April asked Bob to meet her for breakfast, because they were already so far apart on this, she didn't want to meet privately at home, where he could get angry and yell at her. It was a shame to feel that way, but she was determined to avoid a big ugly confrontation. They rarely met at home anymore anyway. He seemed to come in late now and by the time he got up in the morning she was gone. He asked for a ten o'clock meeting, which was still early for him, but late for her.
When he did come in he was dragging. She realized she didn't know what her brother did when he was out late every night. There certainly wasn't any big night life on Home to go carouse. There was usually some activity at the construction gang's cafeteria late at night. But there were no real night clubs or bars. He never seemed intoxicated or high, but whatever it was sure seemed to wear him out. If he got a late start on the day, she had to admit he worked late too and got a lot done.
She arrived before Bob. He hadn't been evident at home. His door was still shut and she didn't really even know if he was in there and it seemed intrusive to ask the house. She went ahead and got her breakfast and figured on taking her time with it. Jerry was sitting to the back, but she just waved at him and sat away. She felt funny doing that, but what she had to say to Bob wasn't to share. She ate slowly, not enjoying it as much as she should. When he came in she was mostly done, but maybe that would work out. He would be eating and would let her talk. When he did sit down opposite though, he only had a bagel and cream cheese with black coffee.
"Good morning Bob. Thanks for meeting me. I know we run on a little different clock." He still looked sleepy eyed.
"It's OK. I have a lot to do. It'll be good to get a start. What's up? You got something going on?"
"Yeah. I was talking with Eddie because I'm going to go Earthside and take a little vacation real soon. Gramps tell you about that at all?"
"No. You think you'll see Mom's folks? Going to Australia?"
"No. I'm going to North America. Political reasons really. We're trying to head off a problem with the election coming up. Everyone that might run, is against staying at peace with us to some degree."
"Boy, I wish you wouldn't go. I have my real doubts it's safe. I don't think it's safe for any of us. Walking around with a black card on, well, it might be OK on ISSII, or on New Las Vegas, but I'd sure hate to do it dirtside. The people hate us and it could get ugly."
"I'll have enough funds to be picky where I go and I'll go armed. I just really need to. But Eddie is concerned about the contract he's negotiating with you and I hoped to have that resolved before I leave, so I don't have to fret about it. He gave me a copy off his pad last night and when I looked it over, it was just way too complex to understand. Can't we do business a little simpler? I'd have a hard time signing that myself and that's a good way to look at a deal and see if it's fair. Ask if circumstances were reversed would you agree to it? I bet you wouldn't."
"I take that for a measure of how desperate he is, if he goes running to you about it," he said with a smile. "If he did that he doesn't know what else to do and he's close to signing it. Give him a few more days to sweat and he'll come around."
"I'm not sure desperate, is how we want our friends to feel about closing a business deal with us." She thought of Eddie's threat to scrap out the vessels. Bob didn't have it in him to believe that threat she realized. "I mean, Eddie is my comrade at arms. We fought together. I'd expect him to go out of his way to make sure I was treated well, if he were offering the deal to me. Why is a three hundred page contract I can't understand necessary?"
"When we were doing ten buck deals as kids it wasn't. But this company has the potential to grow to a huge commercial empire. I can see when people have stations on Mercury and out beyond Mars, fifty years from now, our line being the premier line for the whole system. We have to start covering ourselves, so in a few years these contracts don't come back to haunt us. That's why the lawyers write it to cover almost any imaginable contingency. We should survive changes of government, or unsettling changes of technology, like Jeff created. And no matter how attached you are to Eddie this is business. We may be on the same side politically, but from a business view but he's working for us."
April looked at him funny. "Actually, I thought we were working for him. He's building the new ships and we'll lease and operate them."
"Yes, but as long as we have the power to withhold his license to fly Singh technology, he's at our mercy to use them. If he won't come to terms, he'd have to sell the ships to whoever will work with us. That's the economic facts of life. They don't have anywhere near the value otherwise. Of course in the future, when we have better funding ourselves, we won't need Eddie. The logical thing would be to eventually own all our own vessels and terminate our relationship when we can do that. By then his vessels will be getting older and the ones we build will be newer. But he has plenty of time to make money and see the use of them before that happens. I'm sure he looks at reality and knows it's a temporary relationship, to take advantage of while he can."
"Yes, he intimated he saw it as having to end," she said factually, but seething inside. "And what would you do if he just said to hell with it, refused to fly the ships on your terms and scrapped them out, instead of selling them to somebody who would submit to you?"
"Nobody would do that. It would be an illogical decision. You do what makes money, not what serves your ego or temper, when you get to these amounts of money. When we started you wanted me to handle the business side of it. Just continue to leave it to me. I'm sure you know you don't have a head for business. In the dog eat dog business world, they'd just eat you up. The only big long term problem we have, is we are dependent on the Singhs for our power plants. Somewhere along the line, we have to get control of those essential technologies for our business."
April thought Bob underestimated how much Eddie would walk away from, rather than give Bob the satisfaction of managing him, but she didn't argue it. She asked a personally closer question, "And what about me?" April asked. "Aren't I a risk and inconvenience, because the license comes through me? How and when will you get rid of me, after Eddie and Jeff are disposed of as a danger to your full control?"
For the first time she thought she saw a flicker of shame. "I thought you knew, I'll always take care of family. When have I ever not?"
"Well if memory serves correctly, you wanted to limit me to thirty percent of this company, for supplying half the money. That's the way things have been tending in your offers for several years now. And it was not attractive at all the other day, when you wanted Mom and Dad to carve their apartment up, to give you a private place, as if it were your entitlement. No, I'm sorry Bob, but I don't trust you anymore. You've gotten greedy and controlling. It hurts to say, but we're going to each have to go our own way now. The only question is if I buy you out, or the other way around."
"Don't be silly," he said, still not seeing the seriousness of it. "You're getting weird and emotional, bringing Mom and Dad into it," he said, waving it away with a hand. "They have nothing to do with our business. We both put the major part of our cash in to start this and neither one of us has the cash to buy the other out. And I wouldn't consider selling my half, for any price that didn't reflect the huge upside the company will see in the next couple years. It may not have it in assets right now, but the work I've put into positioning the company is going to see a huge payout and I deserve fair compensation for what I set in motion."
"I see. And if I asked you to buy me out. What kind of offer would you make me?"
"Well," he had to think on that briefly. "You put in your funds to start and excluded yourself from having to deal with the stress and risk of executive decisions. I'm not saying that wasn't smart. It's a rare person that knows their own limitations. But the flying and managing freight, that's all work you can hire out to employees. So the small draw you've taken was ample compensation for that. The money you put in and the portion we reinvested - I'd say about three and a half million sho
uld cover it. And if you really do want out, I'll pay you a monthly allowance, until that amount is paid back and hire somebody so you don't have to fly anymore."
He obviously had no idea how demeaning his assessment was. There was no way she could work with him and Eddie both. And the casual insults in his offer, would have ended her partnership with Bob even without Eddie in the picture.
"And the licensing? I get no separate compensation for that?"
"You must not have ever thought it was worth that much, since you never brought it up and pressed to be paid more for it."
"Silly me," April agreed, cut to the core.
"But if you want the company to be here, to generate enough income to pay you out, then you're going to have to let the licensing stand. After you're paid out, if you want to get back together and talk about a fee then, we'll do it," he promised.
"I am overwhelmed by your largesse," April said, straight faced. "So you wouldn't be interested in the opposite deal?" She checked.
"That you pay me off? No. If you run it, I don't think it will survive long enough to generate the income for my payout anyway. And I'd want more than three and a half anyway."
April decided he'd just laugh at the four million figure she'd mentioned to Eddie. She decided she'd go straight to her best offer.
"I'll give you six million cash now, to buy you out. I can beam it to your pad right now and you'll walk away with it. No payments you have to worry about me coming up with, before the company folds from my incompetence." She had never realized before how little he thought of her. Why, to think she couldn't run a business just like him! Damn him! She just didn't want to. It stung so bad she had a hard time keeping tears from her eyes. She was choked up and didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing it.
"You can't have that kind of cash!" For the first time he was angry. "So who's funding you? Is it Eddie? Did he offer yesterday to bankroll you? He'll use you and dump you to the side, before you know what's happened," he declared.
"Well I guess that's what you have to expect, in the dog eat dog business world," she admitted sarcastically. It amazed her how easy he thought Eddie was as crooked as he was. But he'd have to think that, to excuse his own ruthlessness, wouldn't he?
"It isn't any concern of yours, where I get my money." She remembered the thirty million Euro her gramps beamed to her in the living room. "Actually, I had more than enough funds available, well before Eddie talked to me yesterday. You don't know everything about me Bob. As it stands now, all I really want is to hear if you will take the six to be bought out, or turn it down."
"No, of course not, don't be ridiculous!" Bob was starting to get loud, then seemed to realize it and looked around, so April was glad she came here. Truth was, she'd be afraid to be alone with him right now. That was terrible, to feel that way about her own brother. "That's unacceptable," he said, quieter. "I won't let you do it."
"Very well, You can't buy me out and won't let me buy you out. I would like to hang on to the Happy for sentimental reasons, but I'm realistic. It's going to be obsolete soon as a warship and second rate as a carrier, when the new ships reach service. I won't work with you anymore. So I'll walk away. In the morning I'll send you papers, yielding ownership to you. It's entirely your baby now. I'll serve notice to those we've been doing business with, that we are no longer partners and you are sole owner. It's nobody's business how or why that happened, so I'll just make it factual."
"What about the licensing?" He asked, finally seeing the danger. "Are you going to continue to license Singh power, for the Happy Lewis and the Home Boy?"
"You'll have to talk to me about that. I'm so mad at you right now, for the way you took me for granted and talked down to me, that I can't even discuss it with you. When I come back from Earth we'll talk about it. I'm going down late tomorrow, so it'll have to wait. Nothing will change for now, you still have your licensing. You said I must not have valued it enough, because I didn't use it to extract more money from you. Well you just educated me how silly that was. I went too easy on you because you were my brother and got ridiculed as weak for my kindness. We'll absolutely have to talk about it later," she said, not at all friendly, "But I'm done talking to you today."
April got up and left him sitting there. He didn't look angry now. He just looked confused, like he could not understand what just happen. He still hadn't eaten his bagel.
Chapter 21
The next day was made even more hectic, by having to create a document removing herself as a partner of Lewis Couriers, while getting ready to leave. She mailed everyone, all seventy-eight of them, in her business address book and then sent a copy to a hard print service and instructed them to send a certified paper copy requiring a receipt to Bob, Dave's shop that serviced her ship and Jeff and Heather. After some thought she added Jon and her parents and grandfather. She was sitting with gramps and Heather right now, so she had told them personally, that Bob and she were no longer partners. It appeared to be less of a surprise to her gramps than it had been to her. Heather actually said, "Good."
April looked at the small device her grandfather was holding, with real distaste. It was called a public eye. Physically it was a small square, about twenty-five millimeters on a side, with a simple pin on the back, like a brooch. In fact, it looked like it had a cabochon mounted to the front, but it wasn't a jewel, it was a camera lens. It took video and sound and streamed it off to safe storage, so a person had a seamless visual record of what happened to them all day. Heather was sitting with her gramps, letting him do the talking.
"I can understand why security people have to wear those on duty, but I can't imagine volunteering to destroy any shred of privacy I still have. People who wear these and post the record to their public journal so strangers can watch their family eating breakfast, have an exaggerated idea of their own importance. I'm surprised you'd ask me. I certainly never saw you wearing one before."
"I understand your objections. I've never felt I had need to wear one. You already agreed to let people run your public statements through software, which is really much more intrusive," he pointed out reasonably.
"Only if you plan to lie," she asserted.
Happy had to stop and think about that. "I hate to say this to you. But I honestly think it's the truth. And you can run my statement for analysis," he offered. "A lot of people, maybe most even, lie so often every day, about silly little things, that it really would be a burden to have their statements verified. They lie about how their wife or friends or workmates look. They are casually lie when asked if they are doing OK, when their life is in chaos. They get an assignment from their boss and lie about what they'll do with it."
"They cope with all these demands by saying, "Yes, Dear you look fine," when she looks like the wicked witch of the West. They say, "Oh good enough and you?" when they are thinking their marriage is breaking up and their kid is in detention for arson and they can't make the rent at the end of the month. And they are seething inside because the boss gives them some pointless assignment, that nobody will ever look at and they don't have time to do. But they lie about all of them, to keep from having even more trouble rain upon their heads for telling the truth. Because none of these people, who ask these kind of questions, want to hear the truth. The truth would be a disaster. So in a sense these people demand a lie of them, to avoid constant confrontation."
"If your family and friends don't demand these sort of lies from you, then you have unusually forthright friends," he assured her.
April realized, for the first time, that her mother was the only person she actively had to deceive, to keep the peace. She had to hide things she ate, like a carton of milk and she had to wear cloves and take precautions to satisfy her germ phobia. She wasn't going to volunteer that to anyone either.
"Now if they allow everyone to verify their every little statement, the machine won't tell them why the person is fudging the answer. But even for something as common as asking how someone is today, the sof
tware will show they were evading. So my even thinking you can afford to allow such scrutiny, is a measure of what a forthright honest person I think you are."
"But that's you. The camera you don't wear for your actions. It doesn't show you, unless you can be seen in a mirror, or a reflection in a window or something. No, the camera is for the other guy. And I can easily think you are going to run into some devious person down there, who will lie after the fact about what happened between you. With this pinned on, you can take that ability away from them."
April took it with just her fingertips, like it was dirty. "It'll work down there?" she demanded.
"There is wireless almost everywhere in urban areas. If it can't make a connection to stream the video off to safe storage, it buffers it to your com pad. I asked Heather to add extra memory to your pad and some other things. That's why she's sitting here, waiting to do that if you want it."
"How big a buffer before it's full?"
"It can store three days and then it goes back and compresses it and stretches it to six days at a little worse quality."
"OK," she said, getting her com pad out. "I can see the value of it, for the special circumstances. I don't plan to make a habit of it."
Heather got out her tools and went to work. When she was done she produced an extra case, April had assumed was more tools or materials and opened it up.
"You know Jeff and I trade ideas and hardware, with a bunch of friends on the Moon," she explained. "They are not unsympathetic to Home and to our success, but they are very limited and careful about how they express it. As soon as we knew you were going dirtside, we asked them if they had a number of items that might be of help to you and they couriered these to us." She pulled a vest out of the case, that seemed very much like the one she had adopted as a costume when she started wearing black. It was perhaps a little less stiff, but it looked too big also. Heather shook it open and laid it on the couch between them.
April 2: Down to Earth Page 18