrison. They’re all good.”
“What about Braddock? He might be the best.” I noted her expression and quickly added, “Don’t worry. I’ll give you a new expropriation just for this. Let him wander around awhile, get the feel of the place, and don’t pressure him for reports.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve never met him, but if you like him . . .” She paused but a moment. “I’ll get through to his service right away.”
“Good. How’s everything else?”
Carol suddenly looked tired. “Cropsey is in jail. He’s the one who was working on the correlations between the Burroughs 45-16 stela and the new Yucatan finds?”
“Yes, I remember. Not much to go on, but if anything develops from it we might prove the Martians visited us here. But what happened to him?”
“He was found with a pet, sir, a . . . Doberman.”
“Jesus. What the hell was the matter with him? He knows damn well those things are over the legal limit. Couldn’t he keep a hamster or even a permakitten? Something that didn’t eat so much?”
“He was very fond of it, sir. He lives—uh, lived—in that old arcology tower in Omaha, one of the real oldies, a charming old place like two intersecting reversed pyramids. Only about five hundred thousand population.”
“Yes, I know the kind they used to build. Go on.”
“Well, there was a raid on some kind of black mass cult that was supposed to be making human sacrifices. You know the sort that springs up, the antitechnology types. Well, the police got the floor numbers reversed and they blew open the wrong door and—well, they found Armand with the animal—”
“What’s his fine?”
“It’s worse than that, Mr. Thorne. It’s his third offense. He had a whole pride of cats in Borneo and an unlicensed collie in Atlanta. You’d think he’d learn . . .” She sighed deeply. “I suppose they’ll let him work in prison, but maybe not—”
“All right. Do what you can for him. You’d think they would learn that we can’t afford pets any longer. Maybe some day, when we get over the food crisis—”
“They didn’t destroy the animal, sir, that’s one nice thing. It was sent to the preserve in Argentina. Maybe someday—”
“Yes, of course. Someday. They didn’t impound the stela or anything?”
“No, sir. We had all his papers picked up when they cleaned out his apartment. I’ve given the cubestone to Mittleman to study.”
“Fine. You’re doing well, keep it up.”
I thumbed the contact and then punched for Sandler, my chief accountant, signaling for a scrambler circuit. “Lowell, I need about . . . um . . . six million for a private project.” His eyebrows went up and I saw his hand go offscreen to pause over a computer. “There’s some slack in Operation Epsilon, isn’t there?” He nodded.
“Not that much, though,” he said. He didn’t ask me what I wanted it for. His department was How and When. Mine was Why.
“Project Dakota came in under budget and that hasn’t been returned. The Louvre still wants that Picasso. Sell it to them. Move some of my Lune Fabrique stock. Put everything in Diego Braddock’s name.”
Again, his eyes searched my face, but he said nothing. His fingers moved and he glanced at the readout. “That will about do it. I might have to sell futures on the Baja marijuana crop, but I’ll see. What time do I have?”
“Will a week do it?”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, then nodded. “Ten days at the outside.” He paused, then asked, “This is, or course, a confidential transaction?” I nodded. “You know there will be some difficulty in accounting for the transfers?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll take care of it.” I had almost added
“When I get back,” but I caught myself. Sandler was not privy to the Diego Braddock persona ploy, and I saw no reason to endanger him with information he needn’t be concerned with.
I clicked off with a wave and sat back in my chair. I had started the cogs turning that would send “Diego Braddock” to Mars. Every man of wealth that I know has at least one standby persona, a nonperson complete with official papers, a history, dossiers, bank accounts, health records, an address, and whatever else was needed. These personas are assumed as needed, either for business or personal reasons, or both. They are sometimes created for a lark, much as Harun al-Rashid donned beggar’s rags to roam the Baghdad nights; the lure of becoming someone else, even for an evening, is strong. I have several of these ongoing personas, plus two that I had needed to terminate, complete with death certificates and burial urns. In various parts of the world there are offices and homes for Andrew Garth, Howard Scott Miles, Waring Brackett, and Diego Braddock. They all had jobs that permitted travel, or were living on stock dividends. I changed the “cast” fairly frequently and only Billy Bob Culberson, a paraplegic genius in Lampasas, Texas, knew them all. He delighted in creating realistic and authentic personalities. Only once did I have to interfere, and that was when he had one persona working for another, and carrying on a correspondence with yet another. It was getting too complex for me, but it amused him.
It is a childish game, but necessary in certain areas of business. Using the existing formats I carefully constructed a schedule that my right and left hand man, Huo, would follow, once I had left. It was necessary that he know the truth, so he could properly manipulate the “leaks” and report
s that would create the illusion of my movement on Earth. Everyone was to know where I was at all times. Control was kept informed from Huo’s desk. Nothing extraordinary would seem to happen, just the usual restless Thorne zigzag.
Brian Thorne was on a private five-day SensoryTrip in his Battle Mountain home. No communication.
Brian Thorne was to be reported in the Andes, and his destination was “leaked” at the last moment. Many would rush there, thinking I had some inside information on new iron discoveries. Then I was to be seen in Mississippi, in Tsingtao “incognito,” and sailing on the Tasmanian Sea with Tommi Mitchell.
By that time I should be on Mars. A pretaped report by me would then be given the General Anomaly board of directors by Huo. They would be angry, but too late. In their own interests they would have to keep up the pretense of shuffling Brian Thorne around the world. I felt like a boy sneaking off to join the circus.
And I loved it.
Diego Braddock was one of my easiest personas to don and maintain, for his job was one of asking questions about anything that suited him, a situation not unlike that of his boss, far up the table of organization, a certain Brian T.
It was as Diego Braddock, Publitex scribbler, space-suited and cleared, that I boarded the shuttle for Station Two from Sahara Base Three. In my inner pocket, sealed by thumb ident, were cargo tickets for six containers, already being transferred to the Vasco Nunez de Balboa up at the space station.
The money that I had “stolen” from my own companies had gone for the contents of those six containers, which were, in a way, my trade goods and beads for the natives. They contained frozen bovine ova and sperm, plus the apparatus that would give the nuvomartians their first cattle herds . . . if they lived. There were shimmercloth and entertainment tapes. There were a few cases of wine, all vintages that traveled well, sealed in stasis tubes. The largest container had its own inner environment and held tiny mutant seedlings from the University of California Martian Research Center, trees and plants that the scientists hoped would thrive on the new and still thin Martian atmosphere. The shuttle thundered up through the overcast that had drifted over from the shallow new Lake Sahara to the south, and then the safety ports slid back and we were in space. The trip was short and fast, and we docked at Station Two without incident.
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