by Allen Steele
My place in ConSpace’s upper management had become permanent as well. I was Jerry’s proxy, his mouthpiece, his mannequin. My status was clarified by none other than Alberto Diaz, who abandoned his pretensions of civility shortly after I moved to the top floor. At first, when he visited my office, he’d begin by saying, “The next time you hear from Jerry, tell him…”. After a while, though, it became, “Tell Jerry…”. Eventually he rarely mentioned Jerry’s name at all, instead simply speaking to me as if I was Jerry’s eyes and ears and somehow expecting his message to be telepathically communicated to the boss. The next time I saw Alberto, he’d be expecting an answer: “What about that problem I talked to you about yesterday? Have you decided what to do yet…?”
Ironically enough, Jerry still had an office just down the hall. He’d seldom visited it even before he left Earth for the final time, but nonetheless it was the place where his executive assistant answered his mail, sent out memos in his name, and otherwise maintained the illusion that he was going to come strolling in any minute now. She was eventually transferred to another department, but the office was still there; its door was closed but not locked, and every so often a custodian would come by to dust the place. If you walked in, you’d see evidence of his former presence. His pictures were on the walls, his mementoes were on the shelves, and there was even a sport coat hanging from a hook on the other side of the door. But the desk was clear of everything except an empty notebook and a phone, and its drawers contained nothing but company stationary and a few pens.
Jerry himself was gone. He’d literally disappeared from the face of the Earth, and as time went by, I heard from him less and less. I dutifully forwarded to him personnel memos, departmental reports, and the minutes of the annual stockholder meetings, and sometimes I’d get a response and sometimes I wouldn’t. When he replied, it was usually a terse memo of his own, addressed either to an individual or a group, which I would then relay through the proper channels. As time went by, contact between Jerry and the company he’d founded became increasingly tenuous. ConSpace went about its business as usual, with its CEO an unseen oracle living in a temple on some faraway island.
Meanwhile, history moved on. There had always been rivalry between the Pax Astra and its independent competitors, the Transient Body Shipping Association, over economic control of the asteroid belt and the newly-established Jovian colonies. The TBSA and the Jovian colonists eventually formed a secret alliance, the Zodiac, which began preying upon Pax vessels operating in the outer solar system. This caused political turmoil in the Pax, with the democratic New Ark Party losing control to neo-monarchists during a bloodless coup d’etat. The Mars colonies seceded from the Pax shortly after Queen Macedonia’s coronation, and formed the Ares Alliance. War talk was in the air.
All this had an enormous impact on ConSpace. Its commercial alliance with the Pax Astra had relied upon the Mars colonies belonging to the Pax and the Pax remaining a democracy. When the Zodiac started attacking Pax spacecraft in the belt, it was ConSpace who had the most to lose; the majority of those ships belonged to the company. And because the monarchists never liked the cozy relationship between the Pax and ConSpace, one of the first things that Queen Macedonia’s prime minister, Sir Lucius Robeson, did upon gaining power was to tear up all the existing contracts. This left the Ares Alliance and a handful of independent near-Earth space companies as ConSpace’s major clients, and it was anyone’s guess how long the Mars colonies would continue doing business with a corporation that had begun to bleed as badly as ConSpace did.
Things may have been different if Jerry was still around. He might have been able to negotiate a new agreement with the Pax monarchists, or even use back-channels to get in touch with the Zodiac and work out a truce with them. But he ignored all memos and reports telling him that everything was going to hell in a bucket, and the few times I spoke to him—which came down to about once every few weeks, and only when he called me—he preferred to chat about things like the wonderful roses he was cultivating in the greenhouse, or how Sylva had just given birth to another litter of fogzes. He was happy, I’ll say that for him…happier than he’d been in his last years on Earth. So long as the Zodiac didn’t raid the Stone House—highly unlikely; 2010 TK7’s eccentric orbit assured his privacy—he didn’t seem to care what happened to his company.
His indifference wasn’t mutual. The morning after a ConSpace freighter en route to Ceres was destroyed by a Zodiac raider, Alberto Diaz marched into my office. He didn’t bother to knock, but instead dropped a folder on my desk. Before I had a chance to pick it up, he sat down in a chair across from me.
“Tell Jerry he’s fired,” he said.
“Pardon me?”
“He’s fired.” Alberto propped his feet up on my desk and regarded me with smug little eyes. “The board of directors met this morning and took a vote, and they decided to replace him. He’s no longer CEO…I am.”
I stared at Alberto for a moment. So far as I could tell, he hadn’t indulged himself in a martini breakfast, so I picked up the folder and opened it. Inside was a corporate resolution, signed by the board of directors and notarized by the company’s legal council, formally dismissing Jerry Stone as president and chief executive officer of ConSpace.
“You can’t do this,” I said. “Jerry’s the majority stockholder…”
“Not any more, he’s not.” Alberto propped his chin upon his hand in the amused gesture of a chess master who’d just pulled a cunning move against an inexperienced novice. “Jerry’s cash flow has become a bit tight lately. All the stuff he needs, the expense of shipping out there…it takes a lot of jack. He finally had to sell a few shares of company stock. Just enough to make ends meet, but—” a sly grin “—as soon as it came on the market, a friend of mine who works on Wall Street tipped me off and…”
“You bought him out.”
“Yes, I did.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t much, really…but just enough that, once I added it to my portfolio, I was able to make a deal with the board’s other principal shareholders. They’re just as tired of putting up with him as I am, and we think we can turn the company around before it goes into the toilet.”
“Maybe you can, or maybe you can’t, but—”
“No, no…no ‘buts’ about it. Jerry’s out. Tell him to pack his bags, we’re bringing him home. Keeping him on that rock is a major drain on company finances, and it’s not earning us a dime.” His smile became mean. “Then you can start cleaning out your desk, too.”
“What? I…”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Alberto still had his feet crossed on my desk; he deliberately shifted his right foot, toppling a ceramic mug my daughter had made for me that I used as a pen holder. The mug fell over, spilling pens and pencils across my desk. I reached forward to grab the mug before Alberto could kick it off my desk, and he snickered. “If he doesn’t have a job here anymore, then neither do you. So pack up, you little worm. You’re outta here.”
I didn’t respond. Anything I could have said would have only satisfied him. I’d pegged Alberto Diaz the moment I met him; he was a playground bully who’d never grown up. Maybe he’d been planning this the entire time, waiting for a chance to oust Jerry so that he and his cronies could take over ConSpace. Now his time had come…and I knew that, if I wasn’t careful, firing me would be only the first way he’d punish me for being loyal to Jerry.
So I waited until Alberto left, and then I opened a direct line to the Stone House. It took about ten minutes to tell Jerry what had just happened; when I was done, I flagged the vid Urgent and sent it on its way, and hoped that Jerry wasn’t too busy playing with his fogzes to check his messages.
He wasn’t. When I returned from the mail room with a couple of empty cardboard boxes, a red light was flashing on my desk screen: an incoming message from Jerry. I shut the door, sat down at the desk, and typed in my password. What I found was an encrypted text message, utilizing a private code that we used for high-priority busine
ss messages. I entered in a second password that deciphered the code, and an instant later the unscrambled message appeared on my screen:
Paul—Sorry this has happened. Hate to say it, but I’ve been expecting this for awhile.
Never really trusted D. Figured he’d stick a knife in my back sooner or later. Couldn’t fire him from the board, though, because he has too much support (politics…ugh! one more reason why I left).
Anyway, I prepared for this. Go to my office and find my safe. It’s behind the Mars painting. Enter the combination: Rats Live On No Evil Star. There’s a minidisk in there. Don’t read it. Just take it to BK. He’ll know what to do.
Sit tight. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.—J
I deleted the message and erased it from the memory buffer, then got up and, as casually as I could, sauntered down the hall to Jerry’s office. Several empty boxes were stacked beside the door—Alberto obviously wasn’t wasting time—but no one was inside.
Hanging above the couch was an original Eggleton of a Martian landscape that Jerry had once purchased in a Sotheby’s auction. I’d often admired the painting, but never dreamt that it might hide anything. Yet it did; the painting was mounted on a hinged door that opened silently when I moved the frame, revealing a wall safe with an alphanumerical keypad recessed within its chrome steel door.
I typed in the first letters of the palindrome and the safe popped open. Inside were stock certificates, several letters, a small metal box that I didn’t open, and enough bundled cash to pay a CEO’s kidnap ransom. The minidisk lay on top of the cash.
I have to admit, for a moment or two my own loyalty was tested. I could have taken the money and trashed the minidisk, and no one would have been the wiser. What could have Jerry done—fire me? Any temptation I might have felt to betray Jerry, though, lasted only a second. Jerry had always been good to me, while Alberto had screwed both of us the first chance he had. So I slipped the disk into my shirt pocket, closed the safe, and covered it with the painting again.
BK was Benny Klein, Jerry’s personal attorney and also one of his closest friends. His office was only four blocks away; I caught a rickshaw cab and was there in fifteen minutes. I didn’t call ahead—it was possible that Alberto might have the company security team tapping my phones—but Benny let me see him without an appointment. I handed him the minidisk, told him what was going on at ConSpace and how Jerry had instructed me to deliver the disk to him, and then left.
I had no idea what was on the disk. All I knew was that Benny had made good use of it. By the end of the day, Alberto Diaz was gone, as were three members of the board of directors. All four resigned immediately, after issuing a joint statement saying that they were leaving to pursue new careers outside the space industry.
However, Alberto’s attempted palace coup was successful to some degree. A week after it happened, Jerry sent me a brief memo, announcing that he’d decided to step down as president and CEO of ConSpace.
I asked him why, of course, but his response was brief and uninformative: Because I want to was the gist of it. When Jerry didn’t want to answer a question, that was the best reply one was likely to get; silence was his usual response.
I did as I was supposed to do. I called Alberto’s successor, another board member who’d not been jettisoned during the purge, and let him know that he was in for another surprise. This fellow convened the remaining directors in the executive board room, where I gave them Jerry’s memo. Once they picked themselves off the floor, they sent Jerry a letter demanding an explanation.
Jerry must have been waiting for them to call back, because his reply was received within minutes. This time, he sent a vid. He was seated in his greenhouse, wearing a linen dashiki and surrounded by tomato vines and green algae tanks, a silver-and-black fogz nestled in his arms. Although his head was still shaved, lately he’d let his beard grow out. To me, he appeared to be his normal self—relaxed, smiling, unconcerned with such trifles as the leadership of a major corporation—but when I looked at him through the eyes of the board members, I saw a wealthy eccentric whose mind had slipped its last tenuous grip on sanity.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said, gently stroking the fogz in his arms. “I appreciate your prompt response to the memo I sent Paul earlier today. I also appreciate your concern, especially since it follows hard on the heels of last week’s misadventure.”
Some of the directors looked askance at each other. The company had undergone a major crisis, and he called it a “misadventure.” Jerry went on. “However, recent events have led me to realize something that I’ve suspected for awhile now…that my absence has become detrimental to the company’s future, and that ConSpace needs a chief executive who is actually on Earth, if not in Houston.”
The fogz—Ren, if I wasn’t mistaken—yawned indolently as Jerry’s hands continued to stroke his plush fur. “However, I have no desire to return to Earth. My home is here, and I don’t wish to leave it. So I’m willing to make an agreement with the board. I will step down as president and CEO, and also sell all but ten percent of my remaining stock in the company. In return, the company will respect my status as founder and president emeritus by continuing to support my residence here on 2010 TK7, including sending any necessary supplies that I may need…”
He suddenly snapped his fingers, as if remembering something. “Oh, yes…another thing or two. I wish to remain alone and undisturbed…but I’d like to have Paul Lauderdale continue as my private spokesman, with the company paying his salary.” He smiled. “Over the last few years, I’ve come to rely on Paul, and the events of last week have proved that my trust hasn’t been misplaced…unlike a few other individuals I could mention, that is.”
A couple of people coughed while others averted their gaze. Although Alberto and three other directors had been the instigators of the attempted coup, the fact remained that everyone in the room had signed the declaration that attempted to terminate Jerry’s employment. I didn’t know why they were still there—maybe because Jerry didn’t have anything on them—but I was the only person present who hadn’t stood by while Alberto and his cohorts tried to stick a knife in his back. I was suddenly proud of myself for not succumbing to temptation. My conscience was clear, even if theirs was not.
“In any case, I’m no longer interested in running ConSpace, and I wish to hand over the reins to someone who is. I’ll leave it up to you to choose my successor and arrange for the legal transfer of corporate authority.” A quiet smile. “I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.”
The vid ended. There was a long moment of silence. And then everyone sitting around that long oak table breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The board of directors agreed to Jerry’s terms, of course. Which they did as soon as Jerry put his electronic signature on a stack of forms. Not surprisingly, the new boss was one of their own, a likeable but unimaginative drone who promised not to take any risks while leading ConSpace back to its glory days.
The company also agreed to keep me on retainer as Jerry’s spokesman. My salary remained the same, and my only duty would be to keep open lines of communication between ConSpace and its founder. But the new CEO soon made it clear that he no longer wanted me in the executive suite; I could keep my position, but not my office.
It was just as well that the company let me go. Within a few years, ConSpace was bankrupt. The Pax Astra had no further need for them and neither did the Ares Alliance. The new CEO’s patter about fresh approaches was empty talk; now its visionary-in-residence was gone, the company had nothing new to offer. ConSpace’s stock was eventually bought by a holding company, which carved up the assets and sold them off at fire-sale prices.
I often wondered whether Jerry saw this coming. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had.
Fortunately, his severance agreement remained legally binding, as did mine. By then, I’d moved to Reno, bought a place in the mountains overlooking the city, and set up a boutique public-relations consulting firm.
My ConSpace pension was sufficient that I really didn’t need any other clients, yet I had to have someone other than Jerry to keep me busy. In time, I repped everyone from artists to scientists—no politicians; I was done with them—but Jerry remained my primary concern.
With ConSpace no longer part of his life, Jerry became less indifferent to messages from home. I remained his gatekeeper, but he began to send more letters back to Earth, most of them private email to friends and family he’d left behind. He and I talked more frequently as well. We’d learned how to cope with the long radio delay by jotting down notes about what the other person was saying, cribbing from those notes while transmitting a reply, then puttering around for a few minutes while the other guy repeated the cycle at his end. The same system was used when we started playing board games. Chess was our favorite pastime, but we also learned how to play Battleship and Monopoly the same way, with games sometimes lasting several weeks.
I never had the impression that Jerry was lonely. He’d picked this way of living with his eyes wide open, and although he never spoke openly of his reasons for becoming a hermit, it was obvious that he’d become tired of the human race and wanted to have little to do with anyone besides his fogzes. But it wasn’t hard to tell that, at times, he suffered from homesickness. He’d speak of suiting up and going out the airlock, just to stand on the asteroid surface and look at Earth, a bright blue orb that hung in the star-filled sky as 2010 TK7’s eternal companion. He could easily cover Earth with an outstretched thumb, but he didn’t; that would have been like blotting out everyone and everything that he’d left behind, and he didn’t want to do that.
Yet there was no question that his exile had become permanent. Even if he wanted to return to Earth, going back was no longer an option. He’d been on the asteroid for so long that Earth’s gravity would have killed him, and even if he’d tried to take up residence in a lunar colony, he would have been little more than a cripple. We briefly discussed the idea of him relocating to a space station in Earth orbit, but he didn’t like the prospect of spending the rest of his life, as he put it, “kicking around in a tin can.”