“Or they might make a determination within months,” Aubrey said. “In which case the company is screwed.”
Holloway nodded. “Then I suggest you prioritize your efforts,” he said. “You’ve said yourself that sunstone seam I found is worth decades of revenues for ZaraCorp. If I were you, I’d be putting just about everything I could into it.”
“It’s already our top priority,” Aubrey said.
“Now it’ll be your top priority with a special sense of urgency, won’t it,” Holloway said.
Aubrey suddenly grinned, grimly. “ NowI understand why you did it, Holloway,” he said. “Having us exploit the sunstone seam in our usual way wouldn’t get you rich enough fast enough. You wanted as much as you could get as quickly as you could get it. So you show Judge Soltan just enough of your little talking monkeys to force her to rule for more study—but not enough so that she requires us to file an SSR. Zarathustra Corporation is put into the position of having to focus on the single most profitable project on the planet, which you just happento have discovered.”
Holloway said nothing to this.
“This proves you don’t actually give a shit about those little fuzzys of yours,” Aubrey said. “You’ll still get your percentage of the sunstone seam whether the experts decide the fuzzys are sentient or not. You’ve played your biologist friend, and you played ZaraCorp at the same time. Very nicely done. I can almost admire it. Almost.”
“It’s not as if ZaraCorp won’t see the benefit of it,” Holloway said. “If you exploit that seam quickly, you’re creating an endowment for your company. You hold the monopoly on sunstones. You can store those sunstones and dribble them out over decades, whenever you need an extra boost to the bottom line. That I get my bit up front is neither here nor there.”
“We have a monopoly only if the fuzzys are found not to be sentient,” Aubrey said.
“You have a monopoly either way,” Holloway said. “As I mentioned to someone else recently, the fuzzys only recently discovered sandwiches. Sentient or not, there’s no way they’re going to be ready to handle the world of interplanetary business. It’s unlikely the Colonial Authority will allow them to for decades. It was only a decade ago the CA decided the Negad were competent enough to enter into resource deals on their own planet. The fuzzys are far behind where the Negad were when they were declared sentient. ZaraCorp’s monopoly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
“It will still cost us hundreds of millions of credits to refocus all our planetary resources on that seam,” Aubrey said.
Holloway shrugged, and the message was clear enough: Like I care.
“And we might decide not to,” Aubrey said.
“I understand the Aubrey family doesn’t see fit to give ZaraCorp voting stock to the plebian masses,” Holloway said. “But the folks who own class B stock in the company can still sell it when they see the corporate governance doing something stupid. Like, say, not exploiting a sunstone seam that’s arguably worth the rest of the entire planet combined, when there’s an excellent chance the entire planet will soon be placed off-limits to future exploitation. The only real question in that case is how low the stock will go. I’d guess not quitelow enough for Zarathustra Corporation to get delisted. But one never does know, does one.”
Aubrey smiled another mirthless smile. “You know, Holloway, I’m delighted that the two of us have had this little chat,” he said. “It has put so many things into perspective.”
“I’m glad it has,” Holloway said.
“I don’t suppose you have any other surprises you want to share with me,” Aubrey said.
“Not really,” Holloway said.
“Of course not,” Aubrey said. “They wouldn’t be surprises then, would they.”
“The man has a learning curve,” Holloway said.
“One other thing,” Aubrey said. “I’ve decided that when your contract runs out, I’m going to have ZaraCorp renew it. All things considered, I think you’ll do us less damage here than anywhere else. And I want you where I can keep track of you.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Holloway said. “I don’t suppose you still plan on giving me that continent, though.”
Aubrey walked off.
“Didn’t think so,” Holloway said. He turned to Carl. “There goes a real piece of work,” he said to his dog.
Carl returned the comment with a look that said, That’s nice, but now I really do have to pee. Holloway continued their walk.
*
“You’re late,” Sullivan said, as he answered his door.
“I got waylaid by a very pissed-off future Chairman and CEO of Zarathustra Corporation,” Holloway said.
“That’s an acceptable excuse,” Sullivan said, and then glanced down at Carl, who was lolling his tongue at the lawyer.
“I promised Isabel I’d bring Carl around,” Holloway said. “I assumed she’d be here.”
“She’ll be around a bit later,” Sullivan said. “Why don’t you both come in.” He stood aside from the door.
Sullivan’s apartment was the standard-issue Zarathustra Corporation off-planet living space: twenty-eight square meters of floor plan divided into living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bath. “I think it’s disturbing my cabin is larger than your apartment,” Holloway said, entering.
“Not that much larger,” Sullivan said.
“Higher ceiling, in any event,” Holloway said, looking up. He could place his palm flat on the ceiling if he wanted to.
“I’ll give you that,” Sullivan said, walking through the front room to the kitchen. “You also don’t have an intern living above you playing noise until the dead hours of the morning. I swear I’m going to make sure that kid never gets another job with the company. Beer?”
“Please.” Holloway sat, followed by Carl.
“So what did Aubrey waylay you about?” Sullivan asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“He asked me what I was thinking in the courtroom today,” Holloway said.
“Funny,” Sullivan said, coming back into the living room and handing Holloway his beer. “I was thinking of asking you the same thing.”
“Probably not for the same reasons, however,” Holloway said.
“Probably not,” Sullivan said. He twisted the cap off his own beer and sat. “Jack, I’m about to tell you something I shouldn’t,” he said. “The other day Brad Landon came into my office and told me to draft up an interesting sort of contract. It was a contract ceding operational authority for the entire northwest continent of the planet to a single contractor, who in return for handling substantial operational and organizational tasks for ZaraCorp, would receive five percent of all gross revenues.”
“That’s a nice gig for someone,” Holloway said.
“Yes it is,” Sullivan said. “Now, I was instructed to design the contract so that unless certain stringent production quotas were met, the contractor got very little, but you’ll understand that ‘very little’ in this case is a distinctly relative term. Whoever got this gig would be rich beyond just about any one person’s ability to measure wealth.”
“Right,” Holloway said.
“So I’m wondering why you just threw that away today,” Sullivan said.
“You don’t know that contract was meant for me,” Holloway said.
“Come on, Jack,” Sullivan said. “I think you’ve figured out by now that I’m not stupid.”
“Are you asking me this question as ZaraCorp’s lawyer or Isabel’s boyfriend?” Holloway asked.
“Neither,” Sullivan said. “I’m asking you as me. Because I’m curious. And because on the stand today you did something I didn’t expect.”
“You thought I was going to sell Isabel out,” Holloway said.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes, I did,” Sullivan said. “You stood to make billions and you let it slip past you. Given your past history, you don’t strike me as the overly sentimental type. And, no offense, you’ve sold out Isabel before.”
“None taken,” Holloway said. “It wasn’t about Isabel.”
“Then what was it about?” Sullivan asked.