Yes, I can see how that would cause problems for you people. The only bona fide economic asset out here is the He3 mining operation. Even if the people of Eden declared independence there's nothing to stop the JSKP from housing its workers in another habitat. Eden by itself would become financially unviable; you couldn't compete in the microgee industry market because of the transport costs. Anything you build can also be built in the O'Neill Halo, and for far less. You have to have the mining operation as well as the habitat if you are to succeed.
Harwood gave an indifferent shrug. So you say. But my hypothetical government already has a small stake in the foreign factory it wants to take into national ownership. That changes the entire legal ball game; the whole concept of ownership and rights becomes far more ambiguous.
Ah! I clicked my fingers as the full realization hit me. You're going to engineer a leveraged buyout from the existing shareholders, and probably try to oust the existing board members as well. No wonder you need all that money. I stopped, recalling the briefing files I'd studied on the JSKP. But even that can't be enough. You only have a few billion available. JSKP is a multi-trillion-wattdollar venture; it won't break even for another fifty years.
No government on Earth is going to disrupt the flow of goods from this hypothetical nationalized factory. They can't afford to, the product it manufactures is unique and extraordinarily valuable. Ultimately, the courts and the financial community will permit this proposed managerial restructuring, especially as full compensation will be paid. Nobody is trying to cheat anyone out of anything. A large proportion of the money which Penny and other philanthropists have pledged to this hypothetical government will be spent on legal battles; which are shaping up to be very violent and depressingly prolonged.
Yes, I see now. I stood up. Well, providing I can verify this hypothesis , I think you and the other trustees can be removed from my suspect list. Thank you for your time.
Harwood lumbered to his feet. I hope you find Penny's killer soon, Chief Parfitt.
I'll do my best.
Yeah, I guess so. His expression turned confidently superior. But don't count on having too much time. You might just find you ain't gonna be here for very much longer.
I stopped in the open door, and gave him a genuinely pitying look. Do you really think that Boston won't need a professional police force if you ever do manage to form a government here? If so, you're more of a daydreaming fool than I thought.
•••
Pieter Zernov was a lot more cordial than Harwood; but then we'd got to know each other quite well on the Ithilien . A modest man, quietly intelligent, who kept most of his opinions to himself; but when he did talk on a subject which interested him he was both coherent and well informed. It was his nomination as a trustee which made me inclined to believe Harwood's explanation about what Boston intended to do with the money. I trusted Pieter, mainly because he was one person who couldn't have killed Penny. The way it looked at the moment, the murderer had to have been in the habitat for at least a couple days prior to the murder.
A time when Pieter was on the Ithilien with me. Good alibi.
I found him in the JSKP's Biotechnology Division headquarters, supervising Ararat's germination.
It ought to be Penny doing this, he said mournfully. She put in so much work on Ararat, especially after her accident. It's a tremendous improvement on Eden and Pallas.
We were standing at the back of a large control centre; five long rows of consoles were arrayed in front of us, each with technicians scanning displays and issuing streams of orders to their equipment. Big holoscreens were fixed up around the walls, each showing a different view of Ararat as the large seed floated fifteen kilometres distant from Eden. The foam which protected it during the flight from the O'Neill Halo had been stripped away, allowing the base to be mated to a large support module.
It looks like an old-style oil refinery, I said.
Not a bad guess, Pieter said. The tanks all hold hydrocarbon compounds. We'll feed them into the seed over the next two months. Then if we're happy that the germination is progressing normally, the whole thing gets shifted to its permanent orbital location, leading Eden by a thousand kilometres. We have a suitable mineral-rich rock there waiting for it.
And Ararat will just start eating it?
Not quite, we have to process the raw material it consumes for a further nine months, until its own absorption and digestion organs have developed. After that it'll be attached directly onto the rock. We are hoping that the next generation habitats are going to be able to ingest minerals straight out of the ore right from the start.
From tiny acorns, I murmured.
Quite. Although, this isn't one unified seed like you have for trees. Habitat seeds are multisymbiotic constructs; we don't know how to sequence the blueprint for an entire habitat into a single strand of DNA. Not yet, anyway. And, regrettably, biotechnology research is slowing down on Earth, there's too much association with affinity. That's why Penny was so keen to move her company out here, where she could work without interference.
Speaking of which ...
He bowed his head. Yes, I know. Her will.
If you could just confirm what Antony Harwood told me.
Oh, Antony. You shook him up rather badly, you know. He's not used to being treated like that. His employees are a great deal more respectful.
You were hooked in?
Most of us were.
I found I quite liked that idea, silent witnesses to Mr Front knuckling under at the first touch of pressure. Most unprofessional, Harvey. The will, I prompted.
Of course. What Antony told you is more or less true. The money will be channelled into fighting legal cases on Earth. But we're aiming for more than just a leveraged buyout, that would simply entail replacing the current JSKP board members with our own proxies. Boston wants the He3 mining industry to be owned collectively by Eden's residents. We're prepared to purchase every share in the enterprise, even though it will take decades, maybe even a century, to pay off the debt. If Eden's independence is to be anything other than a token, we must be in complete control of our own destiny.
Thank you. I could sense how much it hurt him to talk about it, especially to someone like me. Yet he was proud, too. When he talked of Boston and us, I could see he was totally committed to the ideal. What a strange umbrella organization it was; you could hardly find two more disparate people than Pieter Zernov and Antony Harwood.