The Complete LaNague

by F. Paul Wilson

  “But I’ve been to Dil. I’ve–”

  DeBloise held up a hand. “We’ve agreed to mention no names at any time. We all know who you’re talking about and we all know where he lives.”

  “Then you all know that he’s an unstable personality! His device could be lost to us forever!”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Barth said. “When we’re in power he’ll have to give it up. No individual quirks will stand in our way – we’ll see to that.”

  Catera frowned and shook his head. “I still don’t like it.”

  “You’d better like it!” deBloise hissed. He was on his feet and speaking through clenched teeth. Whether there was genuine concern on Catera’s part or just the start of a power play, deBloise could not be sure. But he intended to get a commitment here and now. “The movement is a little over a hundred years old now and we’ve made considerable gains in that time. It started as a handful of discontented representatives and now entire sectors think of themselves as Restructurist. But we’ve become stagnant and we all know it. Oh, we make grand gestures and sweeping generalizations in public, but our point of view seems to have peaked. Some of our analysts even see the start of a downswing on the marginally committed planets.”

  He paused to let this sink in.

  “Our speeches no longer cause even a ripple in the Assembly and we introduce amendments to the charter that are knocked down time after time. Our constituents are going to start wondering if we really know what we’re doing and it may not be too long before we find others sitting in our seats in the Assembly unless we do something now!”

  A prolonged silence followed as Catera gazed at his shoes through the transparent tabletop. Finally: “I’ll see to it that the funds I control are deposited in the account tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Doyl,” deBloise replied in a conciliatory tone as he seated himself again. “How much can we count on?”

  Catera shrugged. “Don’t know exactly. It’s in mixed currencies, of course. I think the total will come to about half a million Federation credits after conversion.”

  “Excellent! Philo?”

  And they went on totaling the contributions, unaware that the entire meeting was being recorded.

  The course of public events is often shaped by seemingly unlikely individuals occupying seemingly marginal positions. As for the present state of Occupied Space, a good part of the credit or blame – depending on your philosophical viewpoint – probably belongs to the members of a single family, the name of which is no doubt unfamiliar to you unless you’re involved in interstellar trade. The family name? Finch.

  from Stars for Sale:

  An Economic History of Occupied Space

  by Emmerz Fent

  Old Pete

  “AH, HOW I’D LOVE to wring that man’s neck!” Old Pete said to the air.

  He lay stretched out on the sand listening to the recording as Ragna’s G2 primary beat down on him from a distance of approximately 156 million kilometers. He was eighty-one years old but neither looked nor felt it. His legs were scrawny, true – “chicken legs,” he called them – and the skin was loose at his neck and wrinkled around his eyes, with the frontal areas of his scalp sporting nowhere near the amount of hair they had of old; but when he walked he moved briskly and lightly with swinging arms and a straight spine.

  He loved the sun. Loved to sit in it, bake in it, broil in it. His graying hair had been bleached white by that sun and his skin was a tough, dark brown that accentuated the brown of his eyes. Minute collections of pale, flaky skin dotted his extended forehead. Actinic keratosis, a doctor had told him… or something like that. From too much sun, especially through Ragna’s relatively thin ozone layer. Can lead to skin cancer, the doctor had said. Be smart. Use this lotion. It’ll dissolve the keratoses. And start using this sunscreen lotion daily. Either that or stay in the shade.

  Old Pete did neither. If the keratotic areas took a malignant turn, well, they had a lotion for that, too. Until then he’d enjoy his sun to the fullest.

  And it was his sun. At least the part of it that shone down upon this particular island. The Kel sea stretched away in all directions to an unbroken horizon where it merged with the lighter blue of the sky. The island, an oblong patch of sand and rock about a kilometer long and half that distance across, supported a single house, some scattered scruffy trees, and little else. But it belonged to Peter Paxton and to him alone. He had purchased it shortly after leaving IBA and rarely left it. A luxury flitter was moored on the roof of the house for those occasions when he did.

  So he lay supine on the beach, seeing red as the sun transilluminated his eyelids, and listened to a recording of other men’s voices. His right hand held a printed transcript but he preferred to hear the original. The nuances of inflection and tone not reproducible on paper were as important to him as the content of the words themselves.

  Nor did he need the transcript to tell him who was speaking at any particular moment. He’d never met the men on the recording but was as familiar with their voices as he was with his own. Old Pete had been keeping tabs on the Restructurist hierarchy at sporadic intervals for a number of years now, but his surveillance had increased in intensity with the news not too long ago that something special and oh-so-secret was afoot in the inner circle. He was determined to find out what it was.

  As the recording came to a close, he sat up with a grunt.

  “Poor Doyl Catera – almost got himself in trouble there for a moment. His sense of ethics made a serious attempt to break through to the surface. Almost made it, too. Then deBloise brought up elections and the threat of being replaced in the Assembly – the things that really matter to a politico – and ethics went plunging into the pit again. Ah, well,” he sighed. “To be expected, I suppose.”

  The visitor to the island sat impassively on the other side of the player. Old Pete looked at him.

  “What do you make of all this, Andy?” he asked.

  Andrew Tella shrugged. He was short, dark, and still carried himself in a manner that hinted at his former years of rigid training in the Federation Defense Force. He didn’t want to express an opinion. He was an operative. His job was to gather information and he did his job well. His client, Old Pete, had just mentioned ethics and Tella did not like to discuss ethics. Not that the subject itself made him uncomfortable, it was just that his code of ethics was somewhat different from most other people’s. He had no compunction about prying into matters others wanted to keep secret. Events occurred, facts existed. They belonged to those who could discover them and ferret them out. That was the part that kept him in this business: the process of discovery.

  And even that became a humdrum affair at times… finding out what a client’s wife or business associates or competitors were planning or doing.

  Then someone like this Peter Paxton came along and it was a whole new game. A man with no political connections who wanted to know the secret goings on of some of the biggest names in Federation politics. Here was a challenge, and a profitable one to boot.

  Receiving no reply, Old Pete went on. “You did a good job. Actually got a recording device into their security conference room. How’d you manage that?”

  “It wasn’t all that difficult,” Tella replied with a self-satisfied grin. “They have all these elaborate security precautions – the distorter grid, the guard, that trite transparent furniture. But they don’t scan the people coming into the room. I simply planted a recorder in the heel of Catera’s left shoe the night before the meeting and retrieved it two days later. You just heard the results.”

  Old Pete laughed and looked toward the horizon. “I’d give anything to stick this under deBloise’s nose and play it for him. But unfortunately that’s out of the question. I’ve got to let them go blithely on their way thinking it’s all still a big secret.” He paused. “You know, that’s the second time we’ve heard them mention Dil. I think it’s about time you took a little trip to that planet to see if you can find ou
t what’s so important to them there.”

  “That might not be the most practical approach,” Tella replied. “I could waste a lot of time on Dil before I learned a thing. The Federation Office of Patents and Copyrights would be a better starting point. We are, after all, looking for what was called a ‘technological innovation,’ and only a raving madman would fail to register something like that before marketing it. And I happen to have a few contacts in that office.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Pete agreed with a nod. “Tell me: you ever do any industrial espionage?”

  Tella hesitated, then: “A few times, when I was starting out. That’s where I got my contacts at the Office of P&C. Never was very good at it, though.”

  Old Pete raised an eyebrow at this and Tella caught it.

  “I don’t consider myself a thief,” he said defensively. “I dig up information that other people would rather keep hidden but I do not steal the products of another man’s mind. That’s why I joined up with Larry. He feels the same way.”

  Old Pete lifted his hands an amused look on his face. “Did I question your ethics?”

  “Your expression did.”

  “You’re too touchy. I knew all about you and Larry Easly before I hired you. Research, you know. I was looking for undercover operatives who took their work and their reputations seriously and you two fit the bill. Now get to Fed Central or Dil or wherever you feel you’ve got to go and find out what you can about this device deBloise and his rats are meddling with.”

  Somewhat mollified, Andy nodded and reached over to the player set between them. He held a small box over the top of the set, pressed a button, and a tiny silvery sphere popped out to be magnetically scooped into the box, which then closed with a snap. He rose to his feet.

  “You’ve got resources, Mr. Paxton,” he said, letting his eyes roam over the house and island, “but you’re going to need more than you’ve got if you figure on putting a kink or two into their plans.”

  “What makes you think I want to interfere at all? How do you know this isn’t all just idle curiosity to fill an aging man’s final hours?”

  Tella grinned. “Who’re you trying to con? You mentioned research before. That’s my field. You think I’d snoop around Fed Central for you before checking out who you are, where you’ve been, and how you got there? In your whole life, as far as I can tell, you’ve never done a single thing without an ultimate purpose in mind. And this isn’t just politics for you – you’ve got a personal stake here, but that’s your business. I’m merely warning you: You’re dealing with some pretty powerful characters here. You’re going to need help, Mr. Paxton.”

  Old Pete resumed his supine position on the sand and closed his eyes.

  “I’m well aware of that. But for the time being, let’s see if we can find out exactly what they’re up to.” Without opening his eyes, he waved a hand in Tella’s direction. “Get in touch when you have something.”

  The receding sound of Tella’s footsteps vibrated through the hot sand to the back of Old Pete’s skull as he lay there and considered his options. Things were beginning to come to a head. He would have to start setting the stage for a countermove now or risk being caught off guard when the time for action arrived.

  And that meant he would have to go back to IBA.

  A flood of memories swirled around him. Interstellar Business Advisors… he and Joe Finch had founded the company on a shoestring more than half a century before. Fifty-four years ago to be exact. Hard to believe that much time had passed. Then again, when he considered all they had accomplished in that period, it seemed a wonder they’d had enough time at all.

  IT BEGAN BACK ON EARTH when a very young Peter Paxton received word from Joseph Finch, editor and publisher of Finch House Books, that his manuscript on the theory and practice of business on an interstellar scale had been accepted. Mr. Finch wanted to meet with him personally.

  The meeting still remained fine-etched in his mind: Joe Finch slouching behind his cluttered desk, fixing him now and again with those penetrating eyes, and telling him how his book was going to revolutionize interstellar trade. And imagine! Written by a man who had never even weekended on the moon!

  They spent the afternoon in the office. Joe Finch’s range of interests and knowledge was impressive. He was an omnivore with an insatiable appetite for information. He spoke at length on the fine points of the latest attempts to mine the neutron stars, then switched to an impromptu dissertation on the reasons for the most recent additions to Earth’s list of extinct flora and fauna. He gave a technical explanation of his own experimental techniques in holographic photography and then expounded on his perdurably unorthodox view of Earth’s current fiscal and political situation. And through it all ran an invisible thread of logic that somehow strung everything into a cohesive whole.

  They talked for hours in the office and then went to Finch’s house, where he lived alone except for his giant pet antbear. The rest of the night was spent in the living room, talking and drinking Joe’s horde of natural scotch whiskey until they both passed out in their chairs.

  Never in his life among the teeming homogenized masses of Earth had Pete met such a forceful personality. That night was the beginning of a close friendship. So close that when Joe fled Earth after incurring the wrath of the planet’s chief administrator, Peter went with him. The antbear came along, too.

  They ran to Ragna, rented an office and, rather than publish Pete’s book, decided to put it into practice. Obtaining a business loan on Ragna was no easy matter in those days, but they swung it and announced the opening of Interstellar Business Advisors – a big name on a little door.

  Soon they began advising. A few small-time independent traders with timorous plans for growth or consolidation were the first clients. Pete plugged the type of product, the demographics, the population projections, political vagaries, et cetera, of the sectors in question into his theoretical programs and ran them through a computer. The results were then run through Joe Finch, who processed them with his indefinable combination of intuition and marketing experience, and a strategy was formed.

  Success was slow in coming. The efficacy of an IBA program was never immediately apparent. The final proof was, as ever, in the marketplace, and that took time. But Joe and Pete chose their clients carefully, weeding out the fantasists and quick-credit artists from the serious entrepreneurs. After six or seven standard years, word got around the trade lanes that those two fellows in that little office on Ragna really knew what they were doing.

  The fitful trickle of inquiries soon swelled to a steady stream and IBA began renting more space and hiring ancillary personnel. Each of the partners had found himself a mate by then. Joe became the father of Joseph Finch, Jr., and life was good.

  The company continued to expand, and after two standard decades it held advisory accounts with a large number of the mainstay firms in interstellar trade, many of which would not make a move into a new market without first checking with Joe and Pete. But the accounts the partners liked most were the small, marginal ones that involved innovative products and processes, the speculation jobs that taxed their ingenuity to the limit. The big, prestigious accounts kept them solvent, the speculative ones kept them interested. They charged a flat fee for service to the former and arranged a percentage of the adjusted gross over a variable period of time for the latter.

  Time passed.

  They grew rich. And as news of the Earthside exploits that drove Joe from the mother planet filtered through to the outworlds, he became a celebrity of sorts on Ragna. A psychological malady known as “the horrors” was sweeping across the planets and a few IBA staff members were struck down. Pete’s childless marriage broke up. A man calling himself The Healer appeared out of Tolive saying he could cure the horrors, and apparently he could. IBA contracted the construction of its own office building and began renting space to other businesses.

  They had bizarre experiences, like the time Joe and Pete were almost
swindled out of a fortune by an accelerated clone of Occupied Space’s most famous financier. The clone had to be destroyed, of course – the Clone Laws on almost all planets dictated that – which was a shame because they had found him charming.

  They had near tragedy when Joe, Jr., was almost killed by a radiation leak at a construction site shortly after he joined the firm. He was only eighteen at the time and managed to pull through.

  And they had joy with the arrival of Josephine Finch, augmenting Junior and his wife after five years of marriage – a little late by outworld standards, but worth the wait to all concerned.

  Then tragedy struck full force. Joe’s flitter had a power failure while he, his wife, and daughter-in-law were two kilometers in the air.

  Things were thrown into disarray for a while. Joe had been talking of retiring in the next few months when his seventy-fifth year coincided with IBA’s thirty-fifth, but no one had taken that too seriously. Everyone fully expected to see him in his office every morning long after he had officially retired. Now he was gone and IBA would never be the same.

  Everyone, including Pete, looked to Joe’s son to fill the void, but Junior balked. For reasons apparent only to himself, he left Ragna with no particular destination in mind and was never seen or heard from again until his body was found a year later in an alley in a backwater town on Jebinose with a Vanek ceremonial knife in his heart.

  Junior had placed control of his stock with Pete and his death left Pete in complete control of IBA. But Old Pete – it was at about that time that the “Old” became an integral part of his name – wanted no part of it. He appointed a board of directors with himself as chairman and made it a point not to attend any of the meetings. This went on for a number of years. The directors adapted to the company and kept it going at an adequate pace, although not with the spirit and verve of the original, and became entrenched in the process. Old Pete never noticed.