A bare three years after the opening of the planet to exploitation, the Chee settlements were growing with incredible speed, fueled by even more incredible amounts of capital. The investment was vast, and as the work had only begun the inflow of capital would have to continue. Lord Mukerji’s work in attracting ceaseless investment was vital, as was the work of many lesser envoys; and of course the work of Lord Martinez himself, raising funds from his own considerable resources.
The resources of a whole planet were more than enough to repay any investment over time, but the scale of the payouts ran in years, and mismanagement and theft were still dangers to the Chee Company. If investor confidence were lost the company could go bankrupt whether it owned a planet or not . . .
“I’d like to see a fleet of boats on that quay,” Martinez said.
“So would I,” the manager said. “The business would be a lot better.” He grinned. “And after all the trouble building that quay, I’d like to see it in use.”
“Trouble?” Martinez asked.
“They shipped down the wrong king of cement for that pier,” the manager said. “They need De-loq cement, that sets underwater and is immune to salt-water corrosion. But they sent down the ordinary stuff, and a special shipment had to be made from Laredo.”
“What did they do with the other cement?” Martinez asked.
“Condemned,” the manager said. “They couldn’t use it. Ah— here’s your breakfast.”
Martinez’ breakfast arrived, a grilled fish needle-sharp teeth, a pair of eyes on each end, and with plates of armor expertly peeled back from the flesh. Martinez’ eyes rose from the fish to Port Vipsania, to the rows of white concrete apartments that held the Meridian Company’s workers.
“Pity they couldn’t find a use for it,” he said.
*
Martinez found that he couldn’t resist the lure of the town his father had named after him. After ten days on Chee, Martinez escaped the endless round of formal banquets and receptions by taking a Fleet coleopter to Port Gareth, north in the temperate zone.
The coleopter carried him over land that was uniform— while the oceans thronged with a staggering variety of fish, life on land was primitive and confined to a few basic types: the only fauna were worms and millipedes, and plants were confined to molds, fungus, and a wide variety of fern, some as tall as a two-storey building.
All of which were going to face stiff competition, as alien plants and animals were being in introduced in abundance. Herds of portschen, fristigo, sheep, bison, and cattle had been landed and allowed more or less to run wild. Without any predators to cull their numbers, the herds were growing swiftly.
Vast farms, largely automated, had also been set up in the interior, upriver from the settlements, or along the expanding railroads. Because no one yet knew what would grow, the farms were simply planting everything, far more than the population could conceivably need. If things went reasonably well, the planet could become a grain exporter very quickly and start earning a bit of profit for the Chee Corporation.
Within a couple centuries, it was calculated, the only native plants a person would see would probably be in a museum.
The coleopter bounded over a range of mountains that kept Port Gareth isolated from the rest of the continent, then dropped over a rich plain that showed rivers of gleaming silver curling amid the green fern forest. The coleopter fell toward a green-blue ocean that began to creep over the horizon, and then began to fly over cultivated fields, the sun winking off the clear canopies of the harvesters.
Port Gareth was very possibly outside the mandate of a Lord Inspector, as it contained no Fleet installations, but Martinez had decided that the railroad that would connect the town to the settlements farther south was a matter of state security, and therefore of interest to the Fleet.
The turbine shrouds on the ends of the aircraft’s wings rotated, and the craft began to descend. On the edge of the pad was yet another reception committee.
The coleopter’s wide cargo door rolled open. Martinez took off his headset, thanked the pilot, and stepped out onto the landing pad. The brisk wind tore at his hair. As Alikhan stepped from the coleopter with Martinez’ luggage, the reception committee advanced behind the Lady Mayor, a client of the Martinez family who Martinez vaguely remembered from childhood. She was a Torminel, whose grey and black fur was more suitable to the bracing climate of Port Gareth than to the tropics of Port Vipsania.
In short order Martinez was introduced to the Mayor’s Council, and the local representatives of the Meridian and Chee companies, and then a familiar figure stepped forward from the long, teardrop-shaped car.
“Remember me, my lord?” the man leered.
Martinez could hardly forget. Ahmet had been a rigger on Corona, Martinez’ first command. He had spent a considerable portion of the commission under arrest or doing punishment duty; and the rest of his time had been occupied with running illegal gambling games, brewing illicit liquor, and performing the occasional bit of vandalism.
“Ahmet,” Martinez said. “You’re out of the Fleet, I see.”
This was only good news for the Fleet.
“I’m a foreman here on the railroad project,” Ahmet said. “When I heard you were coming, I told everyone I knew you, and asked to be part of the welcoming committee.” With one sleeve he buffed the shiny object pinned to his chest. “I still have the Corona medal, as you see. I’ve been assigned as your guide and driver.”
To Martinez, employment of Ahmet in any position of responsibility was proof enough of criminal negligence or worse. But he smiled as stoutly as he could, said “Good to see you,” and was then carried off toward his lodging in the Mayor’s Palace, after which he would endure yet another banquet. He had a healthy respect for himself that some considered conceit, but even so he was beginning to grow weary of all these meals in his honor.
Still, he was pleased to discover a statue of himself in the main square, looking stern and carrying the Golden Orb. He was less pleased to see a pump jack in the overgrown green park behind the statue, its flywheel spinning brightly in the sun.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Petroleum?”
“Yes,” the Lady Mayor said. “We found it close to the surface here— lucky, otherwise we couldn’t have brought it up with the equipment we’ve got.”
“What do you use it for?”
“Plastics. We’ll have a whole industry running here in a few years.”
“How is the railroad progressing?”
The railroad would eventually connect Port Gareth to the south: supersonic trains would speed north from the skyhook, bringing migrants and supplies, and carrying away produce and plastic products for export. The rails were being laid from each end toward a common center, and would meet somewhere in the mountains.
“There were some delays last month,” the Lady Mayor said. “But the track’s still ahead of schedule.”
“Delays?” Martinez said. “There’s nothing the Fleet can do to expedite matters, is there?”
“Very kind, but no. It turned out that the early geologists’ reports were incorrect, or maybe just incomplete. The engineers encountered a much harder layer of rock than they’d expected, and it held up the work for some time.”
Martinez decided that though he didn’t know much about geology, he was going to learn.
Next morning Martinez rose early, took the cup of coffee that his orderly handed him, and called Ahmet.
“I’d like to get up to the railhead,” he said. “Can you do it?”
“Absolutely, my lord.”
“I also don’t want a fuss. I’m tired of delegations. Can we go, just the two of us, with you as my guide?”
Martinez sensed a degree of personal triumph in Ahmet’s reply. “Of course, lord captain! That’s easier than anything!“
The trip to the railhead was on a train bringing out supplies, and Martinez spent the ride in the car reserved for the transport crews. He wore civilian clothes and hea
vy boots, which he thought disappointed Ahmet, who wanted a fully-dressed military hero to show off to his colleagues. As it was, Martinez had to put up with Ahmet’s loud reminiscences of the Corona and the battle of Hone-bar, which managed to imply that Martinez, under Ahmet’s brilliant direction, had managed to polish off the Naxids in time for breakfast.
“That’s when we swung onto our new heading and dazzled the Naxids with our engine flares, so they couldn’t see our supports,” Ahmet said, and then gave Martinez a confidential wink. “Isn’t that right, my lord?”
“Yes,” Martinez said. And then, peering out the window, “What’s up ahead?”
The track for the supersonic train was necessarily nearly straight and quite level. It approached the mountains on huge ramps, built by equally huge machines and pierced with archways for rivers and future roads. Terraces had been gouged into mountains to provide the necessarily wide roadbed, and tunnels bored through solid rock. The gossamer-seeming bridges that spanned distant valleys were, on closer inspection, built of trusses wider than a bus and cables the thickness of Martinez’ leg. The trains themselves, floating on magnetic fields above the rails, would be equipped with vanes that canceled out their sonic shockwave, but even so the tunnels had to be lined with baffles and sound suppressors to keep the mountain from being shaken down.
At the railhead Martinez was treated to a view of the giant drilling machine that bored the tunnel, and the other machines that cleared the rubble, braced the tunnel, and laid the track. The machines were sophisticated enough, and their operators experienced enough, that everyone seemed confident that their tunnel would meet the northbound crews, coming from the other side of the mountain, well ahead of schedule.
“So we can earn that big completion bonus from the Chee Company,” Ahmet grinned. “Isn’t that right, my lord?”
“Good for you,” Martinez said. He waited for a moment alone with Ahmet before he asked the next question.
“Wasn’t there a big delay a month or so ago? Can we stop there on our way back?”
Ahmet gave Martinez a wink. “Let me talk to the engine-driver.”
They took a ride back on a small engine that was shuttling rails to the construction site, and the Lai-own driver was amenable to a brief delay. “Marker 593,” Ahmet told him, and the engine slowed and braked. Ahmet, an electric lantern in his hand, hopped off into the dark tunnel, and Martinez heard a splash.
“Careful, my lord,” Ahmet said. “It’s a bit damp here.”
Martinez lowered himself to the roadbed and followed the bobbing lantern. Upheaval of the mountain range had tipped the geologic strata nearly vertical here. “They called it a pluton, or a laccolith, or something like that,” Ahmet said. “Whatever it is, it’s damn hard. The drill couldn’t get through it. There it is.” He brandished the lantern.
A deep gray stripe lay along the strata, a river of mica flecks gleaming in the lantern like a river of stars. “That’s it?” Martinez asked. He could span the layer with his two arms. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a pluton.
“Yes, my lord. They had to do a redesign of the drill head.”
Couldn’t they blast it? Martinez bit back the question.
Of course they could have blasted, he thought; but explosive wouldn’t have added a hefty enough overcharge. Then Martinez remembered, during the party held in his honor at Rio Hondo, a conversation between Lords Pa and Mukerji. Something about the geologist’s report ...
Suddenly Martinez wondered if Mukerji— the plunging gambler— been the Chee Company official responsible for approving the cost overruns. He was president of the company, after all, very possibly he could approve such things.
But Mukerji had never been to Chee— the requests would have had to chase him all over the empire as he went off on his quests for funds. Mukerji had never been to Chee, and wouldn’t have been available to fill most spending requests.
Unless . . . unless Mukerji was part of the conspiracy. Receiving payments from the conspirators in order to relieve his gambling debts.
“Interesting,” Martinez said.
Ahmet’s eyes glittered in the lamplight, the admiration of one thief and confidence man for a job well and professionally done. “Fascinating,” he said, “isn’t it? Geology?”
*
The question was how to reveal to Eggfont the relationship between Lord Mince and Lady Belledrawers. If Eggfont was told by the valet Cadaver, that would tell Eggfont something about Cadaver that for the present should remain hidden. Yet how else could Eggfont find out in time for the Grand Ball ...?
A token, Severin thought. A mysterious token, which Eggfont would understand but which would be opaque to anyone else. But introduced by who?
Severin tapped Lady Liao’s ring on the arm of his couch in slow accompaniment to his thoughts. He had to admit that his invention was flagging. It was three hours past midnight in Surveyor’s official twenty-nine-hour day, and Severin was tired. He could call for a cup of coffee from the wardroom, he supposed, but that would mean waking up someone.
Perhaps Severin should put his puppet show aside and find something else to occupy his thoughts. Commanding the ship, for instance.
Surveyor’s control room had the usual stations, for navigation, for controlling the engines, for communications, for the captain and the pilot and the sensor tech. Each station featured a couch balanced carefully in its acceleration cage, and each couch was equipped with a hinged control board that could lock down in front of the occupant.
At the moment the sensor station was occupied by a very bored Warrant Officer Second Class Chamcha, and the screen that occupied his desultory attention wasn’t tuned to the spectacular starscapes of Chee’s system, but to a game called Mindsprain, which he was losing through inattention. The sensor station had only been crewed because regulations required it, just as regulations required someone at the engine station, at the moment Lily Bhagwati, another at communications— Signaler Trainee Jaye Nkomo— and yet another, qualified to stand watches, in the captain’s couch— Severin himself.
The ship had completed the hour out of each watch dedicated to hard acceleration, and breakfast was still hours away. Severin’s attention drifted vaguely over the smiling pictures of Lord Go’s family that the captain had attached to the command board— the captain was lenient that way, and each station in the control room was decorated with personal items belonging to the various crew who served at that station. Pictures of family, notes from loved ones, paper flowers, jokes, poems, pictures of actors and singers and models, someone pretty to dream about when you were three months away from the nearest ring station.
Severin wished he could put a picture of Lady Liao on the board, as provocative a picture as possible. But then she was married to a prominent Peer and jurist, and Severin could hardly advertise their relationship that way.
Severin realized that he’d been staring for many minutes at Lord Go’s family, the smiling wife and waving children, proud parents, the pet dog and the stuffed Torminel doll. He raised his head, shook it violently to clear his mind, and scanned the other stations. Nothing seemed to warrant his attention. No alarms sounded, no violent colors flashed on the displays.
He called up Warrant Officer Chamcha’s game onto his own display, saw the comprehensive rate at which Chamcha was losing, and sighed. Perhaps when Chamcha conceded, Severin would challenge Chamcha to a game of hyper-tourney, or something. Anything to keep awake.
While waiting for Chamcha’s position to collapse he called up the navigation screen. Surveyor, heading straight from Wormhole One to Wormhole Two, was well outside of the normal trade routes that ended at Chee.
No navigational hazards threatened.
Severin looked at Chamcha. Hadn’t he lost yet?
Something flashed on the sensor screens, and Severin looked down at his display, just as the lights and the display itself went off, then on . . .
“Status check!” Severin shouted, as the lights dimmed again, then flashed bri
ght.
Warrant Officer Lily Bhagwati gave a sudden galvanic leap on her acceleration couch. There were shrill panicky highlights in her voice. “Power spike on Main Bus One! Spike on Main Bus Two!”
Severin’s fingers flashed to his display, tried to get the ship’s system display onto his board.
The lights went off, then returned. The image on Severin’s displays twisted, slowed.
How very interesting, he thought distinctly.
“Breaker trip on Main Bus One!” Bhagwati said. “Main engine trip! Emergency power!”
Whatever was happening to the ship was happening too fast for Bhagwati’s reports to keep up. Automatic circuits were responding to protect themselves faster than the Terran crew could possibly act. Severin did catch the words “main engine trip” and had time to register their impact before the all-pervading rumble of the engine ceased, and he began to drift free of his couch.
He reached for his webbing to lash himself in and every light and every display in the room went dark, leaving him in pitch blackness save for the afterimage of his displays slowly fading from his retinas.
“Emergency Circuit One breaker trip!” Bhagwati shouted unnecessarily.
In the ensuing silence Severin heard the distant whisper of the ventilation slowly fade, like the last sigh of a dying man.
This never happens, he told himself.
And because it never happened, there were no standard procedures to follow. An absolutely cold startup of all ship systems, including the ones that had been mysteriously damaged?
This also never happens, he thought.
“Everyone stay in your cages!” he said. “I don’t want you drifting around in the dark.”
He tapped Lady Liao’s ring on the arm of his couch while he tried to think what to do next. Little flickers of light, like fireflies, indicated here and there where battery-powered flashlights waited in their chargers. These weren’t intended for emergencies, because the emergency lighting wasn’t supposed to fail— rather the lights were intended getting illumination into odd corners of the displays that were undergoing repair.
Investments Page 6