Jade let herself drop into the little straight-backed chair beside the desk.
“He doesn’t make any secret of it, so there’s no way to use this information as leverage on him.”
“Does he have … girlfriends … here on the Moon?”
Yoni gave her a sidelong look. “No, when he’s here he comes to us. To me.”
Jade felt her face redden.
Yoni smiled knowingly at her. “He’s never seen me, little one. Not in the flesh. It’s been years since I’ve done business with anyone flesh-to-flesh.” “Oh?”
“The VR nets,” Yoni said, as if that explained everything. When she saw that Jade did not understand she went on, “Most of my customers come here for our simulations. They’re quite lifelike, with the virtual reality systems. We just zip them up into a cocoon so the sensory net’s in contact with every centimeter of their body, and then we play scenarios for them.”
“They don’t want sex with real women?” Jade felt stupid asking it.
“Some do, but what men want most is not sex so much as power. For most men, they feel powerful when they’re screwing a woman. It makes them feel strong, especially when the woman is doing exactly what they desire. That’s why the VR nets are so popular. A john can have any woman he wants, any number of women, for the asking.”
“Really?”
Yoni gave her a knowing smile. “We have vids of Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Catherine the Great. One john wants Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; nobody else, just her. Another has a fixation on Eleanor of Aquitaine. Thinks he’s Richard the Lionheart, I guess.”
“And it’s all preprogrammed simulations?”
“The basic scenario is preprogrammed. We always have a live operator in the loop to make sure everything’s going right and to take care of any special needs that come up.”
Jade completely missed Yoni’s pun. But she caught the unspoken implication.
“You keep disks of each session?”
“No!” Yoni snapped, almost vehemently. Then, more gently, “Do you realize the kinds of corporate and government people we have as clientele here? One hint, even the slightest rumor, that we record their sessions and we would be out of business—or dead.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize …”
Yoni smiled mysteriously. “We don’t have to blackmail our guests, or even threaten to. These VR sessions can be very powerful; they have a strong impact on the mind. Almost like a posthypnotic suggestion, really.”
“You can influence people?” Jade asked.
“Not directly. But—no one actually understands what long-term effects these VR sessions have on a person’s mind. Especially a habitual user. I have commissioned a couple of psychologists to look into it, but so far their results have been too vague for any practical use.”
“Could you—influence—Raki?”
With a shrug, Yoni said, “I don’t know. He’s been here often, that’s true. But he’s not an addict, like some I could name.”
Jade hesitated, feeling embarrassed, then asked, “What kind of sex does he go in for?”
Glancing back at the computer screen, Yoni said, “I don’t think you understand, little one. The man doesn’t come here for sex. He gets his sexual needs fulfilled from flesh-and-blood creatures like yourself.”
“Then what… ?”
“For power, little one. Not sexual power. Corporate power.”
Jade’s eyes went wide. She understood. And she knew what had to be done.
Arak al kashan gazed through his office window at the Orlando skyline: tower after tower, marching well past the city limits, past the open acreage of Disney World, and on out to the horizon. There was power there, majesty and might in the modern sense. Beyond his line of sight, he knew, construction crews were hard at work turning swampland and citrus groves into more corporate temples of enduring concrete, stainless steel and gleaming glass.
He leaned back in his plush leather chair and sighed deeply. The moment had come. His trip to the Moon had been relaxing, diverting. Now the moment of truth had arrived.
Getting to his feet, Raki squared his shoulders as he inspected his image in the full-length mirror on the door to his private lavatory. The jacket fit perfectly, he saw. Its camel’s-hair tone brought out his tan. Good.
He snapped his fingers once and the mirror turned opaque. Then he stepped around the desk and started toward the door and the meeting of the board of directors of Solar News Network, Inc. This was going to be the meeting. The one where he took charge of the entire corporation, where he seized the reins of power from the doddering old hands of the CEO and won the board’s approval as the new chief of Solar News.
The day had come at last.
But before he could take three steps across the precious Persian carpet, the door opened and a short, disheveled man rushed in.
“You’re in trouble, pal. Deep shit, if you don’t mind the expression.”
“Who the hell are you?” Raki demanded.
“That’s not important. You’ve got a real problem and I’m here to help you.”
Raki took a step backward, then another, and felt his desk against the back of his legs. The little man seemed terribly agitated, perhaps insane. His wiry rust-red hair was cropped short, yet it still looked tangled and dirty. He wore coveralls of faded olive green, stained here and there with what looked like grease or machine oil.
Raki groped with one hand toward the intercom on his desk, still facing the strange intruder.
“Never mind calling security,” the man said. “I’m on your side, pal. I can help you.”
“Help me? I don’t need—”
“The hell you don’t need help! They’re waiting for you upstairs,” he cast his eyes toward the ceiling, “with knives sharpened and a vat of boiling oil. All for you.”
“What do you mean?”
The man smiled, a lopsided sort of grin in his round, snub-nosed face.
“You think you’re gonna waltz right in there and take control of the corporation, huh? You think the CEO’s just gonna bend over and let you boot him in the butt?”
“What do you know about it?”
“Plenty, pal,” said the little man. “I was never the guy for corporate politics. Had no time for boards of directors and all the crap that goes with a big bureaucracy. But lemme tell you, they’re out to get you. They’re gonna pin your balls to the conference table, Raki, old pal.”
Raki felt his knees giving way. He sank to a half-sitting position on the edge of his desk.
His visitor strutted across the carpet, looked out the window. “Nice view. Not as good as the view from Titan, but what the hell, this is the best you can do in Florida, I guess.”
“What did you mean?” Raki asked.
“About the view from Titan?”
“About the board of directors. They’re waiting for me upstairs—”
“You bet your busy little ass they’re waiting. With assorted cutlery and boiling oil, like I said.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Mad?” The little man screwed up his face and crossed his eyes. “Hannibal was mad. Caesar was mad. And surely Napoleon was the maddest of them all.”
“Talk sense, dammit!”
The man chuckled tolerantly. “Look. You’re going up to the board of directors to tell them that the corporation would be better off with you as CEO instead of the old fart that’s running the network now. Right?”
“Right,” said Raki.
“Well, what’s your plan?”
“My plan?”
“Yeah. You need a plan to lay out on the table, a blueprint to show them what changes you’re gonna make, how you’re gonna do bigger and better things for dear ol’ Solar News.”
“I… I…” Raki suddenly realized he did not have a plan. Not an idea in his head. He could feel cold sweat breaking out all over his body.