"Ah," Niebohr said ironically, "you see it at last, Robert."
"And if it goes bust, you still have the good image from all the favorable publicity, eh?"
"You'll do well as head of the corporation," Niebohr said, "one day."
Chapter Eleven
Then talk not of Inconstancy,
False Hearts and broken Vows;
If I, by Miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that Heav'n allows.
ROCHESTER
Elsa Prince sat on the warm tiles at the side of the kidney-shaped pool smoothing oil onto her deeply tanned body with the delicacy and grace of a cat pursuing its toilet. The process almost complete, she glanced across to the umbrella-shaded table where her father was seated, his hairy belly billowing over the top of a pair of flowered silk shorts, a frosted glass of Campari and soda in his right hand.
''Will it bother you if I take off my bra, Poppa?" she asked.
Niebohr gazed at her fondly, an indulgent smile softening his stony features as he assessed the technical modesty of her bikini, which appeared to consist of little more than two three-centimeter-wide strips of white nylon.
"Why should it? You're built more like a boy, anyway."
"Pig!" she said affectionately, reaching her right hand up behind her back to release the fastening.
The breasts thus revealed were of the same deep reddish-brown color as the rest of her body. Smiling at her father, she proceeded to smooth oil into their firm flesh.
"It's no use your flashing those knockers at me," said Elkan Niebohr with a chuckle. "I changed your diapers, remember?"
"Liar!" she grinned. "You didn't even acknowledge my existence until I was fourteen years old."
"So what are you worried about? Every other male within a thousand miles did, and you must have laid most of them."
"Don't exaggerate, Poppa. I didn't even get to first base with that good-looking company secretary—what was his name—Griefer?"
"Too bad..."
"Bothered the hell out of me until one afternoon I found him in bed with your Japanese houseboy," Elsa said reminiscently. "Missionary work never appealed to me."
He sipped his drink, savoring its cool bittersweet-ness. "You know, sometimes I wonder what you can possibly find to amuse you in a prig like Robert Prince," he said casually.
"One looks for something more than amusement in a husband, Poppa," she said, sitting back and supporting herself on one elbow.
"Such as?"
"Faithfulness and dependability will do for a start."
Niebohr's belly vibrated in another chuckle. "For
God's sake! You talk like an old woman. You're not thirty yet"
"But I will be—thirty, forty, fifty—maybe even more. . . And when I am, Bob Prince will still Joe around."
"And the others?"
I'll get my share. After all, you still manage."
I'm a widower," Niebohr pointed out
"By choice. And anyway, I don't remember you being too exclusive when Belle was alive."
He frowned. "It was that obvious?"
"Perhaps not to other people. But I knew. We're two of a kind, Poppa."
"And Prince—how does he rate for awareness?"
"That's another advantage of being married to an honest man," she said, bringing her knees up to her chin and gazing up at him mockingly from above them. "There's an old French saying: 'A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.'"
"I learned early not to rely on glib aphorisms," said Niebohr, with a touch of disapproval.
"Maybe so, Poppa, but I tell you this: unless he actually caught me on the job—which I make damned sure he doesn't—Bob would never believe that I had been unfaithful to him."
"But if by some mischance he should find out— what then?" asked Niebohr, genuinely curious.
She shook her head, her delicate hawk-face suddenly serious. "I wouldn't like that, Poppa. I wouldn't like it one bit. You see, I happen to love the guy."
"Love. . ." Niebohr repeated musingly as he raised his glass, marveling at the convolutions of female double-think. Belle had talked a lot about love—for
her it had been a tool of reproachful blackmail. To hear the word on Elsa's Hps was slightly disturbing.
"You know a Corps officer named Bruce—Tom Bruce?" she said, breaking in on his reflections.
"Sure."
"I met him at the President's place the other night He's kind of cute."
"That's hardly the description I'd use."
"He and Bob were at Sandpoint together—big buddies."
"Yes, I suppose they would be contemporaries."
"I'm thinking of adding him to my collection."
Tom Bruce, Commander of Venturer TwelveP Now you're really chancing your arm, baby," Niebohr said with a grin. "If anything he's even more stiff-necked and virtuous than Prince."
"Want to bet?" she said, rising suddenly to her feet and walking towards him, her small, perfect body glistening in the sunlight.
"Not against that kind of equipment," he said.
"You knew Bob had offered him the job of Fleet Director, of course?"
"No, as a matter of fact I didn't," Niebohr said.
"Anyway, we've invited Bruce to fly over with us to the Canaries next weekend. Wish me good hunting?"
"I'll do better than that," Niebohr said. "I'll give you a clear field. There's a job that paragon of a husband can do for me out in the Balomain sector—should take him three weeks to a month at least"
She put her arms round his neck and kissed him deliberately on the tip of his beak of a nose. "What a kind, good poppa you are! One of these times you must let me do something nice for you."
"You can do it while you're having your fun," he said, with deadly quietness. "This Bruce—give him the full treatment, spoil him for any other woman, and leave him humiliated—I've seen you do it to men just for kicks. This time do a real job, for me"
She looked at him, the cruelty in her dark eyes matching his own. "Maybe you'd like me to castrate him for an encore?" she said.
"I'd like it fine," he said with relish. "Now put those tits away; I'm going to call for another drink."
In the early hours of the following morning the insistent beeping of his bedside vidphone roused him from his sleep. Instantly alert, he raised himself into a sitting position and punched the button.
"Perez, Communications Section, here, sir," said the dark-haired young man whose face appeared in the screen. "I'm sorry to disturb you" at this time, but a Triple A Emergency message just came through from Orphelin Three addressed to you personally."
"Who sent it?" demanded Niebohr.
"Professor MacGuinness, sir."
'"That blasted Scotch fish-fancier. Now what the hell could be so urgent with him?"
Perez went a shade paler. "I wouldn't know, sir. The message is in code."
"So don't sit there apologizing—shoot me a copy right away!" roared Niebohr, launching his bulk off the bed.
"Yes, sir."
The fax slot at the base of the phone hummed briefly and began to extrude a band of paper covered with dense upper-case type. The band was about a meter long by the time the phone clucked briefly and the process stopped.
Niebohr, swathed in a bright-scarlet silk dressing gown bent down and picked up the paper; as he did so he became aware of the scrutiny of Perez's nervous eyes.
"Well?"
"I was wondering what you wanted me to do with the original, sir."
Niebohr told him, then punched the button to clear the screen.
He walked out of the bedroom into a small, well-equipped private office, where he fed the length of paper into the scanner of an already programmed decoder.
-Within less than thirty seconds the translated message, now printed on pale-green paper, began to unwind from the machine. He waited impatiently until the process was completed, then picked up the paper and took it across to hi
s desk, where he sat down to read through it.
Three minutes later, his face dark with rage, he activated his desk vidphone. "Get me Foster!" he shouted as soon as the face of the building's night operator appeared on the screen.
"Foster, Mr. Niebohr?" said the startled girl, her mouth wide open as she stared at the apparition.
"George Foster—Head of Ecology Section."
"Sir. . . I don't know. . ." The girl's flustered hands grabbed at the ends of her frizzy blonde hair. "I mean..."
"You should find his home number on your emergency directory," said Niebohr. "I want his face on this screen within five minutes, understand?"
"Well, I'll try, sir, but..."
"Too damned right, you'll try," roared Niebohr. "If you don't make it, you'll be back tomorrow peddling your arse on fourth-level Bastown."
Rising from behind the desk, he went back into the bedroom and began to get dressed. There would be no more sleep for him this night
George Foster was a small sandy-haired man with sharp features and a nervous tic, which caused the end of his long nose to twitch in moments of stress. The ratlike nose was quivering now, as he looked up from his perusal of the decoded MacGuinness message into the looming, angry visage of his employer.
"Well? Is he right?" demanded Niebohr.
Foster eased a sliver of pink tongue over his dry lips. "I wouldn't like to commit myself without access to all the data, but bearing in mind MacGuinness's reputation. . ."
"I hired him on your recommendation."
"As I was saying, bearing in mind MacGuinness's reputation, it seems very likely that he may be right This parallel between the bio-clock acceleration effect on fish and humans appears to be a valid one..."
"Then why in hell didn't your people spot it?"
"With due respect, sir, I did draw your attention to the acceleration of maturation processes in Orphelin-born children, suggesting at the time that a certain reduction of life-span might be expected as a result. A figure of twenty percent was mentioned, I believe—one. that you yourself declared acceptable. However, if the process is a progressive one. . ."
"Then what?"
"One hesitates to be dogmatic in such matters," said Foster, obviously trying to choose his words carefully. "We already know that children of the first Orphelin-conceived generation reach puberty at around the age of 7 years, so that some of them have married and had their own children at the age of 10. And, as MacGuinness has pointed out, the maturation of this second generation appears to be even more precocious, attaining maturity in some cases at least a year earlier. If he is correct in drawing a parallel with the fish situation, the mutation will not have run its full course and become stabilized until perhaps ten or fifteen generations."
"And when it does become stabilized?" said Niebohr.
Foster's entire face twitched unhappily. "It seems to me quite likely that MacGuinness's estimate may be right, and the life expectancy of a human being on Orphelin Three—or more correctly, as he suggests, the new sub-species homo sapiens (Orphelis)—will be considerably reduced, the individual being born, growing up into a brief adulthood, and descending into senility within the space of twelve years."
"You realize that the Orphelin colony is due for its twenty-five-year checkover by Colonization Commission experts in eighteen months time?" said Niebohr.
Foster nodded. "That had occurred to me, sir."
"Do you think there's a chance they might miss this thing?" said Niebohr. "After all, you said yourself that as yet it is nowhere near to having run its course. If MacGuinness were gagged..."
"Mr. Niebohr, the detection of this land of thing is precisely the job of the Colonization Commission people—their whole training is oriented in such fields. Perhaps if you had been more cautious in the first instance, instead of rushing into the Orphelin project on the basis of a very sketchy preliminary report. . ."
"Don't try to second-guess me, Foster!" roared Niebohr. "The decision I took was right at the time— without it there would be no Excelsior Corporation as it exists today."
"I can only agree with you there," said Foster. "But what of the future? The repercussions are sure to be very damaging for the corporation—and as the leading figure in the project, the consequences for you personally—" "If the situation becomes known," said Niebohr. Foster spread his quivering hands. "But how can you possibly prevent it?"
Niebohr picked up the long sheet of pale-green paper containing MacGuinness's decoded message and began to tear it methodically to shreds. Afterwards, as Foster watched, he placed it in an ashtray and sprayed it with flame from his desk cigar lighter.
"There's always a way—there has to be," he said, crumbling the ashes to grey powder with his large fingers. Tight-lipped, he inhaled deeply. Yes, there was always a solution; there was one here. Without the flicker of a moral consideration, a plan began to form in his mind.
Chapter Twelve
In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.
EMERSON
"I fail to see that a few days is going to make much difference," said Robert Prince, frowning. "For one thing, Elsa and I have a number of people joining us for the weekend on Hierro."
Niebohr's hooded eyes regarded his son-in-law sardonically across the dinner table. "By God, the old Corps training soon rubs off, doesn't it? I can hardly imagine you making a speech like that to Admiral Carter if he ordered you off on an expedition to hell-and-gone at five minutes notice."
"That's not the point," said Prince. "In such a case the situation would be an emergency, and there would be a fully equipped and crewed ship on standby."
"Medusa is ready and waiting for liftoff at eight hundred tomorrow morning—all the necessary equipment and personnel will be aboard tonight."
"I gave no such orders, and I'm supposed to be Fleet Director," Prince said.
"But I did," Niebohr said, helping himself to another wedge of Camembert.
Prince, his face very pale, turned to Elsa, who had been sitting quietly at the head of the table toying with a long-stemmed glass of red wine. "Elsa, perhaps you can make your father understand that I detest the way he gives me authority with one hand and takes it back with the other."
"Now, darling," Elsa said gently, smiling across at him. "I'm sure Poppa has his own very good reasons for doing what he has done. I never knew him when he didn't."
"That is not the point..."
"No, of course it isn't," Elsa said. "The real crux of the matter is that your pride has been hurt, and I agree with you. But that's the way Poppa is—you should know by now that he's as subtle as a bulldozer."
Prince looked from father to daughter and had a sudden uneasy feeling that he was being manipulated in some way. It was quite out of character for Elsa to accept the implied ruin of her plans without some form of protest—and even Elkan Niebohr had been known to quail before her rage.
"You don't mind about the weekend?" he asked.
Elsa thrust the glass to one side. "Of course I mind, but I know better than to argue with Poppa when he's made a decision. After all, there'll be other weekends. You know, I suddenly feel rather tired. I think I'll go up." She stood and stretched herself like a well-fed cat, then walked over and kissed her father on the top of his bald head. "Goodnight, super-pig," she purred. "And don't keep my husband up late; I've got something that needs his attention."
Treating Prince to a cheeky grin, she camped outrageously out of the room.
"You know, sometimes I wonder if you realize what a lucky young bastard you are," said Elkan . Niebohr, wiping his hands on his napkin and rising to his feet. "Come on, let's try some of that Carlos Tercero brandy Gonzales sent me last week. . .and talk this thing over sensibly."
Moving to the sideboard, he poured two generous measures into balloon glasses and handed one to Prince. Then he stood with his back to the large open fireplace, warming the glass with his palms as he looked at his son-in-law.
"You may have noticed that in the
usual course of events I don't explain my decisions," he said benevolently. "But in your case, just this once, I'll make an exception. There are several reasons for my apparent haste in this matter. For one thing, Koninburger is becoming impatient. He had me on the vid for a whole half hour today demanding that I give him the facilities he needs to carry on with his work. . .I think he has some idea that Carter and his people may be getting ahead of him."
"And are they?"
"My reports are that the Tarasco experimental base isn't in operation yet," said Niebohr. "But it can only be a matter of weeks before it is. Bear in mind that we have a big construction job on our hands even when we've settled on a location."
"I thought we already had. The rock on Balomain is soft and workable, according to our reports."
Niebohr bent his hawk-nose over the contents of his glass and sniffed appreciatively. "Maybe so, but I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't a mite too far away for our purpose. I've been considering Orphelin Four as a possible alternative. For one thing, it would be much easier from the supply point of view—a lot of the necessary stuff could be shipped across from Orphelin Three, just a local hop."
"Aren't you forgetting about that fifty percent methane atmosphere?"
Niebohr shrugged. "As the base will be underground, and a completely self-contained environmental unit, I don't see that as an important objection. Anyway, it's always a good idea to have some kind of alternative in a deal of this kind, so I've decided to hedge my bets."
"Like how?"
"I've had a medium-sized scout ship located aboard Medusa, complete with a five-man crew and ten more experts. You can take Medusa to Balomain via the Orphelin system, dropping off Wernhers party there and collecting them again on your way back to Earth."
"Wernher—that thug? I never knew that he was a construction expert," said Prince.
"He isn't—but somebody has to be in charge, and he can do the job as well as anybody."
Prince sipped the fiery brandy, trying to guess what was going on beneath that great, domed skull. Sometimes he found himself wondering if Gould and some of the others weren't right in their covert suggestions that the Old Man's taste for autocratic decisions had already slipped over the brink into megalomania.
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