Stott’s face was a kaleidoscope of expressions, pleasure alternating with discomfiture.
She smiled. I can play this fool like a violin.
“Please don’t concern yourself, though. We have a lot of important clients. We know how to operate with complete discretion here.” She gave a short, hollow laugh. “If we didn’t we’d have been out of business a long time ago. Be assured there’s nothing on record here about you. Do please sit down.” Her smile was reassuring, although still tinged weakly with acid.
Some of the tension seemed to ebb out of him and he sat down warily.
“Can I can get you a drink?”
He moistened his lips. “No thanks.”
“As I was saying, our sole objective is to be of service to our customers, especially important customers like yourself. That’s why I asked you to stop by for a little chat. I wanted to be sure that we were doing everything we could to please you, to accommodate your tastes and interests.”
Stott’s face reddened. “No, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Are you sure? I mean, you haven’t had the chance to explore everything we can offer you. We have other girls. You could have Papillon, for example. She’s only seventeen but she’s very experienced. We have her here for the girls as well as the boys.”
“I like Zena.” Stott’s voice was husky and a little petulant.
“No, I didn’t mean instead of Zena. Both of them together. You watch them play with each other and then they both play with you. It’s quite a trip.”
Stott stared at her for a moment. “Er, how much would that—”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I was only giving that as an example. That’s not a service you can actually buy. We only do it for our consultants.”
He looked piqued. “Consultants?”
“Yes, you know, people familiar with the business scene. We are a business, after all. People like that can help our company with strategic decisions, that sort of thing. We do it as a quid pro quo. That way it doesn’t go through the books. Saves us tax and allows those involved to keep their privacy.”
He sat up a little. “I’m a company director. I’m fairly plugged in. Perhaps I could, er, help you in that way.”
“Could you really? Well, that would be interesting! We’re particularly concerned about off-Earth developments at the moment. That would be your area of expertise, would it?”
He swelled visibly. “There’s not much goes on out there that I don’t see first.”
“Splendid. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we try the new arrangement and see how we get on? Would you like me to set things up for next Thursday?”
“Thursday. Yes, that’d be fine.”
“And if you have any, ah, information you’d like to pass on to me just contact Maida. I’ll arrange to be here when you’re around and we can have another little chat.”
“All right. I dare say I’ll have something for you by next week.”
“Excellent. Well this has been most helpful. I’m so glad you dropped by.”
As they both rose from their chairs she extended her hand. Stott winced at her unexpectedly hard grip. She smiled ingratiatingly.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr Stott. I’ll look forward to the next time.”
As soon as Stott had left, Klitgaard wiped her hand on her trousers, a pained expression on her face. Then she sat for a few minutes, chewing her thin lips and calculating. With a good source of information she could get access to the top echelons of her company. Who to take it to? A couple of years ago the question wouldn’t have arisen but now Mikhael Rostov was dead.
Who engineered that? Almost certainly Raoul. Take it to him? Tony Navarro has influence too. Both are trying to fill Mikhael’s shoes. A power struggle: how nice! Intelligence like this could be crucial. Really, the timing couldn’t be more propitious. So who? Raoul. Raoul will make good use of it. And he knows how to be grateful.
All she had to do now was wait.
38
“Mr Lewis? Herbie, Security Desk. Got a visitor here askin’ for you. A Captain Neraya Delveaux. Space Fleet Personnel Division, from the uniform.”
“I wasn’t expecting any visitors from Personnel. What’s it about?”
“She won’t say. Says it’s classified.”
“Have you run her ID card?”
“Sure. It checks out.”
“Well, all right. Get someone to bring her up.”
Herbie dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, a totally unnecessary precaution for someone who was sitting behind armoured triple-glazing.
“I hope you got your shades on, Mr Lewis. I ain’t never seen a Captain like this one before. On a scale of one to ten, this one gets fifty.”
“Thanks for the advice, Herbie.”
But three minutes later he saw exactly what Herbie meant. He rose awkwardly from his desk as Captain Delveaux was shown in and felt ridiculously clumsy taking the delicate hand she extended to him. She had a voice like warm honey.
“Hello, Mr Lewis. Dan’s told me such a lot about you.”
“Dan Larssen?” Hal was so surprised that for the moment he left his visitor standing. “Oh, please sit down, ma’am.”
“Please call me Neraya. May I call you Hal?”
“Sure, everyone else does. Er, Dan Larssen, you said?”
“Yes. Dan and I are… close.”
You old dog, Dan. My God, it must be tough having to leave this behind.
“That’s why I’ve come to see you. This mission he’s flying. He’s told me where he’s going but he hasn’t said why. Of course I have more sense than to ask, but I don’t like the sound of it.”
Hal nodded, waiting.
“I’m very concerned for him. Normally I’d be able to follow the progress of a mission but this one’s different. I’ve searched all the usual network sources and it doesn’t come up. That isn’t good. I may not see him for two years or more and I’m not going to know from one month to the next what’s happening to him. It will be hard for me. You do understand?”
“Well of course I do, but I don’t see—”
“I want to ask a favour of you. All I’m asking is that you let me know whenever you have news of the mission, whether it’s good or,” her voice dropped, “bad. I don’t expect access to anything that’s classified. I just need to know he’s alive and maybe how he is.”
“Neraya, it pains me to say this but I won’t be able to help you.”
“I have a high security clearance.”
“No, it’s not that, not that at all. I can’t help you because I’m not in the loop myself. Not any more. There’s a very tight security lid on this operation – you know that already. My job is to supervise the planning of the mission, deal with all the logistics, the flight plan, simulations, delivery and distribution of the cargo – everything up to the point of departure. At that point my job ceases. The flight will be monitored by Mission Operations and I’ll be shut out. Believe me, I’m going to be as frustrated as you are. I like Dan a lot and I respect him, and quite apart from what’s happening to him I’ve got an awful lot else riding on this trip. I’ve complained like mad but they’re still not giving me access. All communications with Mission Operations will be followed by one of the company directors, who’s taking a close interest in this mission. He’ll pass any important information to other members of the Board. One of them has a seat on the Board of Space Fleet, so that’s how information will be passed. It’s all at Board level – I won’t even get a look in. I’m really sorry.”
The luminosity had faded from Neraya’s face. “This company director, the one who’s taking a close interest in the mission – that wouldn’t be Mr Karl Stott, would it?”
“Why, yes. Do you know him?”
Her lips tightened fractionally. “A little. We were at the Academy together.”
“Well, then, that’s your best bet. If anyone can let you have information – I mean the sort of non-classified information you’re af
ter – it’s him. And if you do learn something perhaps you could pass it on to me.”
“Of course. Hal, it was good of you to see me without an appointment. I appreciate it.”
“Not at all. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”
They got up and moved towards the door. Then he put two fingers to his temple and stopped suddenly. “Hang on a minute. There is something I can do for you.”
She turned, a slender eyebrow arched.
“If – I mean when – Dan comes back he’s going to have cargo: geological samples from Titan and Rhea and probably refrigerated material picked up from the rings. That won’t be classified – it’ll be big news and they’ll want to make a lot of capital out of it. The stuff will be priceless: scientists down here will be trampling all over each other to get at it. At that point the ball has to come back into my court, because it’s my job to bring the cargo in and distribute it to the right destinations. I can’t do that without some preparation, so they’ll have to give me an idea of what’s on board and an ETA. It may only be a week or two before he docks but I’d be glad to let you know the moment they tell me.”
“Oh, that would be so good of you, Hal. I’ll give you my communicator code.”
“You can put it on that,” he said, pointing to a small monitor he’d left hinged up at the side of his desk. She pointed her communicator at the monitor and pressed the key that acquired the channel and transferred the information. Then she put the communicator away and extended her delicate hand to him again. He basked for a moment in the warmth of her smile.
“Thank you, Hal.”
“My pleasure,” he said hastily. “If there’s anything else I can do, please let me know.”
Even after she’d left, her subtle perfume was like a presence. He shook his head, chuckled to himself at how close Dan had played this one to his chest, and went back to work.
39
The lettering on the door said “Space Fleet Personnel Division, Colonel J. Sanderson, Director”. Neraya knocked discreetly and went in. Although Colonel Sanderson encouraged them to keep dealings within the Division informal Neraya felt she was on safer ground when she was formal. She saluted stiffly and placed a thick folder on her supervisor’s desk.
“The report you requested, Colonel,” she said.
Julia Sanderson glanced at the front cover and then leafed quickly through it. “You’re very quick and very thorough, Neraya,” she said. “But I said I didn’t need it till Friday.”
“Sorry, Colonel,” Neraya replied. “I’d finished it, so I thought you might like to have it early. I’ll take it away again if you like.”
“No, no. It’ll be useful to have it early. This is opportune, actually, Neraya. I wanted to have a word with you. Let’s sit over there.” She got up and waved to a couple of armchairs placed near to the window. Neraya took one of them and sat straight-backed, polite but wary.
“Neraya,” the Colonel started. “This is a Personnel Division. I don’t know if you’re aware of this but at one time it was called ‘Human Resources’. We ditched that name, for good reasons: our employees are not objects, they’re people, with lives to be lived and careers to be nurtured. That’s our job. We have responsibility, directly or indirectly, for everyone in Space Fleet. That includes people within this Division. It would be a poor thing if we couldn’t look after our own, wouldn’t it?”
Neraya nodded guardedly, maintaining her composure although her mind was racing.
“I’m concerned about you,” she continued. “You’re here in the morning before everyone else, you work harder than everyone else, you leave later than anyone else, and obviously you take stuff home too. The report you just gave me, for instance. There’s a heap of work in that. No way could you do all that in company time.”
“I enjoy my work, ma’am.”
“Julia. Let’s drop the formalities shall we?”
Neraya inclined her head.
“Work is important, but twenty-four hours a day?”
Neraya smiled. “Not twenty-four hours a day, no. But I like to fill my time.”
The Colonel’s voice was kind, sympathetic. “There’s more to life than work. What about exercise? What about a social life?”
All right, Julia. I think I see where you’re going. “I do take exercise. I go swimming every morning before work.”
“And you’re still here by seven-thirty.”
“Yes, thereabouts. I like to clear my desk properly before we start the day.”
“Look, Neraya. Officially your private life is none of my concern. On a more personal note I worry when I see someone working as hard as you do…”
You’re good, Julia, very good. And very perceptive.
“…don’t forget, I’ve had a lot of experience in this job. When people bury themselves in work to that extent it often means there’s a problem in their lives, something they’re trying to escape from.”
Shall I tell you, Julia? It would be so easy to unburden myself to you. I could tell you how I can’t go to bed until I’m totally exhausted because if I have an ounce of energy left in me I just lie there thinking about Maman and Papa, and it’s too painful to bear.
“If you had a problem like that, I hope you’d feel you could bring it to me.”
And you’d arrange bereavement counselling for me, wouldn’t you, Julia? Of course you would; that’s what I’d do if I were in your shoes. But I don’t want counselling. What’s inside me is too personal, too private. In any case, they’d only advise me on a coping strategy and I’ve got one: I work hard. And now I have to work even harder because I’m worried sick about Danny and I’m terrified I might lose him the same way.
“There’s no problem, I assure you, Julia.”
The Colonel eyed her pensively. Then her manner changed abruptly.
“All right. Enough about that. Now, to other things. I’m going to transfer you.”
Neraya stifled a gasp. “Isn’t my work satisfactory?”
“Of course it’s satisfactory, that’s why I’m transferring you. Strategic Planning need a new officer. They asked me for the best person I have. You’re the best person I have. I’ll be sorry as hell to lose you, Neraya, but I’d be no kind of a Personnel Director if I stood in the way of a well-earned promotion. They’d like you to start May 1st. At the rank of Major.”
Neraya swallowed hard. The Strategic Planning Division was Space Fleet’s elite management consultancy, overseeing matters of infrastructure and forward planning that affected the entire company. Any of her colleagues would leap at the chance to transfer there, with or without a promotion. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Oh, it’s not entirely altruism. A lot of what goes on in Strategic Planning has a direct bearing on us. It would be good to have someone in that Division I could talk to, someone I could trust. Good for me, good for all of us.”
“I’d be more than happy to liaise with you, Julia. I’ve really enjoyed my time with Personnel. But May 1st is only Monday week. What about the projects I’m working on at the moment?”
“Finish off what you can and brief Kathy Henryk on the rest. She’ll take over from you. Okay?”
They rose together and shook hands.
“Good luck, Neraya.”
Neraya smiled briefly. “Thank you very much, Julia.”
She snapped a salute and walked briskly to the door.
*
Neraya paced around her apartment, wondering what she was going to say to her colleagues at the office the following day.
They’ll have to know soon. Kathy has to take over my desk and she’ll need to be told why. Julia won’t announce it, she’ll leave it to me. How will they react? They’re a good bunch. They’ll be envious but very happy for me. They’ll want to go out for a drink, to celebrate. I’ll have to get out of it somehow.
Julia would disapprove of that, of course. She’d like to see me joining in, having more of a social life. But I don’t want it. I’m happier in my own com
pany. It’s not their fault – they try to include me but I just find that sort of thing so shallow, so pointless. And it’s intrusive: as soon as you’re outside the working environment the girls think it’s all right to ask personal questions, to try to find out more about you. Mostly they do it out of curiosity, not genuine interest. The men are worse. I know the effect I have on men, I’ve seen the look on their faces. They’re chatting away and all they’re thinking about is what it would be like to have me in bed. There’s only one man I felt differently about from the moment I met him, and that was real empathy, that was a meeting of minds. I could share everything with him. The physical thing is strong but it came afterwards. There was a fence around him too, but somehow we’ve let each other inside. And now he’s in dreadful danger.
She made a decision. Her spirit rebelled against it, her instincts told her it was unwise, but for his sake and hers, she had to do it. She was going to seek a favour from Karl Stott.
40
When Papillon got up from what she was doing to Zena there was a look of total detachment on her pretty face. She might just as well have lifted her head from a book she was reading. She shook back her heavy chestnut hair and absently picked off a crinkly black hair that had clung to her lower lip.
Zena was reacting very differently. She surfaced slowly, as if from another world. She was still breathing rapidly, her breath coming through her nose in quick snorts, her face flushed, and her eyes half-closed in an expression of dreamy sensuality. Gradually reality crept in. Her eyes met Papillon’s and communicated subtly. They looked over at Stott, who was sitting naked and wide-eyed, transfixed by what he had been watching, trembling with excitement and anticipation. Wordlessly they got up and converged on him...
*
“We’re going to raise the stakes, Maida.”
“Why, Elke, what’s the matter?”
“The man’s not been coming up with the goods. He’s had a whole month now, and all he’s doing is giving me mini-lectures about business opportunities off-Earth. And I have to sit there and listen to this crap! Pompous ass! If I wanted that sort of information I’d enrol at business school. And he was getting two girls for the price of one! He must have thought he could play me for a fool!”
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