Part 32 (1/2)
”Where did this guy come from?” she said, surfacing a half hour later. ”Ten years ago he shows up, loaded with money and starts buying up distressed companies, doing some kind of a hack job on them, then selling off the profitable parts and dumping the rest. Or not.”
”What do you mean?” Captain DeVar said, looking over her shoulder.
”My Grandfather Al would be laughing his head off at me,” Kris said. ”He's the moneybags in the family. He keeps wanting me to ditch the Navy and go into his business.”
”Might be safer,” the Marine noted.
”But where's the fun in that,” Jack said before Kris could.
She scowled at him, but he kept grinning.
”Anyway, I took enough business courses and interned a few summers with Grampa Al when there wasn't a pressing election to worry about, so I do have some kind of head for business.”
”And what does it tell you that this blind Marine isn't noticing?” Captain DeVar asked again.
”Take this small electronics company,” Kris said, calling up a page she'd marked. ”It was undercapitalized and losing money when he bought it. It needed to be folded into a larger company with access to more tools, more contracts. He closed down this software unit, sold the game design part of it to a compet.i.tor, but he kept the tiny chip foundry going.”
”Chip foundry?” Captain DeVar's eyes lit up.
”Yep, a small boutique chip-printing shop. Hold it, Nelly, isn't that the firm where he closed down the union and fired the entire workforce?”
”The name is the same, but my report said it was a software company,” Nelly said.
”There was a software portion, but Nuu says there was also this specialized chip section. But if he fired the entire workforce, who kept the thing going?”
”I guess a new staff,” Jack said thoughtfully. ”Maybe one that wouldn't ask the boss why he needed a unique chip?”
”Looks like that,” Kris said. ”But that doesn't answer any of my questions. Where did the Grant fellow come from? Who gave him start-up funds?”
”He came from Earth,” Nelly said. ”Or at least that is what it says in the records of his acquiring his residence.”
”You can get your hands on that?” Jack said.
”The plot owners.h.i.+p files are not up-do-date,” Nelly said, almost with an audible sniff, ”but he did buy his place eight years ago. You can only stall a file clerk so long.”
”So he came from Earth,” Kris said, not at all convinced.
”I said that was what he said,” Nelly answered, ”but I have the citizen rolls from Earth in my permanent data storage and he does not show up on any of them.”
”So he's not from Earth,” Jack said.
”That may or may not be true,” Kris said. ”Some regions of Earth aren't all that careful about entering all their citizens on the rolls. If you're a taxpayer, you're on the list, but if you're not paying taxes and haven't registered to vote they get slipshod. At least a college friend I had from Earth said so.”
”But where would a mere citizen get start-up money like this fellow was throwing around?” Gramma Ruth asked.
”Any other planet and I'd have Nelly go into the bank records and follow it back.”
”Not on Eden,” Ruth pointed out.
”Should I buy the bank records datafile that I was offered,” Nelly asked.
”The ones where you don't get to see what's in them until you've paid for them?” Kris said.
”And having bought them, shown someone that you are a dumb enough optimist to think they might help you?” Gramma added.
”There is that. It could just be a trap,” Jack said.
”Let's put that off for a while,” Kris concluded.
And then Abby called in.
”Kris, Cedar Estates is not a gated community,” began the maid's recon report.
”That's nice to hear,” Jack said.
”It's more like a walled-and-moated fortress. I make the stone wall to be five, six meters high, with wire at the top, probably electrified. Cameras at regular intervals, and guys in pairs walking the outside.”
”Real friendly, huh?” Kris said.
”Don't know, I ain't about to stop and chat up one. I tried sending a couple of scouts over the wall. None got more than fifty feet inside. I haven't tried any of Nelly's specials. Not sure I want to give them away.”
”I think she might be right,” Jack said. Kris nodded, along with Gramma Ruth.
”Let's keep some powder dry,” Kris said.
”I'm going to drive around the place, as much as I can, see if it gets any easier. Kind of looking forward to a nice drive in the country with Bruce here.” It actually sounded like a smile might be attached to that statement.
”Be careful. Don't stay gone too long,” Kris said, and cut the link. ”No surprise. Grant von Schrader likes his privacy.”
Jack nodded, then rotated his shoulders, his mouth tight against the pain. ”While we wait for Penny to report in, you mind if I do another soak in your tub?” he asked Kris.
”Only if you don't mind sharing it,” Kris said, realizing that she was due for more pain meds and another soak might let her get by on less.”
”I think I still have my lifeguard certificate,” Gramma Ruth said. ”I'll keep an eye on you two. Call for Doc if things get out of hand.”
”You going to be a duenna? Slap him down if he tries to kiss me?” Kris said.
Jack gave her an ugly face, but it was too much fun teasing him at the moment for her to feel too penitent. Then she stood and stretched...as gently as she could. It still hurt.
”Slap him? Lordy no, Miss Longknife. Remember me. I want”-and here Gramma Ruth held up her fingers and counted them off-”great, great, great, however many great-grandkids. You two start misbehaving and I'll hitch up my skirt and run, cackling, for the door.”
Now it was Jack's turn to stand slowly and very carefully stretch. He winced at the pain. ”I think your honor is safe with me. At least for the moment, Your Highness.”
Captain DeVar shook his head. Whether at this verbal tripping of the line of fraternizing or some failure of Jack to uphold the masculine tradition of the Corps, he said not.
Kris was just getting comfortable in the tub when Nelly spoke up from the dressing table where Kris had left her. ”Call coming in from Penny.”