As the initial pressures of the forming of the corporation fell off and the speech load, interviews and so forth, lessened, Don needed new methods of keeping him in the public eyes to aid continuing common stock sales. At least, that was the way Demming and Rostoff saw it.
The autobiography had come out. Don hadn’t known it was possible to write a book and get it into circulation so quickly. It was one of the biggest sellers of all time. And so far as Don was concerned, it was more fiction than biography. He recognized himself in the pages not at all, other than the illustrations. Where the ghost writer had obtained them all, he hadn’t the slightest idea. There were photos, snapshots and otherwise, of all of his grandparents, his parents, and other more distant relatives, some of whom he had never known he had. All of them had seemingly led outstanding, productive and especially patriotic lives. He blinked when it turned out that his ancestors had been prominent in every major war ever fought by the United States, before the forming of the Solar System League. He blinked again to find that an ancestor had been Thomas Jefferson’s right-hand aide when the Declaration of Independence was being written.
He was astonished to find how popular he had been from earliest childhood. How superlative he had been in school. How popular he had been in cadet school, at the Space Academy, and later among his squadron mates. It also turned out that for all practical purposes he didn’t drink, had never smoked pot in his life, nor tobacco. As a matter of fact, the latter was true; one of the few true things in the thick book.
But back to Si Mullens, PR man supreme. He came up with the suggestion that Don make himself available for personal interviews to anyone involved in the great project, the exploiting of the radioactives of the whole Solar System. Be they ever so humble, if they had a problem involving the Don Mathers Corporation they were free to consult him personally.
Most of them were unimportant. Most of them were largely desirous of meeting the great hero, of shaking his hand, of getting his signed photograph, or worshipping him a bit.
That was most of them. It took about a month for Dwight Schmidt to get in to see him.
Don went through the usual preliminaries, winding up with the old-timer sitting across from him, a soft drink in hand. The other was possibly in his mid-sixties and had obviously led life the hard way. He was only slightly stooped with long years of toil, still wiry, still strong, still fully alive and alert.
Don said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Schmidt?”
The only other person present was Dirck Bosch. Demming had given him the job of prompting Don, when Don was at sea which was often enough when dealing with the affairs of the corporation.
The old man said, “I’ll lay it on the line, son, Don’t think I don’t appreciate a man like you taking the trouble to listen to the problems of an old fart like me. But business is business, and survival is survival.”
“That’s what I’m here for, Mr. Schmidt.”
“Mostly they call me Cobber. I was born in Australia, Colonel Mathers.”
“Mostly they call me Don, Cobber,” Don said.
“Fair dinkum. Now I don’t want to take up much of your time. You must have less time than any man in Center City. This is how it is. I was one of the first pitchblende prospectors ever to work Callisto. And bad as it is now, it’s nothing like it was in those days. I suppose I was first on Callisto before you was ever born, Don. Just a young joey, but hard working. To cut it short, I went into the outback there, put in some thirty Earth-years. When I ran out of money I got more from my parents, my relatives, my friends. They all believed in me. I worked like a dingo.”
Don nodded. He glanced over at Bosch. Bosch, as usual, was expressionless.
The old-timer went on. “Finally, I hit it. Pretty rich. All of a sudden, me and all my friends was in business.”
“Wonderful,” Don said.
“Fair dinkum. Up until now. But when your new outfit—oh, I don’t argue, I know we’re all fighting the Kradens—but when your new outfit bought up my claims, they didn’t pay as much for them as we’ve put in down through the years. Not to speak of my time, my whole life of searching. I wasn’t left with enough to pay off my debts, and these debts were to relatives and my best friends.”
Don shrunk back into himself. “Why’d you sell? Why didn’t you hold out for more?”
The old boy looked at him strangely. “Don’t you know the new laws? Senator Makowski pushed them through. A man’s got to sell. They’re amalgamating every last ounce of uranium in the system. They don’t want any small operators, like me. For efficiency, it’s all got to be gathered together. The better to fight the Kradens.”
Don looked into Dirck Bosch’s face, which remained expressionless.
He looked back at the aged prospector. “I… I am afraid, uh, Cobber, this isn’t something I know about. All the evaluation of mines and so forth is handled by experts. I don’t even know them. I know practically nothing about radioactives.”
The other looked at him, puzzled. He said, “I heard some of your talks over the Tri-Di, Don. Sounds to me you understood pretty well.”
Don said apologetically, “I’ve got a lot of experts, speech writers, that sort of thing, who take care of details.”
“I see,” the old man said wearily. He came to his feet. “Then there’s nothing you, personal, can do?”
Don said hurriedly, “I’ll have my uh, secretary, here take you to Mr. Rostoff, one of our, uh, specialists. He’s up on these things. Dirck, will you take Cobber to Mr. Rostoff?”
The Belgian raised his eyebrows and shrugged very slightly, but, “Certainly, Colonel Mathers,” he said.
When the two had left, Don opened a desk drawer and brought forth a bottle of Demming’s prehistoric brandy.
Very few persons think of themselves as bastards. The more perceptive, the more sensitive, the more vulnerable, might admit to occasional opportunism, may even commit acts which later they truly deplore, in self-interest. But almost all of us can explain almost all of the actions we take to our own satisfaction. It’s the nature of the beasts that we are.
However, Don Mathers knocked back the slug of brandy with his now customary stiff-wristed motion.
He had been in space. The Almighty Ultimate knew he had been in space. He had even been on Callisto twice. Once had been more than enough. He couldn’t understand how anyone, such as Dwight Schmidt, could spend the better part of his life there. No matter what the drive.
The next big one he took was possibly a month later.
He had been fielding them as best he could, spending two or three hours a day at it. He hated Si Mullens and his brainstorm. Now there was no avoiding these people. He had to listen to them. Sometimes, he wondered if he hadn’t been better off as a One Man Scout pilot. And the hell with the Galactic Medal of Honor.
But no. There was no man on Earth who ate better than he did, drank better than he did, laid a more beautiful woman than he did. And, in the privacy of his own quarters, dressed better than he did. Expenses were meaningless. If he had wanted a half dozen Rembrandts he could have had them, if he had given a good goddamn about Rembrandts.
Besides, he was free of the Space Service and of the One Man Scouts. He was free of them. Demming and Rostoff had suggested that it might be well for him to take a trip to Callisto for publicity reasons, but for once he could tell them to stick it up their asses. He was never going to go into space again, short of being chained and dragged. Si Mullens could write all the press releases he wanted about Don’s burning desire to get back into space, and he could stick such releases up his ass.
This time it was a committee, two elderly women and a middle-aged man. And all three looked anxious.