by David Mack
They halt in front of my desk, and the prince favors me with the ghost of a nod. His voice is rich with educated inflections. “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Mister Miller.”
“My pleasure, Highness.” I gesture to the chairs facing my desk. “Please, sit.”
Xifal gathers the slack of his robes in a practiced flourish as he sits down. Molob plants himself on the other chair with all the grace of a collapsing building. While the chairman squirms and fights to shoehorn himself between his chair’s arms, Xifal ignores him and proceeds to business with an air of unctuous charm. “Your builders have been rather busy, I see.”
“Yes. I’m quite pleased with their progress.”
The prince’s charm fades. “We’re not.” He gestures toward Molob but maintains eye contact with me. “Chairman Molob and I feel that—”
“Excuse me,” I interrupt with a raised hand. I look away from Xifal to stare at Molob. “I’m afraid I’m still unclear on what, exactly, you’re the chairman of.”
Molob’s voice is every bit as rough as Xifal’s is smooth, and twice as deep. “I represent a number of prominent Orion business interests.”
“Syndicated interests, no doubt.” His frown informs me that my innuendo regarding the criminal outfit known as the Orion Syndicate has hit its target. I return my attention to the prince. “My operation isn’t even open yet, so I find it hard to imagine you already have a complaint.”
My challenge elicits a cold smile from Xifal. “Are you aware of the impact your casino will have on the local economy, Mister Miller?”
“To be honest, I haven’t given it much thought. Your economy isn’t my concern.”
The prince’s cool façade gives way to irritation. “It should be, since you live in the midst of it. My economists paint a grim forecast. How attractive a destination do you think this resort of yours will be if you turn the neighboring districts into slums and ghost towns?”
I chuckle at his melodramatics. “Forgive me, Highness, but I think you’re overstating the matter. At worst, the competition my business poses for your established gaming and hospitality sector will force a minor downward trend in what had been a wildly inflationary market.”
Molob narrows his eyes. “So, you admit you’ll be costing us money.”
“That’s the objective of business, isn’t it?” Once again, I snub the chairman and direct my words to the prince. “Why don’t we skip to the bottom line, Highness? What do you want?”
He adopts a thoughtful affect. “An annual token gesture of appreciation and support for the local community would go a long way toward easing any lingering resentments. Call it a charitable donation, if you will.” He reaches inside his robe, takes out a business card, places it facedown on my desktop, and pushes it a few centimeters toward me. “Something in this range.”
Curious to know how high a price he expects me to pay for the privilege of doing business on his planet, I reach over and slide the card to my side of the desk. Then I lift its edge and peek at the amount written there. Xifal, Molob, and their cronies have done their homework; it’s a large number, but not an impossible one for me to pay. I leave the card on my desk. “No.”
“You should reconsider,” Molob says. “Otherwise your grand opening might run into . . . difficulties.” His round face is grim and slack, adding weight to his threat.
“Such as?”
Xifal tries to sound nonchalant, as if he’s merely speaking in hypothetical terms, though we all know he isn’t. “An operation as large as yours needs manpower, Mister Miller. I know the Nalori are providing you with gratis security services, but they can’t run your gaming tables, or serve customers in your restaurants. You could bring in workers from offworld, but then you’d have to house them in your hotel, reducing your profits. And they’ll cost you more in wages than Orions will. You need Orion labor. But if my government bans Orions from working here . . .”
“That would be a curious strategy on your part, considering you profess to care so deeply about the effect of my resort on the local economy. How much worse will that effect be if you cost this region tens of thousands of high-paying jobs simply out of spite?”
Molob’s voice is low and ominous. “You don’t want to find out.”
“We’ll see. It’s an interesting scenario.” I pick up Xifal’s business card and fold it into an origami crane. “Unfortunately for you, it’s based on a faulty premise.”
The prince watches my eyes, not my hands; he’s a shrewd one, I can tell. “Faulty?”
“Afraid so. You see, Highness, most of my operation is automated. The cleaning and laundry are done by machines. Most of my single-player games require no direct supervision. The multiplayer tables are run by holographic dealers and croupiers. My restaurant servers and spa therapists are also holograms, as are the bartenders and hosts. Instead of a pit boss, my gaming floors are overseen by the most sophisticated casino-management AI ever designed. I employ only a handful of specialists, most of them chefs, to provide gourmet dining experiences for those customers whose palates and budgets have evolved beyond replicated fare.” I flash a devil-may-care smile and recline with my hands behind my head of white hair. “So ban your people from working here, it won’t matter to me.” I shoot a glance at Molob. “Besides, I never saw any reason to give your people easy access to my operation. I’m not going to start now.”
The chairman launches himself from his chair and lurches around my desk. I stand and meet him halfway. He towers over me, so close that I can smell his cloyingly sweet spice cologne and sour-mash halitosis. Murder burns in his eyes, yet something keeps the lummox from finishing what he started. Maybe he’s not as stupid as he looks. He seems to understand that even though I don’t look like a match for him, there must be a reason I’m not backing down. I almost hope his temper gets the best of him; I can break him like a twig if I choose to do so.
Xifal’s voice is an icy knife cutting through the heated moment. “Molob. Sit down.”
The chairman stands frozen a moment, then backs away from me. “I was just leaving.”
As Molob heads for the door, the prince keeps his eyes on me and does his best to feign polite disappointment. “A pity. I’d hoped we might be friends.”
“You came here with a purpose, Highness, but it wasn’t friendship.” I pick up one of my business cards from a small silver stand on my desk, and hold it out toward him. “But that doesn’t mean we need to part company as enemies.”
He radiates suspicion as he looks at the proffered card. He inches toward me like a wild animal creeping up on something it thinks might be bait. Then he gingerly plucks the card from my hand, turns it over, and peruses my counteroffer. “This is half what I asked for.”
“I could give you nothing.” I savor his scathing glare, then add, “But if you’re willing to accept my counteroffer, I could arrange to have some of the resort’s noncritical support services outsourced to the local community. For instance, all our laundry and off-site cleaning, as well as our food-and-beverage procurement and live entertainments.”
The prince mulls my terms. I can tell he’s unhappy with them, but he seems smart enough to understand that this unpleasant compromise is preferable to waging a mutually self-destructive conflict. “What should I tell Molob?”
“I’d be honored to offer the chairman a seat on my board of directors. A position that comes with a considerable stipend—and no actual responsibilities. Not even attendance.”
Xifal puts on a sour look of resignation, then pockets my card. “I’ll talk to him.”
“I look forward to hearing from you, Highness, and hope you’ll both be my honored guests at the grand opening next month.” We shake hands, then he leaves without offering me the customary valedictory pleasantries. It’s just as well. I’m happy to see the back of him.
I return to my desk, drop into my chair, and let it swivel to face the broad window. Outside, the sleek vista of high-tech high-rises and dense blurs of air tr
affic are bathed in golden morning light. I’m surrounded by modernity, yet the ways of business remain unchanged since the age of barter and battery. I should be appalled, but I’m exhilarated.
So sue me. I may be an android, but I’m still a man.
MAY
2374
14
Few experiences are so thoroughly satisfying as seeing one’s plans come to fruition even more perfectly than expected.
It’s been less than eighteen months since I opened the Imperial Star Resort here inside the Nalori diplomatic compound. As my calculations predicted, the Ferengi seriously undervalued the house’s edge, but that’s only partially their fault. They were notoriously pessimistic in their forecast of the resort’s prospects in the face of resistance from the entrenched Orion interests, but that accounts for only a small fraction of the Ferengi’s error. There was no way they could have known the advantage I would enjoy by using holographic gaming personnel controlled by a security system of my own design—one that measures real-time biometric data from all players at all points in the resort, observing their responses for signs of deception, while simultaneously analyzing the outcome of every wager for any sign of variance from the normal range of gaming probability. Most modern casinos employ systems like it, but none are so sophisticated as mine, and none are even a hundredth as fast. While other systems blunder along on isolinear cores linked by FTL optronics, I’ve deployed a holographic AI matrix that processes information in fields of exoquads—orders of magnitude beyond anything else in known space.
It also helps that business has been good. After the outbreak of the Dominion War five months ago, tourist traffic inside the neutral Orion Colonies saw a sharp increase. No place inside any of the territories surrounding the Orion Colonies is safe—the Federation, the Cardassian Union, and the Klingon Empire are all swept up in this martial madness. The only spot for a hundred light-years where people can relax without fear is here, among the Orions.
The uptick in recreational traffic has had another beneficial effect, from my point of view: it’s keeping the Orions busy, flush with profit, and off my back. They appear to be mollified by the deal I struck with Prince Xifal and Chairman Molob. There’s plenty of tourist money to go around, so for now they’re minding their own business and letting me do the same.
Walking the ground floor of the resort’s central tower, I drink in the sound of pleasure transformed into profit. The electronic singsong of automated gaming machines mingles with the susurrus of conversation, punctuated by bursts of laughter and whooping cheers of elation and surprise. Holographic servers deliver drinks and snacks to the high-rollers, winners and losers alike, ensuring there’s no reason for anyone to leave his or her ergonomically designed chair at a table. I pass the blackjack tables and smile at the musical percussion of clay chips as they’re committed to the pot. One glance at the table and already I can tell who’s going to double down and be sorry for it, who’s going to stand when they ought to hit, and who should not be there to begin with. The clack and rattle of roulette wheels is almost drowned out by the exaggerated feedback sounds from the dabo wheel. It’s in midspin, moving too fast for most humanoids to gauge, but I can see that no one has made the winning bet of triple over. Their loss, my gain.
I cross the opulent atrium on my way to check the restaurants that serve as my resort’s crown jewels, and I’m intercepted halfway across by my hotel’s general manager, Katja Tangano, an attractive but stern human woman from one of the Rigel colonies. I can tell by her rigid posture and pinched features that something is less than optimal, and it must be significant in order to merit my attention. She falls into step beside me without making eye contact, a data padd clutched to her breast, and her chin held high. “Good evening, Mister Miller.”
“Katja. What’s on your mind?”
“Security breach.” She hands me the padd. “A saboteur introduced malicious code into our replicator database while trying to use it as a backdoor to the casino’s security system.”
I’ve wondered when something like this would happen. I can’t say it’s unexpected, but it’s tedious all the same. I hand back the padd without looking at it. “Sum up for me.”
“Breach detected and contained within twenty seconds, perpetrator arrested.”
I lead her inside the Terran-Vulcan fusion restaurant, whose ruddy lighting and spice-scented atmosphere provides a welcome respite from the bright, chilly noise of the gaming floor. I take a circuitous path around the busy dining room to the kitchen. “Who’s our hacker?”
“A Yridian named Lokos. We’re running an ID check to see if that’s an alias.”
“I can almost guarantee it will prove to be. How much damage did he do?”
She checks the padd. “He corrupted the replicator patterns for ninety percent of our most popular level-one menu items. We have a growing backlog of unfilled orders, and cancellations are starting to come in.”
I round the corner into the kitchen with Katja close behind me. I ask over my shoulder, “How long to restore the database?”
“Six hours.”
“Mark down all level-two dishes to level-one prices and offer all customers with backlogged orders free drinks or desserts.”
“Done.” She peels away, relaying my instructions via her earpiece comm as I taste-test the latest creations of chefs David Auerbach of Earth and T’Nal of Vulcan with a discerning palate and an approving nod. “Excellent work, gents. Dave, the jambalaya needs a touch more heat. T’Nal, I’d suggest a pinch of Andorian cilantro for the plomeek-miso soup.” Both chefs fix me with evil stares of contempt for daring to tell them their business, and I pretend not to notice as I leave via the rear service exit, into the support corridors hidden from public view.
Setbacks and petty incursions notwithstanding, the resort is proving more profitable than anything I’d ever imagined. At this rate, it will have paid for its own creation within another two months. Everything after that will be pure profit, on a scale to rival the gross domestic products of a few of the smaller interstellar nations in local space.
With all this talk of profits, you must think I sound like a Ferengi. But unlike me, those avaricious little opportunists acquire assets for their own sake—for bragging rights or, in the case of the more superstitious ones, to buy themselves a better afterlife when they face the Blessed Exchequer. I, on the other hand, have more concrete motives for amassing this type of obscene wealth. You see, it costs a great deal of money to buy a planet.
I’m not even talking about a particularly lush Class-M planet, either. Anyone of generous means can buy an island. More than a few have even laid claim to continents. One person in a trillion might have the resources to buy a small moon. But purchasing a whole planet, any planet, requires a vast fortune. Many well-financed corporations, both public and private, have leased mining rights or staked resource-development claims on worlds, but that’s not the same thing. To acquire a world outright, so that it becomes a private and sovereign possession, is a capital investment the likes of which has been accomplished only a handful of times throughout recorded history. In fact, I can find evidence of only three people who have ever done so, all of whom conducted the transactions through shell corporations.
Why buy a planet? For one thing: privacy. When you own a world free and clear, you no longer need to worry about explaining yourself to anyone. Sequestered on my own private planet, I can make up new identities at will; I can become anyone I want at any time. Free of the surveillance state and its cumbersome rules, I will be free to face my nigh-immortal existence on my own terms. And it will be a perfect hideaway for the new life I’ve planned with Juliana.
I still have no idea how to woo her from that husband of hers, and that realization troubles my thoughts as I board a service lift that will take me back up to my office suite. I appease the biometric security system with my voiceprint and retinal scan before directing it upward to my sanctum. As the lift car hums along, I imagine several scenarios by
which I might win back Juliana’s heart. The craziest, of course, would be to tell her the truth. I could explain what happened to her on Terlina III, what she really is, why I did this for her, and how much more I can still do. I’d like to believe she’d reward such honesty, but experience tells me otherwise. The truth will have to come out sometime, but the timing will be a delicate matter.
Ah, well. There’ll be time to sort all that out soon enough. One step at a time, as my old mentor used to say. Solve the problem in front of you, then move on to the next.
The lift stops, its doors open, and I step out and pass my secretary’s desk. I catch the fetching young Trill lass’s eye on my way into my office. “Laryn. Any messages?”
“A few dozen. All waiting on your private comm.”
“Very good. Hold my calls unless there’s an emergency.”
She confirms the instruction with a demure smile and the hint of a nod.
My office door closes behind me. I stroll behind my desk and take in the view of the Orion capital at nightfall. The city’s grid is a constellation of light, with my resort at its center. For a few moments, the universe feels like a machine tuned to my purposes, a pliant servant bending graciously to my will. It’s almost as if I can see the future shaping itself to suit me.
Then the unthinkable happens.
It’s a tiny thing, a fleeting signal of less than a microsecond, resonating inside a dedicated circuit in my positronic brain. Inside that circuit is a single quark, quantum entangled with a distant partner. It’s reacting to a pulse from its mate, somewhere else in the galaxy.
The signal is simply the binary code for seven: 111.
That’s Juliana’s code. The one I programmed into her termination circuit, to notify me if anything ever happened to her. For decades I monitored that circuit in my lab, praying it would never activate. I installed it into my own android brain so that I could never be parted from it.