Drakon (23 page)
on top of a real career. Not unless you had more luck in the genetic lottery than any one human being was due.
"We'll save the numbers for tomorrow morning, I think," Ingolfsson said.
There was a murmur of agreement around the table. The meal had been long, complex and memorable; the dining room was cool and palely elegant, open to the tropical night through tall french doors.
The founder of IngolfTech was looking elegant herself, although Jennifer admitted she wasn't overdoing it.
The gold and ruby brooch at her neck was the only spectacular item, shaped in the form of a tiny bat-winged dragon, grasping something in its claws.
She went on in the same mellow, purring voice: "Except the basic ones. I came here in '95 with a few hundred thousand dollars. Two months later I had eight million dollars . . . and that might have been luck. Now, by your own conservative estimate, my company has a net worth of one hundred and seventy-eight million dollars, and that
cannot
be luck."
"Ummm . . ." Vice-President Coleman said. "Ah . . . how exactly was your initial financing arranged?"
Gwen smiled with white even teeth. "With respect, Mr. Coleman, that's irrelevant. What
is
relevant is one hundred and seventy-eight million dollars' worth of developments in biotechnology and other fields, every one of them bought, developed, patented, and then sold or licensed by IngolfTech. The patents and contracts are a matter of public record. Our cash flow this year should be better than twenty million from licensing fees
alone.
That's not counting any new products; and believe me, you'll be seeing enough of
those
to assure you of doubling, or possibly trebling that figure."
Jennifer cleared her throat. "Ms. Ingolfsson, I have been going over the figures with some care.
Your R&D overheads are . . . well, they're extremely low."
The servants brought in coffee and liqueurs. Gwen nodded and thanked them in some musical language that sounded like French but wasn't; Jennifer couldn't place it. The entrepreneur went on: "That's how you make profits, Ms. Feinberg. Low overheads, high receipts." The green eyes turned on her, and Jennifer felt a sudden prickling over the skin of her face. "My concept isn't complicated; I search out cheap scientific talent—in the former Soviet bloc, in South Asia, elsewhere. There are a lot of very good people there, although they don't have the infrastructure they need. I provide seed money. If the idea looks promising, I buy it—fee-for-service—and develop it to commercial stage. Dr. Mueller and Dr. Singh do, rather."
She nodded at the two heads of research: a pale soft-looking middle-aged German and a lean dark Punjabi.
"Then we sell it."
Director Klein smiled. "Essentially, IngolfTech's main asset is your nose for salable ideas, then, Ms.
Ingolfsson."
She nodded coolly. "I wouldn't expect anyone to value that highly without a track record," she said.
"That's why I haven't taken the company public to date. However, now we
do
have a track record."
"And a rather impressive one," Klein said genially.
"We'll go into the details tomorrow," she said, lifting her wineglass. "In the meantime—to a long and profitable association between IngolfTech and Primary Belway Securities."
They all raised theirs in return. Gwen's head turned towards Jennifer, and her nostrils flared very slightly. "That's Scheherazade you're wearing, isn't it, Ms. Feinberg?"
Jennifer put her wrist to her face reflexively. "Why, yes," she said, startled. The perfume was barely detectable to
her,
and the IngolfTech CEO was sitting four places away.
Gwen smiled again. "I have a very sensitive nose," she said.
***
pa'ti Helas, helas, c'est pou' toujou' . . .
The clumsy weights of the scuba gear clanked together as Ken walked to the side of the motor-schooner lying nearly motionless under bare poles two miles off the coast. The crew were looking elaborately innocent; Captain Lavasseur stood at the wheel, singing the old Creole folk-song under his breath.
There it is,
Ken thought. There were lights; probably the main house, although there was a seaplane dock and a beach chalet. They moved slowly with the gentle sway of the ship; the headlights of a car went by somewhere inland, flickering between trees. He could hear faint music, and a dog barked. The seaplane was docked at the pier, next to a paved landing ramp. So peaceful . . .
Philosophers he'd read on this Earth sometimes doubted that evil was a real or tangible thing, relegating it to a matter of perspective and custom. Samothracians had never had that luxury; they lived in the same universe as the Domination and its masters.
It
waited there: a living, breathing snake. He'd studied them all his adult life, killed—and been killed by—thousands of them in neural-link simulations.
Odd. Only
here in another
universe
have I ever walked the same planet with one.
Anger was a calm thing; the neural implants wouldn't allow more than that with combat to await.
Still . . .
kill it and I save a whole world,
he thought. Repeal the unhealed wound of the Last War.
A sudden thought shocked him.
Kill it and I'm stuck here forever.
Wondering about the future wasn't something you did much of when you'd volunteered for a suicide mission. He filed the thought for later consideration.
"Exactly here," he said to Lavasseur.
The islander tapped the GPS monitor mounted by the binnacle. "Exactly,
blanc.
"
The local satellite positioning system was crude by Samothracian standards; back home, the implants everyone had made it impossible
not
to know precisely where you were at all times. It was functional enough for this. Lavasseur's eyes and teeth showed briefly as the display lit them; for the rest the deck was very dark, only starlight on the waves to glint on rare pieces of metal. The
Mait' Carrefour
was surprisingly clean, but the crew did not go in for polishing the brightwork. Just an innocuous little working boat of the type that still knocked around the out-islands or took an occasional tourist charter . . .
Ken took the rubber-tasting mouthpiece between his teeth and went backward over the rail in the approved local style. A knotted rope dipped down to the bottom a hundred feet below; he stripped off the native gear and bundled it, laying it on the sandy seabed. A quick gesture, and the transparent face-film of his softsuit covered eyes and nose and mouth. He spat the bitter salt of seawater out and rinsed his mouth with fresh. Across his eyes the film adjusted, thickening into a lens that corrected the distortion of seawater and amplified light.
Magnification 5x,
he thought/commanded.
In a floating, toe-touching walk reminiscent of a low-gravity asteroid, he began to stride toward shore. The equipment clipped around him was all his own, small and non-metallic and nearly undetectable.
Not as powerful as he'd have liked; given his choice, a miniature antimatter bomb from twenty thousand kilometers would do nicely. Too bad about the bystanders, but worth it considering the stakes.
That was exactly what he must not do, of course; far too much noncongruent energy release to be safe, with the Domination's scientists searching the continua. He'd have to do this . . . what was the local's expression?
"Up close and personal," he murmured.
He was walking through coral in a thousand shapes, branched and brain-knobbed, crimson and white and starred with drifting clouds of fish colored like finned orchids. The water carried the grunts, groans, clicking sounds fish made—more were active at night—and the chitinous scuttling noises of the lobsters and sea urchins that marched across the bottom, eye-stalks swiveling to track him. Something heavier and gray swept its tail through the water above, dorsal fin and wicked little eyes, underslung jaw with multiple rows of shearing teeth born on a living torpedo of gristle and sinew. It half-rolled to examine him and then swam on, warned away by the vibrations his softsuit bled into the water.
"Up close and personal," Lafarge said again, with an expression very much like the shark above him.
***
She looked at the workstation. The electronics were set in smooth panels of tropical hardwood: swing-out keyboards, old-style and an adjustable ergonomic split kind, fax-modem, adjustable thin-section screen on a boom, all the latest. She settled for the speakerphone and punched out a number.
"Hi, Henry. Hope I didn't wake you," she said.
"Nah, I'm a night owl. You okay?"
Despite that, he sounded a little sleepy at first; it was past midnight. But the last words were sharper.
Why did I call Henry, in particular?
she thought. They'd only known each other a couple of months, really—that first time back after Stephen Fischer was killed didn't count.
Does sweetums want a
big, stwong man to holdums widdle hand?
she scolded herself. Then again, Henry was a friend . . . and he did have a different perspective on things.
"I'm fine, really. I just wanted to talk."
"Fine by me," Henry said, with a chuckle in his voice. "So, how are things going?"
What do I say?
The truth, she supposed. "Fine, but I've got a weird feeling about it," she said slowly. "For one thing, this place is odd. It's too beautiful."
"This lady's rolling in it, from what you said."
"Henry, she's made it all in the last four years. You don't have
time
to collect toys while you do that; believe me, I've known a lot of these entrepreneurial types. They don't do that while they're driving for the top."
"This one does." He was silent for a moment in turn. "There are," he said neutrally, "some very rich people south and west of there. Who
do
go in for toys in a big way."
She thought of a map. South America—Colombia.
"Henry, you don't know anything about IngolfTech and
drugs,
do you?"
Another hesitation. "No, not exactly. And remember where you're calling from."
Oh,
Jennifer thought.
Right.
Even more public than a cellular phone.
"No, I really don't think so. It was just a comparison," he said.
"Well, maybe she's just jumping the gun," Jennifer said. "There's Lather and his buffalo ranches, and Trump liked to collect buildings. The other thing is that it's pretty odd to stick a research facility out here in the boondocks. Offshore, yes, there are regulatory advantages, but why Andros Godforsaken Island? It's pretty, but even these days you want to be in closer contact with things, you can't do everything electronically. Why not Nassau? For that matter, there's not much action in the Bahamas except in offshore banking, currencies, that sort of thing. No infrastructure for a high-tech company. So why not someplace in Europe, maybe?"
"Humpfh." Henry grunted thoughtfully. "I'll bet Ms. Ingolfsson does a fair bit of traveling, then.
You're right, it does look a bit screwy. What's she like?"
Jennifer propped her head in her free hand. "That's what's got me really wondering. Far too good-looking, in a really strange sort of way. Far too . . . charming. Isaac Coleman's as cold-blooded a son of a bitch as you can find on the Street, and she had him eating out of her hand. I can't place her, either; not just that she's got no paper trail, she doesn't
feel
familiar. I'd say old money, probably European, but her accent's as much American as anything. And charisma that feels like bumper-cables clipped onto your ears. Scary, fun in an odd sort of way, but scary."
"Be caref—"
Henry's voice cut off. An instant later, so did the lights.
Ken Lafarge came out of the water silently, crawling on his belly. It was deep night, moonless, only the starlight for illumination and the distant exterior lights of the house. The breathing film rolled up from his mouth and nose, contracting smoothly into the thin goggles across his eyes. Those turned the darkness into flat silvery light, as bright as daylight; they would diffuse glare with the same efficiency. The softsuit covered his body, a form-hugging armor that blended seamlessly against the background, mimicking light and thermal signatures. He went over the beach and up into rocky ground covered in scrub. Wherever his softsuit touched the ground it formed momentary pads shaped to grip on the outside, a frictionless surface elsewhere. He eeled through the heavy undergrowth with scarcely a rustle to mark his passage, only a slight sagelike smell of bruised herbage.
Break, human-range, mark,
he whispered silently, as he cleared the scrub and moved into open country.
The AI showed him schematic indications of human presence. It helpfully filled in the guard dogs some of the men had with them. There were a round dozen, patrolling the perimeter; the dogs could be a problem, but fortunately the wind was from the interior of the island. He could overhear the guards' periodic check-ins; they were wearing headsets and throat mikes. Ken grinned wryly in the darkness.
Advantages
of backwardness.
No trace of comp-control, just radios. If the equipment had been a little more advanced, his would have been able to take it over. The Samothracian rose and moved forward in a smooth jog, feet nearly soundless on the coarse, sandy soil. Fairly soon he'd be into the gardens.