"No." Giles raised his head to look at Drake. "That's not true. I had a funny feeling about you, but I couldn't put a name to it." He stood up and held out his hand. "Anyway, enough of all that. Welcome home. You've been away too long, and we'll have lots to talk about. I assume you'll join us for dinner? But first, if you'll excuse us, we have to get this meeting out of the way."
Drake—still Simon Macafee in Jeff's mind—ignored the outstretched hand. "Giles, I just told you that you were smart. Don't pretend you're not. Do you believe that I'd leave the Cloud, where I felt at home and was doing work that I love, to come twenty-seven light-years just for social chitchat?"
"We are your family, Drake." Giles didn't seem to mind the refused handshake. He was smiling, apparently delighted to be with his long-lost cousin. "Your only family."
"Sure—the family I ran away from. It was an accident that took me to the Cloud, and it almost killed me."
"You can't blame us for that, Cousin."
"I don't. But once I recovered and realized that no one knew where I was and I didn't have to come back here, I never felt such relief in my life."
"You can go back there anytime, Drake. All I was trying to do was welcome you home."
"I'll accept your welcome in good faith. I was even hoping for it, in a strange way, all the time on the journey from the Messina Dust Cloud. But that's not why I came back. Do you want to know why I did?"
No one at the other end of the table responded. Finally Drake went on, "That's what brought me."
He pointed to where Jeff stood watching and listening in silence. "He did. Not because of what he said about you and the family business. That was bad enough, but I could have guessed it for myself. The thing that made the difference was Jeff's determination to come home and face the charges against him, even though he dislikes the military life as much as I do. He taught me that it takes a lot more guts to stay and face a problem than it does to run away from it."
The other Lazenbys, after a few minutes of shock, were coming back to life. Aunt Willow was the first to recover. She turned to Giles.
"How much of this nonsense do I have to sit and listen to? You were right earlier, when you said that this was a private meeting, in a private house. I don't see that anything has changed."
To Drake, she said, "I don't care if you are my cousin, or some stupid impostor. I never liked Drake Kopal. It meant nothing to me when he disappeared, and I don't see why it should mean any more if he pops up again. When you presented yourself to us as Simon Macafee, I said you were a disgusting person. I have no reason to modify that opinion."
"You say you came back to Earth to follow Jefferson's example," Delia chimed in. "Well, you've come, and you're here. Now you can go. We managed fine without you all these years, we'll manage just as well without you in the future."
"Go, before I come over there and throw you out." Uncle Terence, who to Jeff's knowledge took no form of exercise and could not walk five steps without wheezing, blew out his fat cheeks and shook a fist threateningly in the air. "Go, or you'll be out on your bloody neck. Eh, Giles? What do you say?"
Giles Lazenby seemed to have lost interest in the whole matter. He was staring down at the tabletop, his brow furrowed. At Terence's question he roused himself and rose to his feet.
"In a way they're right, you know," he said to Drake. "You are certainly our cousin, and I'm delighted to see you. But we didn't ask you here. You came barging in on a private board meeting, without permission, and interrupted our work. As Terence says, there is no reason on earth why you should not be made to leave. On the other hand, if it were my decision alone I would invite you to stay."
Drake nodded, but rather than leaving he sat down at the table. "You haven't changed, Giles, not since you were twelve years old. I was watching you while the others were speaking, and I could almost see the wheels turning in your head. You had to think it through before you spoke. Now you've decided. There's no way that I can cause problems, so why not be nice to me? Whether I am here or not, you can carry on with your agenda."
"You assume malice where there is none." Giles also sat down, swiveling in his chair to face Drake. "But I don't mind telling you what is going to happen next—whether you are here to observe it or not. We are going to propose and pass a resolution. Once that is done, I will be responsible for running Kopal Transportation. I don't see why you should object to that. I've certainly earned the right. You made it clear when you left that you had little interest in the fate of the company. But I've worked for it, all my life. I wasn't like you, born a Kopal and never realizing what you had. You were handed on a plate what anyone else would kill to get."
"Not anyone, Giles."
"Anyone who deserves it." Giles Lazenby was so concentrated on Drake, the rest of the people around the long table did not exist for him. "I deserve it, and I'll get it. I'm over all the hurdles now. Nelson Kopal is dead. Jeff is tainted. Go and read the bylaws for Kopal Transportation. A person who fails entry into the Space Navy, or is dishonorably discharged from the navy, cannot be involved in running the company. He can hold stock, but it's nonvoting stock. A resolution to bar Jeff from management has already been prepared. As soon as you leave—or even if you don't—we will vote on it. Do you want to know what the outcome will be?"
"Giles!" Delia said. "It's none of his business. You shouldn't be telling him this."
"It doesn't matter. He can't stop us voting any way we want. Can you, Drake?"
"I cannot. I have no power to influence your votes." Drake stood up and started back along the table to where Jeff was waiting. At the end, he turned. "You know, I'm a fool. I've changed over the years, and I really hoped that you might have. But you haven't. Same old Giles. Methodical, cold, and ruthless. When we were eight years old, I was the one who wondered why insects needed six legs to walk, and mammals managed well with only four. But you were the one who cut a pair of legs off ants and ladybugs, to see what happened."
"And you were the sissy who started to cry when he saw what I was doing." Giles stood at the other end of the table, radiating benevolence. "It's been a long time, Drake, but I guess you are right. Neither of us has changed. You're still the same gutless weakling."
"I'm sure I am. So go ahead, hold your meeting. I don't want to see it. Come on, Jeff, let's get out of here." Drake walked toward the door of the conference room. Halfway there, he halted and turned.
"You know, Giles, talking about the old days like this reminds me of one other thing. Remember when we used to play chess together? I always beat you. I wasn't a specially good player, but you had a fatal flaw. You became so absorbed in your own strategy to win, you didn't take enough interest in what I was doing. Right at the moment when you thought you were closing in for checkmate, I'd spring a trap on you. It happened dozens of times."
Giles scowled. "I was never much interested in chess. I didn't care a bit who won."
"Not true. You'd be angry for days."
"Anyway, that's ancient history. I've not played chess for decades."
"Nor have I." Drake nodded to the group at the table. "Go ahead, have your vote, finish your meeting."
He walked to the door, but paused with his hand on the doorknob. Again he turned.
"The strange thing, Willow, is that although you say you never did like me, I was always fond of you. I was sorry for you, too. You struck me as a sad young woman, always a bit out of it. You were like me in a way; you never seemed to know quite what was going on."
"Rubbish. And I neither need nor want your damnable sympathy."
"Of course not. But I wonder if all of you may not be a bit out of it. I suspect that you're all overlooking one little thing."
"I think you should leave now." The speaker was Giles, but from their expressions he spoke for everyone.
"Going, this very minute. I just want to point out that I was in the Space Navy, too. Of course, I was there for only a few months before I was stupid enough to put myself through a network node and di
sappear. But I was accepted into the navy, and I was not dishonorably discharged. So according to the bylaws, I am an eligible voting stockholder in Kopal Transportation. In fact, with Nelson dead, I think you'll find that I'm the major voting stockholder. Which means I get to appoint the board of directors."
He passed one final glance over the people sitting at the table, ushered Jeff ahead of him out of the conference room, and said over his shoulder as he was leaving, "So go ahead, Pass as many resolutions as you like. But you know what? Without my stockholder consent, they won't mean a thing."
Chapter Twenty-Six
AS Drake closed the door of the conference room, Jeff heard a buzz of rising voices sounding through it. All his aunts and uncles seemed to be shouting at once.
"Were you saying what I thought you were saying?" Jeff could see that his uncle was trembling, and his face was white. "You control Kopal Transportation?"
"For the moment I do. But it's not giving me any pleasure." Drake took a long, deep breath. "My God, Jeff, I hated that. I'd forgotten what Giles can be like when things don't go his way. So civilized on the surface, and so vicious underneath."
"Are you all right?"
"Not yet. Give me a few minutes." Drake started forward through the antechambers that led out to the stone-paved corridor. "It's strange," he said softly. "I've never wanted to run the company, and I don't want to do it now. But when I saw Giles and the others ready to steal control, I just had to do something. As soon as I can, I'll halt all board actions. I can do that as major stockholder. That will hold things until you get the navy hearing behind you and are old enough to vote your own stock."
"But I don't want to run the company! I'd be no good at it. I'm not a military man, or a businessman. I want to be a jinner, or a scientist."
"Good choices. That's the awful thing. The only people you can trust to run the biggest transportation company in the solar system are people who won't misuse power. And they don't want the job. While people like Giles, who want the position so much they'd die for it, mustn't be allowed to have it."
They had reached the corridor and were hurrying toward the front doors. The whole house seemed unnaturally quiet. The staff would all be down in the basement levels or in the manor kitchens.
"So what happens next?" Jeff asked. The confrontation was over, but Drake still seemed awfully nervous and depressed.
"I'm having second thoughts about coming here at all. I wouldn't have, except I knew Giles. I suspected he was planning some sneaky move. I told Connie, and she said to be careful, it might get nasty. I didn't really believe her. I thought, after all, it's our own family. But now I do."
"We have to leave?"
"Fast."
"Why? Giles and the others know they don't have a chance. They lost, and you control Kopal Transportation."
"True, and that fact must be sinking into them. But it won't take Giles more than ten minutes to draw another conclusion: If I were dead, which he thought I was until half an hour ago, he'd be back in the game."
"You don't honestly think he'd try something like that?"
But Jeff did not need an answer from Drake. It was provided by a memory of the dark face with its knotted jaw muscles, and the soft voice saying: "You were handed on a plate what anyone else would kill to get."
"I don't know what he'll do. He might try anything. Giles likes to win." Drake spoke jerkily. After his slow start he was running, so fast that Jeff could scarcely keep up. "We have to get away from here. And I ought to be locked up for allowing you into a situation like this."
They were approaching the front doors, where a man lounged against one of the flanking pillars. Jeff felt a tingle of horror. They were too late, the way out was blocked, Giles had been too smart and too fast for them. Then he realized that the man was Uncle Lory.
His uncle nodded pleasantly and said to Drake, "I thought I saw you earlier, but I wasn't sure. You were away for a long time, weren't you?"
"I was indeed." Drake was trying to sound normal, but Jeff could hear the tremor in his voice. "How are you, Lory?"
"I am fine. Drake, were you in space? They said you went there."
"Yes, I was in space. And I have to go there again."
"That must be wonderful."
"Lory, we will talk about it some other time, as much as you want." Drake's voice was gentle, masking his tension. "Right now, Jeff and I have to leave. Quickly."
"Florence left in a hurry, too. She said she was going to space."
"We are in even more of a hurry than Florence."
"It's nighttime now."
"I know. But we can't wait for morning, we have to be on our way at once. Jeff and I will start running, but we will need an aircar to come and pick us up. We have to call a service."
"I can do that," Jeff said quickly. He wasn't sure that Uncle Lory was up to making such a call, and at last he had something to do other than stand around and gape. "The service numbers are in the data bank."
But Lory was frowning at them, standing in their way as they tried to get to the front door. "I suppose if you don't want to take one of the family cars, out back . . . ."
Drake glanced at Lory, then gave Jeff a strange look. Jeff was convinced that it meant, What sort of an idiot are you, Jeff Kopal, who doesn't know what's in his own house? until Drake said, "I could say it's my nerves, but it's actually my stupidity. I live here for eighteen years, and I don't remember a thing about the place."
They had all three turned and were hurrying toward the rear door of the manor. "Do you think we'll find one ready to fly?" Drake asked.
"Mine," Lory said promptly. "It will be ready, it always is."
"Lory's right," Jeff added. "His car is kept in tip-top shape, and it's always ready. The car's your pride and joy, isn't it, Uncle Lory?"
"It is." Lory beamed for a moment, then he shook his head. "Of course, they won't let me fly it. I think I know how, but they won't let me."
As they left the house and started toward the garage hanger, Jeff felt an irresistible urge to turn and look back. The whole rear of the house was quiet, with not a light showing. Would Giles come after them in darkness, trying to stop them leaving? Surely not.
The hangar door was open. Jeff, hurrying toward Lory's gleaming aircar, decided that he had too much imagination. Not even Uncle Giles would attempt something so direct.
He followed Drake into the car. Lory climbed in after them. Jeff, about to tell him to get out, saw his uncle's excited face and changed his mind. This was Lory's aircar, his most cherished possession. He at least ought to get a ride in it.
"Ready?" Drake was in the pilot's seat, and the motor was already humming.
"Ready." Jeff closed the sliding door and settled in the rear seat next to Lory.
"Hold tight then. We're not going to hang about."
The car left the hanger, turned, and shot forward with a great burst of acceleration. Within forty yards it was close to airborne, wheels skimming along the smooth lawn. Jeff took one last look at the house. There was a light now, shining from the open back door. He thought he saw a man's shape, outlined in the doorway. A flash of violet light across the ground came and went almost too quickly to see.
The car lurched and dipped for a moment to one side.
"Left wheel of the undercarriage gone," Drake said. Now that he had something physical to do, he seemed totally calm. "Good thing we have plenty of lift. We're going straight up—I hope."
The car was clear of the ground, rushing nose-high into the night sky. Jeff saw another flash of pale violet, but it passed far beneath them.
"One thing you have to say for Giles." Drake was taking them up in a steep, banking curve, away from the dark bulk of Kopal Manor. "When he chases something, he chases it all the way."
"What did he chase?" Lory asked.
"I meant that he wants to run Kopal Transportation."
"Oh. What a dull thing to want."
"I agree with you. Hey." Drake was examining the contro
ls of the aircar. "This shows a second set of engines, and they're not for an air-breathing mode. Can this car go orbital?"
"It's supposed to be able to," Lory said.
"It must have cost a fortune."
"Not by Kopal standards." Jeff felt his spirits rising as the car soared and Kopal Manor vanished far behind. "You were away for too long, Drake. You've forgotten what it's like. When you're a Kopal and it comes to transportation systems, you have nothing but the best."
"Then orbital it will be. With Giles on the warpath, we don't want to mess around on Earth longer than we have to. I'll feel a lot safer when we are outside the atmosphere."
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