Eros Descending: Book 3 of Tales of the Velvet Comet Read online

  “Exciting, isn't it?” asked the Steel Butterfly.

  Gold made no reply.

  As the two colts passed the halfway point in the race, Secretariat's jockey tapped him once with the whip, and the chestnut colt surged forward. His long strides quickly ate into the margin between himself and the free-running leader, and he pulled to within half a length of the burly black colt.

  “Here he comes!” cried the Steel Butterfly, as the members of the crowd started screaming the names of the horses.

  Seattle Slew's jockey asked his horse to respond, and the black colt shot forward, finally freed of all restraint, and opened the lead to a length once again, his flying hooves beating a rhythmic tattoo on the dirt flooring. Twice more during the final two hundred yards Secretariat pulled to within almost even terms; twice more Seattle Slew dug in and refused to let his rival go by. As they thundered past the grandstand and the finish line, necks extended, muscles straining, the lathered black colt still clung tenaciously to his narrow lead.

  “Shit!” muttered Plaga disgustedly.

  “Well, Doctor Gold, I guess Gustave owes you a credit,” said the Steel Butterfly, exhilarated by the contest she had just witnessed despite the defeat of her horse. She noticed that Gold was staring intently at a spot near the rail some forty yards before the finish line.

  “Doctor Gold?” she repeated, touching him gently on the shoulder.

  He straightened up abruptly. “Yes?”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “The race?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Very exciting,” he said unenthusiastically.

  “Come along Doctor Gold,” said Fiona Bradley, starting to climb down from the grandstand.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You have to present the trophy.”

  He nodded absently and followed her up to the presentation platform where they were joined by the other division heads. The black horse was still a quarter of a mile away, jogging slowly back toward the grandstand, and Gold's attention wandered back to the same spot on the rail.

  “You seem pensive, Doctor Gold,” said Fiona Bradley after a moment.

  “You'd think they would have wings,” he murmured wistfully.

  “Well, they certainly ran as if they did,” she replied.

  He stared at her, surprised, for a moment, then quickly regained his composure.

  “Didn't they, though?” he agreed at last.

  Chapter 3

  Fiona Bradley sipped her coffee and admired the view from her new apartment. Deluros VIII could be a pretty overwhelming world from ground level, but from up here on the 142nd story of the Vainmill Building, there was a certain delicate beauty to the thousands of towers and spires that pierced the blue sky.

  The planet itself was the soon-to-be capital of the race of Man. No one knew quite when the government would officially abandon Earth for Deluros VIII, but for all practical purposes the transition had already taken place. The planet had ten times the surface area of Man's birthplace, and was, galactically speaking, much more in the center of things. The planet's single city—which, strangely, had never been given a name—covered every square inch of surface area, snaking through deserts and even connecting the three major continents by means of vast enclosed underwater thoroughfares.

  Fiona gazed out through the wall of windows, enjoying the view from the top, figuratively and literally.

  Both were new to her, but she had been preparing herself for them for years.

  Finally she turned her attention back to the business at hand, and activated her personal computer.

  “I'm going down to eighty-six now,” she announced. “Hold all messages.”

  “Registered,” replied the computer.

  “Is Gustave Plaga there yet?”

  “Checking ... yes.”

  “Good,” she said grimly.

  “Will there be anything else?” asked the computer.

  “Not right now.” She paused. “Yes. Get in touch with Miranda Torres and tell her that the interior decorator she hired is unacceptable.”

  “Would you like her to hire another?”

  “I'll pick my own.”

  She walked to her private elevator, waited for the doors to dilate, and stepped into the compartment.

  “Eighty-six,” she commanded, then turned to look out of the glass enclosure as it began its descent, wondering why tradition had it that the chairman of Vainmill always directed the immense corporation's affairs from the eighty-sixth floor, and deciding that once her apartment had finally been decorated to her tastes it would be time to make a break with that particular tradition. “We have arrived,” announced the elevator.

  Fiona waited for the doors to dilate again, then walked out into a large, elegantly furnished office.

  Gustave Plaga, who had been waiting nervously for her, got to his feet and remained standing while she walked across the plush carpet and seated herself behind the polished desk that had served some twenty-six previous Vainmill chairmen, each of whom stared severely out at Plaga from holographs on the walls.

  “Please sit down, Gustave,” said Fiona.

  Plaga sat down on a hard, uncomfortable chair, crossed his legs, and tried unsuccessfully to assume an air of nonchalance. Fiona, sitting in her own chair, swiveled slightly in order to face him directly.

  “Gustave,” she said at last. “I must strike you as a very stupid woman.”

  Plaga made no reply, but shifted nervously in his chair.

  “Did you really think I wouldn't find out what you had done?”

  “I'm not quite sure I know what you're talking about,” said Plaga.

  She stared at him for a long moment, while he tried to meet her eyes and shifted uncomfortably.

  “You have almost single-handedly turned a minor irritant into a major disaster,” she said. “You are aware of that, aren't you?”

  Plaga opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it and remained silent.

  “I did not spend two-thirds of my life reaching the chairmanship of Vainmill, only to preside over its dissolution. Is that perfectly clear?”

  “You don't know all the facts,” he protested.

  “Is that perfectly clear?” she repeated harshly.

  “Perfectly,” said Plaga.

  “Thomas Gold was the reason for my predecessor's downfall,” she continued. “He will not be the reason for mine.” She looked directly at Plaga. “Just how long did you think you could keep this secret from me, Gustave?”

  “It was never intended to be a secret,” said Plaga defensively.

  “Surely you didn't think you could keep it from the press?”

  “I hadn't considered it.”

  “Then why did you do it at all?”

  “Executives are supposed to act on their own initiative,” said Plaga petulantly. “That's just what I did.”

  “And you saw absolutely no downside risk in arresting the entire Jesus Pure population of Delvania?”

  “You make it sound enormous,” said Plaga. “There are only twenty-seven of them—and one of them is guilty of stealing Vainmill property.”

  “Gustave, you're a fool,” she said coldly. “Two days ago we had one irritating preacher whose capacity to harm Vainmill or the Comet was negligible. Today we have twenty-seven martyrs. There is nothing any of them could have done that would justify their incarceration.”

  “You don't know what they did,” complained Plaga.

  “Of course I know what they did!” she snapped “Do you think the chairman of Vainmill is without her own sources of information?”

  “Then you know why I had them arrested.”

  “There was never any doubt in my mind why you had them arrested,” said Fiona. “You were guilty of a catastrophic error in judgment.”

  “Surely you don't propose that we simply turn a blind eye to the fact that one of our computers had been robbed!”

  “Anything would have been better th
an your particular reaction,” said Fiona. She activated her desktop intercom. “Coffee.”

  She waited for a secretary to enter the office with two cups of black coffee.

  “Will you join me?” asked Fiona.

  “No, thank you,” said Plaga.

  Fiona shrugged, waited for her coffee, took a sip of it, and then turned her attention back to Plaga as the secretary left.

  “Gustave, I've been listening to you and the rest of Vainmill's executives talk about Gold for the past five years, and I must confess that I've never seen a problem handled so badly from start to finish. You still don't know what kind of man you're up against.”

  “He's a religious fanatic,” said Plaga.

  “That's too simplistic an answer. Thomas Gold is an obsessive personality. He truly believes that his actions all stem from the purest of motives, and that he has a private pipeline straight from God's lips to his ear. He's also a man with a temper, who can always find some means of justifying his actions, no matter how out of character they may seem. That's why I didn't stop you from goading him into making that bet with you—I wanted to see how much abuse he was willing to take, and once he passed that point I wanted to see how he matched his actions against his beliefs. It should have been apparent to you from that one incident alone that this is a man who will find a way to rationalize anything he feels he must do to obtain his goals, and yet you continue to make the mistake of thinking that he can be placated, that closing down a mine on Belargo IV or donating ten million credits to his church or setting up an Alien Education Fund on Pollux IV will satisfy him and make him turn his attentions elsewhere. And, predictably, he has taken every such gesture as a sign of weakness. You can't reach an accommodation with a man like this; you have to fight him.”

  “That's just what I was trying to do!” said Plaga in frustration.

  “All right,” said Fiona. “You fought him. Now suppose you tell me what you think you accomplished.”

  “It was a reprisal,” said Plaga sullenly.

  “And just what did you think a reprisal would do?” demanded Fiona. “Has it harmed Gold in any way? Has it helped us? All you've done is given him new fuel for his fire, and forced me to humiliate myself and Vainmill by publicly apologizing to him.”

  “But they broke into our computer on Delvania!” persisted Plaga.

  “It was broken into,” she agreed, “but almost certainly not by any of the people you had arrested. If you had examined their dossiers, as I did, you'd know that none of them had the necessary skill to pull off a job like that.”

  “Even if you're right,” said Plaga, “it seems likely that they commissioned the job. I thought we might get to them before they had a chance to pass the information on to Gold.”

  “That's the stupidest thing you've said yet!” she exploded. “Gold or one of his representatives had what they needed ten minutes after the theft. You didn't authorize any arrests for twelve hours.”

  “I was trying to save the Comet,” repeated Plaga stubbornly.

  “You haven't heard a word I've said, have you? Gold doesn't give a damn about the Velvet Comet! It's Vainmill he's after.”

  “The stuff he stole can only be used against the Comet,” persisted Plaga.

  Fiona sighed wearily. “How can you be so foolish when you're trying to be so clever, Gustave? If he just wanted to close down the Comet, he'd lobby to make prostitution illegal in the Deluros system, he'd preach more about the immorality of sex without marriage, and if he got desperate enough, he'd find a way to plant a bomb up there. But look at what he stole: holographic records of the faeries’ training sessions at Suma's school, and copies of their contracts. He wants to destroy Vainmill because of our exploitation of alien races; the Velvet Comet is just a temporary battlefield. In fact, he expects us to close it down in exchange for his moderating his attacks against us.”

  She finished her coffee, then continued: “Thomas Gold himself is a mild irritant—or at least he was until you decided to make Vainmill policy. The holographic footage he's got will be an embarrassment, though if he uses it unwisely it will probably do us as much good as harm, people being what they are. But irritants and embarrassments are one thing, and disasters are another. Arresting the entire Jesus Pure population of Delvania is a disaster.”

  “Then I suppose we'd better set them free,” said Plaga grudgingly.

  “I gave the order six hours ago. Vainmill has also agreed to pay each of them half a million credits as full settlement for any grievances they may have over their treatment.”

  “That's blackmail!” protested Plaga.

  “It's pragmatism,” she replied. “I had our attorney offer them the money before they thought of making any demands, in exchange for their written agreement not to make any in the future.” She paused. “My next step, after I leave this office, will be to go down to our holo studio on the forty-third floor and tape a public apology for Vainmill's actions.”

  “Do you think that's wise?” asked Plaga.

  “I think it's essential,” answered Fiona. She stared meaningfully at him. “I also intend to state that the man responsible for this regrettable incident has been fired.”

  “That's not fair!” said Plaga.

  “Was it fair of you to arrest twenty-seven innocent people?” asked Fiona. “Or to usurp my authority less than a week after I'd been elected chairman?”

  “But, damn it, I did it in the best interests of Vainmill!”

  “I know,” answered Fiona calmly. “That's why I'm firing you.”

  “I don't understand,” said Plaga.

  “If you had been trying some power play to take the company away from me before I'd learned my way around the job, it would be understandable. Not forgivable, but understandable. And if I thought you were doing this just to impress me with your initiative, even that would be understandable, though, of course, I would have had to let you go anyway. But I truly believe that you thought you were doing something beneficial to Vainmill, and such incredibly poor judgment is perhaps the worst sin an executive can commit: it cannot go unpunished. And our little conversation has convinced me that you would be guilty of any number of equally embarrassing and ill-conceived blunders if I allowed you to remain with the company.”

  “And what about you?” demanded Plaga hotly.

  “I am responsible to our Board of Directors, and I am exercising such damage control as I can before they ask for my resignation as well.” She paused. “I believe that concludes our business, Gustave. Your accrued profit-sharing has been deposited in your personal account, and I have instructed the comptroller to pay you through noon today. I realize that a generous severance settlement is customary in such cases, but frankly, you don't deserve it.”

  “I'll sue for it,” threatened Plaga.

  “'That's your privilege,” replied Fiona. “You know how to get in touch with our legal department.” She checked her timepiece. “And now, if you will excuse me, I have a considerable amount of work to do, most of it caused by you.”

  She stared emotionlessly at him until he finally rose and walked to the door.

  “This isn't over yet!” Plaga promised.

  “It was over, Gustave, the day that you came to the erroneous conclusion that Thomas Gold thought like you, and could be bought or bullied like you.”

  He muttered something that she couldn't quite hear and stalked out the door.

  She swiveled in her chair and looked out the window. This one didn't afford her the view that she had from her apartment. From the eighty-sixth floor, the city seemed to be nothing but an enormous expanse of nearly identical office buildings, many of which flew their company colors from scores of flagpoles. She preferred the view from the 142nd, where the glass towers resembled stately minarets of ancient days. Still, the eighty-sixth was where the ultimate power of Vainmill was concentrated, and it was from here that she would exercise it, at least until she finished converting her apartment. With a sigh, she turned back to her desk a
nd activated an intercom.

  “All right,” she said. “You can come in now.”

  A moment later Richard Constantine entered the office and walked directly to a chair. He was a rotund, balding, conservatively dressed man in his early thirties, who seemed totally unprepossessing until one looked into his shrewd, metallic eyes.

  “I assume you saw the whole thing on your monitor?” asked Fiona.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good. That saves me the trouble of recounting it.” She looked across her desk at Constantine. “You've probably guessed why you're here?”

  “You want me to take over the Entertainment and Leisure Division,” he replied with conviction.

  Fiona nodded. “That's correct. I must say that you don't look very happy about it, Richard.”

  “Nobody's very happy when he's presented with a ticking bomb—even one that's been gift-wrapped.”

  He leaned back on his chair. “Entertainment and Leisure makes less money than any of the other divisions, and it has ten times the problems—and that's without Tom Gold taking potshots at it.”

  “It's only temporary,” she explained. “Just long enough to get things straightened out.”

  “You're sure?” he said dubiously. “The attrition rate for Entertainment and Leisure presidents isn't exactly a secret.”

  “Richard, you're my most trusted assistant. I have no intention of marooning you in Entertainment and Leisure. I need you too much right here.”

  “Then why not give it to someone else?”

  “Because, as you said, it's a ticking bomb. I want to make sure it's properly dismantled.”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “Are you referring to the division or to Tom Gold?”

  “To the division, of course,” replied Fiona. “As annoying as Thomas Gold is, he's far from Entertainment and Leisure's only problem. Our hotel chain in the Quinellus cluster is losing an enormous amount of money, two of our video networks have been mismanaged almost into bankruptcy, our health spas are down thirty percent this year—and, of course, there's no telling how many of his underlings share Gustave's unique approach to problem-solving. As for the division itself, I have no intention of dismantling it; if I did, I would have given it to Mildred Nambuta. Her job is killing companies that I don't want to be bothered with; yours is saving them.”