Part 11 (1/2)
Delgardo gestured. ”Not to worry. It's great to hear from you again. It's been a long time.”
”Years,” Hunter said, aware that they were both beating around the proverbial bush. ”Too many years.”
Jose Delgardo was something of a paradox: head of one of the Organisations responsible for putting the bigs.h.i.+p Lines out of business, he was nevertheless a believer, a Disciple. He had trained to become an Engineman, and even pushed briefly as a Gamma before ill-health had forced his early retirement. Hunter had known and liked him when both men worked for the Hartmann Company on Mars in the early days of interface development. He had been the obvious person to approach about this matter.
Hunter cleared his throat. ”I take it you've considered my communique?”
Delgardo sat up, equatorial sunlight falling about him through the window-wall of his office. ”I must admit, Hirst, that my first reaction to this-” he tapped a sheaf of print-outs before him on the desk ”- was that I found it hard to believe.”
”And your second reaction?”
The Director of the Keilor-Vincicoff Organisation pursed his lips, considering. ”Frankly, my second reaction was still one of disbelief.”
”But the consequences, if we ignore it...” Hunter began.
Delgardo made a sound that was part sigh, part laughter. ”You don't for a minute expect me to order the closure of all the 'faces, just like that?” He snapped his fingers.
Hunter was ready with a reply. ”Not immediately, no. The shutdown could be phased in over a number of years.”
”But my investors-” Delgardo began.
Hunter laughed. ”You don't sound like a very good Disciple.”
Delgardo smiled ruefully. ”Five years in this job is enough to corrupt the best.”
Hunter leaned forward in his armchair. ”We've given this a lot of thought, Jose. Please hear me out. The obvious course of action is for the KVO to reinvest in the s.h.i.+pping Lines. Don't you hold the legal right of tender on many of the main routes? If you began putting capital into s.h.i.+p-building right now, then there's no reason why in two, three years you wouldn't be running a vastly profitable Line.”
Delgardo leafed through the report, unconvinced.
Hunter was less nervous now than he had been before speaking to the Director for the first time in years. At least he was giving Hunter a hearing.
”Okay,” Delgardo said at last, ”just supposing all this is true, supposing I, the heads of the other interface concerns, and the United Colonies agree that we should shut down the network - you don't think for a second that the Danzig Organisation would meekly agree and quietly close down their operations?”
Delgardo turned to a keyboard on his desk and tapped in a command. The entire window-wall behind him darkened, then showed an overview of the galaxy. It focused in on the Rim quarter controlled by the Danzig Organisation.
The Danzig planets flashed orange.
Delgardo said, ”They own nearly two hundred planets in this quadrant, and they all have interfaces. Plus they have links to junction planets all around the Expansion. They aren't likely to give it up that easily - especially if we have the jump on them as regards the bigs.h.i.+ps.”
Hunter smiled in complete agreement. This perhaps would be the hardest part of his communication with the Director. ”We realise this - and realise also that we might have to neutralise the Danzig Organisation by force-”
”But their militia is second to none! Look what they did to put the rebellion down on Xiang last year.”
”If the UC acted as one,” Hunter continued, ”along with the other interface Organisations, we would overpower them with ease. The only reason they gained such a stranglehold on the Rim is that the UC never squared up to them in the past. They opposed them with petty sanctions which never had any effect.” Hunter gestured. ”Besides which, to a large extent the conflict would be fought out by guerrilla hit squads. We need only to destroy their interfaces to render them powerless, after all.” He paused. ”Purely as a humanitarian issue, we can't let them get away with the genocide of the Lho.”
Delgardo sat in silence for a long minute. ”How can I be certain that your claims are fully justified, Hirst? As I said, I personally find it almost too incredible to believe.”
”I don't by any means expect your full and immediate support right this minute,” Hunter said. ”You have every reason to doubt my story. But I can substantiate it. Just give me time, Jose. Soon, I'll have proof that everything contained in the report is accurate.”
Delgardo leafed through the read-out again. He looked up. ”How soon?”
Hunter hesitated, took a risk. ”In two, maybe three days. I'm coming to Malaysia then. I'm arranging to meet Earth's UC representative at the disused airbase at Ipoh. If you could be present, I promise you won't be wasting your time. Of course I'll be in touch before then to finalise the arrangement.”
”Very well, Hirst. I'll do my best to be there - for old time's sake. I've never known the Hunter of old to stick his neck out so far, if it wasn't worth the risk of losing it.”
Hunter smiled. ”Thank you. You have no idea how grateful I am, Jose.”
They chatted for a while longer, before Delgardo excused himself and cut the connection. Hunter sat back in his armchair and released a long breath. Yesterday he had contacted Johan Weiner, the UC representative on Earth, and discussed his report with him. Like Delgardo, Weiner's response had been guarded - but he had not dismissed Hunter's claims out of hand, and had agreed to meet Hunter and his team in Malaysia. It was all Hunter could reasonably ask.
Of course, the meeting at Ipoh would come to nothing if he did not succeed with his plans over the next couple of days.
Which reminded him...
He glanced at his watch. It was almost twelve, and time for his dinner engagement with Mirren and the others.
Chapter Ten.
Mirren and Dan Leferve hurried along the crowded avenue towards the golden bauble of the Gastrodome. Hordes of tourists promenaded, enjoying the clement evening. Within the vast dome which covered central Paris the temperature was controlled: not for these rich visitors the sweltering night heat that suffocated the rest of the city. High overhead, tiny lights on the inner curve of the dome simulated the constellations.
Caspar Fekete was waiting for them beside a news-fax kiosk. He was impressive in a magenta djellaba, his bulk emphasised by the console, surely augmented since his discharge from the Line, which spanned his shoulders.
”Ralph, it's wonderful to see you again.” He took Mirren's hand in a limp grip, gold bracelets and rings flas.h.i.+ng.
He was conscious of Fekete's gaze taking in his unkempt appearance: his balding head, his gaunt, unshaven face. They strolled along the avenue.
Fekete said, ”Have you ever been to the Gastrodome, Ralph?”
Mirren gazed at the dome. ”I've always thought it a bit up-market.”
”You're in for an experience.” Fekete smiled to himself.
”I've been,” Dan said. ”Once. Hated the place.”
The restaurant was the decommissioned astrodome of a bigs.h.i.+p - or rather the inflated inner mylar membrane - removed and set down on the banks of the Seine. The dome stood on a circular plinth of marble which served as a staircase, and was surrounded by an exotic display of extraterrestrial flora. Unlike in the outlying districts of the city, where xen.o.biological specimens flourished without restraint, this garden was designed and tended by a team of the finest off-world horticulturists. Similar gardens had been all the rage eighty or ninety years ago, when the first bigs.h.i.+ps forged their way to the stars and returned with all manner of botanical wonders. Then it had been a status symbol to own land given over to the trees and flowers of Hakoah or Songkhla. With the arrival of the interfaces, however, and the subsequent invasion of the alien spores, such gardens had become pa.s.se pa.s.se. This one, and everything about the Gastrodome, was an intentional exhibition of nostalgia, a harking back to an era when Paris was the centre of the s.p.a.ce industry on Earth - a display, thought Mirren, of kitsch for the nouveau riche nouveau riche of Oceania who had never experienced Paris and the s.p.a.ce-age in its hey-day. of Oceania who had never experienced Paris and the s.p.a.ce-age in its hey-day.
They mounted the marble steps to one of the triangular entrance hatches. From within drifted the sickly strains of a band playing the hits of twenty years ago. Mirren recognised Continuum Blues Continuum Blues, but done with an excess of strings to emphasise the sentiment. The maitre d' maitre d' met them on the threshold. ”Gentlemen... a table for three?” met them on the threshold. ”Gentlemen... a table for three?”
”We're meeting a Monsieur Hunter at midnight,” Mirren said.
”Of course. If you would care to come this way.” The maitre d' maitre d' was garbed in the dark blue uniform of a bigs.h.i.+p Captain - but there was something overdone, almost pantomime, in the width of the scarlet piping, the chunkiness of the epaulettes and the jutting peak of his cap. His dress, like everything else about the place, was more lampoon than honest imitation. was garbed in the dark blue uniform of a bigs.h.i.+p Captain - but there was something overdone, almost pantomime, in the width of the scarlet piping, the chunkiness of the epaulettes and the jutting peak of his cap. His dress, like everything else about the place, was more lampoon than honest imitation.
The interior of the dome was a series of ever smaller galleries which rose in tiers from the floor, encircling an inner area where the band played and patrons danced. Each gallery was sectioned off into private dining booths with a view over the surrounding gardens.
As they were led to an elevator plate which whisked them up to the fifth gallery, Mirren turned to Dan. ”I see what you mean,” he said.
”Wait till you see the prices,” Dan said.