Chương 59: Negotiation

Shamballa, Asteroid 2679 WLX The Singularity January 15, 2848"None of us have failed to notice just how many of your father's burdens you have stepped up to shoulder over the past few months," Lobar Shioya remarked, as he glanced down at the tumbler of scotch that he held in his right hand.

"It has impressed many people, and not just on the board. It comforts them, I think, to have a sense of... continuity." Ogden, standing next to his own desk, carefully poured two fingers of Balvenie 2764.

"Continuity is important for an independent polity as young as ours," he mused.

"Even this drink is older than the Singularity's independence."

"Your father has been saving that bottle for a long time," the director of Autenrieth-Fujita Corporation's security forces observed.

"I'm not certain precisely what great coup or masterstroke he thought would be worthy of it—but I can almost guarantee a meeting with Lars Rydin wasn't something that would make his list." Ogden gave all the appearance of considering that for a long moment, though in truth he'd planned out half a dozen responses for every line of conversation that he and Egeria could predict. His shackled artificial intelligence displayed a handful of sample responses using his ocular nerve, the text invisible to anyone but him.

"We are entering a time of instability," Ogden said, finally.

"History teaches us that, even when a given balance of power appears entrenched, the tide of unexpected crises can sweep old alliances, old orders of the world, away very quickly. What great empire saw its own demise coming, from the height of their strength?" Shioya met Ogden's eyes.

"You believe The Singularity is in danger?" the older man asked.

"The Na'xir have shown no indication of moving toward our systems, as of yet." Ogden took a sip from his tumbler.

"Once you begin a war, it is impossible to predict how it will end," he said.

"Only a complete fool believes otherwise. The Na'xir have shattered six decades of peace. The borders which have held until now may not be the borders our children grow up with." It didn't take Shioya long to see where Ogden was leading.

"A distracted, weakened enemy is vulnerable," the old warrior observed.

"That is true. But if you are suggesting that the Imperium -""Don't say it out loud," Ogden cautioned him. Lobar Shioya reconsidered his words.

"The most likely outcome is that the Imperium fights off this invasion," he said.

"Their industrial capacity, population, and organization are beyond anything the Na'xir have shown. Beyond anything the Singularity is capable of, as well." Ogden nodded.

"At present, that is the case," he conceded.

"The very principles which drove us to separate from the Imperium are antithetical to the sort of hierarchical, central control necessary to field a fleet at scale."

"Which is why none of the mega-corps have ever pushed to take more territory from the Imperium," Shioya said.

"Not since the armistice. Independence was hard won enough. I suspect that anyone moving to take aggressive advantage of the current situation would be reminded of that rather quickly."

"I'm certain," Ogden said.

"We've long been too—atomized. Everyone with their own security division, their proprietary arms production and local shipyards. Autenrieth-Fujita didn't even have our own large-scale mech production facilities until recently."

"Until your marriage, you mean," Shioya pointed out.

"But we're still reliant on other corporations to supply those factories."

"We are," Ogden said.

"Corporations such as Rydin Heavy Industries." Shioya tapped his finger against the glass of his tumbler.

"Lars Rydin doesn't have a convenient daughter for you to marry," he pointed out.

"No. But he does have a healthy amount of self-interest."

"He's also a very dangerous man." The shift in tone told Ogden that he was now speaking to the tactical part of Lobar Shioya's mind—the advisor whose duty was to keep Autenrieth-Fujita's directors alive in the face of assassination, industrial sabotage, and scandal.

"I've got a file a kilometer long on everyone this man has ordered murdered over the years. I hope that you've considered this meeting very carefully—there's a reason your father always avoided dealing with him, whenever he could."

"Surely we are secure here on Shamballa," Ogden said.

"It is the very heart of our power." The security director shrugged.

"As secure as I can make you. We scanned them all coming off the Trjegul, and our people escorted them every step of the way here."

"I place my utter and complete trust in you," Ogden lied. The door to the office chimed, and a moment later, one of Shioya's security personnel ushered in Ogden's wife, her hands on the control bar of his father's grav-chair. The months since the death of Marten Rensburg had not been kind to the elder Ogden Autenrieth-Fujita; his skin looked delicate and papery, and dark circles hung beneath his eyes.

His lips trembled whenever he spoke now, and he rarely walked further than the distance between his bed and his bathroom under his own power. Evelyn Autenrieth-Fujita, formerly Evelyn Livingston-Baylies, however, had only grown more precious and beautiful in her captivity. Like a rare songbird in a cage, who sang only for an audience of one man, she was utterly and entirely, Ogden reflected with some satisfaction, his.

It took holding her entire family and everyone she cared about hostage to keep her that way, of course, but that knowledge only added spice to her charm.

"Thank you, dear," Ogden senior said, once Evelyn had parked him next to the chair from which his son would conduct the meeting.

"I wish that you had joined our family earlier," the old man mused.

"We needed a woman's touch. And I'd like to hold my grandchildren before I die." His withered fingers patted Evelyn's hand with a kindness he'd never shown to his own child. For just a moment, Ogden wondered just how different things might have been, if the old fossil had just reproduced the normal way. What would it have been like, he wondered, to have a mother? Andrietta Steytler, perhaps. Ogden quashed the thought ruthlessly. It was utterly immaterial, and only a distraction.

His own children would experience what he'd never had; he'd already made certain of that, by bringing Evelyn to heel.

"We've hardly been married a few months yet, father," Ogden said, guiding his wife over to a seat of her own as if they were the picture of marital bliss and she wouldn't happily stab out his eyes given half the chance. She trembled when he ran his hand up the back of her neck and traced his fingers through her soft hair. Fear, or revulsion? Both were enticing.

"The RHI group will be here momentarily," Shioya declared.

"They're in the elevator now. It's Lars Rydin and two of his security personnel. My people have relieved them of their most obvious weapons, but it's best to assume they're armed."

"At the very least, they'll have their combat cybernetics," Evelyn said. She had a way of insisting that she was part of a conversation, rather than a mere ornament, that Ogden found charming on some days, and frustrating on others. He settled back into his own chair, took one last sip of his scotch, and then set the tumbler down on the coffee table between the couches and arm-chairs. The door to the office opened once again, and three people entered.

Lars Rydin, CEO of Rydin Heavy Industries, stepped into the office as if he owned it. The man's suit was of black cloth so deep it seemed to eat the light, threaded with gold embroidery which sparkled and gleamed, like stars winking in the depths of space. While his neatly trimmed beard had begun to gray, in spite of the telomere treatments he'd received over the decades, the rest of his hair remained youthfully blonde.

His eyes could not have still been organic, not after a hundred and fourteen years, so the gold-wire framed glasses he wore must have been purely ornamental. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Or, Ogden considered, display screens hooked into his neural lace. Can you tell, Egeria? They are certainly something, the AI confirmed. I can detect an encrypted connection with his lace, but the device matches no publicly registered trademarks or patents I can find.

Setting aside the curiosity for a moment, Ogden rose, and everyone but his father followed suit. Rydin's security guards fanned out to either side of the room, a man and a woman wearing plain black suits and dark glasses. Neither of them gave any indication they would contribute anything of substance to the meeting.

"It is a pleasure to welcome you to Shamballa, Mr. Rydin," Ogden said, plastering a broad smile across his face and stepping forward to offer his hand.

"It means quite a great deal to us that you would come all the way from Ranarsalr yourself. I hope that, regardless of the outcome of these negotiations, you will avail yourself of Autenrieth-Fujita's hospitality while you're here."

"I'm certain that I will," Rydin said.

"It's been—oh, twenty years or more since I've visited, I suppose. Ever since that unfortunate business about the chromium deposits off Hyperborea's debris disk, I believe. But it's a pleasure to be back. Please, call me Lars." Ogden found the older man's grip firm without being overbearing.

"Then you must call me Ogden," he said.

"You know my father, of course." The two men had been rivals since the founding of the Singularity—it was like asking whether the serpent knew the field mouse.

"It's been too long," Lars said.

"You're looking well." Ogden's father grunted something indistinct in response, and raised a wavering hand. Good that we're all lying together, Ogden thought. If we were being honest, the room would already be drenched in blood.

"I'm sure you've met Director Lobar Shioya in the past; he'll be working with your own security to make certain your visit is without incident. And please allow me to introduce my wife, Evelyn." She stood and offered her hand, which Lars Rydin accepted. He bowed over it like some Imperium duke, and Ogden had the sudden urge to wipe the smile from the man's lips by ordering Shioya to kill them all. Not yet, he told himself. Not until he's no longer useful.

"Charmed," Lars declared, and then they were all settling back into their seats while Ogden topped off the tumblers with another helping of scotch.

"So," Ogden said.

"We're here to finalize leasing the mineral extraction rights to the asteroid belt to RHI for the next century, with a proposed sixty-forty split of the profits, including right of first refusal on osmium, palladium, and a short list of other deposits, for Livingston-Baylies Manufacturing and subsidiaries at going market rates. It's rather straightforward, actually, now that Livingston-Baylies and Autenrieth-Fujita have come into strategic alignment."

"My board is more than happy with the terms you've set forward," Lars Rydin said, after taking a sip of his scotch and making an appreciative noise accompanied by a lifting of his eyebrows.

"I see you've already broken out the good stuff in celebration."

"It should be a fifty-fifty split," Ogden's father declared, from his grav-chair. At the old man's words, Rydin's face froze, as if it had been a holo-projection and the software had run into an unexpected snag. A buffer overflow, perhaps. Ogden leaned toward his father and lowered his voice.

"We've discussed this already, father," he said, keeping his tone the sort of placating, reasonable timbre that one might use when speaking to a child who'd thrown a fit. That someone else might use, that was. Ogden had only rare occasion to interact with children.

"We save a great deal of expense by sunsetting our old mining machines," he went on.

"If we wanted to continue mining ourselves, we would need to overhaul the entire fleet over the next decade. RHI has state of the art machines and experts to run them. They can extract the ore at a fraction of the cost, but it means they'll be taking on the operating expenses. Sixty-percent and the option to buy first is a very good arrangement." His father's eyes narrowed.

"So is fifty-fifty," he said, stubbornly. Rydin pursed his lips.

"I was under the impression that these terms were firm on the part of Autenrieth-Fujita," he said.

"And that the acting vice president had full authority to enter into these negotiations." Ogden put a pained look on his face—the look of a man whose senile father was about to blow up a project that he'd worked very hard on.

"I'm certain that we can overcome such a small difficulty," he said.

"Can you make the deal, or not?" Rydin demanded.

"I didn't come here to be at the whim of a half-rotted corpse that screwed me two decades ago!"

"My father remains head of this corporation," Ogden admitted. Take the message I'm sending you, he thought at Lars Rydin, as if he were a LeShaii and could simply touch the other man's brain.

"That's right!" his father half-shouted.

"And as long as I am, we won't be taken for a ride. Fifty-fifty, or nothing, you old bastard!" It helped, of course, that when Ogden had originally mentioned the arrangement to his father, it had been at proposed terms of an even split. I must have neglected to tell him the results of the latest round of negotiations. What a pity.

"This is outrageous." Lars Rydin set his tumbler down on the coffee table with a clink.

"I will not have my time wasted. I refuse to be insulted like this." He rose, and signalled to his guards. Ogden stood, as well.

"Please believe that I had no intention of insulting you, Mr. Rydin," he said.

"I was utterly and completely sincere in our discussions up to this point." He allowed his eyes to flick to the side, just for a moment, to direct the other man's gaze to his father.

"Then perhaps the board of Autenrieth-Fujita has a discussion to conclude before our negotiations continue," Rydin snapped.

"Perhaps it is time for a new vision to lead the way forward." He took a deep breath, and seemed to come to a decision.

"I will remain here on Shamballa for three days, ready to accept the original offer at any time. After that, I will depart, and RHI will seek opportunities elsewhere." He motioned to the two guards he'd brought, and they peeled off their places at the wall to escort him to the door. Only once he had left did Lobar Shioya speak.

"I wish you hadn't done that, old friend," he said to Ogden's father.

"Lars Rydin is a dangerous man, and he does not enjoy being toyed with." The old man waved a dismissive hand.

"He's a thug. He's always been a thug, no matter how expensive his suits. He wouldn't dare do anything to us."

"Nonetheless, I'll up security for both of you," Shioya muttered.

"There won't be any need for that," Ogden declared.

"He needs us."

"What do you mean?" Shioya asked. Ogden caught his wife's eye, and nodded.

"Their veins in the Ranarsalr belt are running dry," Evelyn said.

"They're having trouble meeting their contracts with us already. We have a few sources inside their mining operation, and they tell us that he's scrambling to find a new place to move that very new, very expensive fleet of mineral extractors to before they need to be sold to cover his debts."

"You see?" Ogden's father declared.

"Have faith in my boy. He knows what he's doing. I'll play hardball, and then he can come in with an offer somewhere in the middle. Rydin will have to accept, before his entire operation falls apart."

"Let's get you back to your rooms," Evelyn said, rising from her seat. She took hold of the control bar at the back of the old man's grav-chair, and pushed him toward the door. Only after they'd both left, secluding Ogden once again with his head of security, did either man speak.

"I don't like this," Shioya muttered, once again.

"I can increase security without making it obvious." No, Ogden thought to himself. If you do that, half the point of this entire charade will be rendered moot.

"I'd like to show you something," he said, instead.

"Follow me." He took Lobar Shioya down through the secure elevator shaft, to the core of the asteroid, and refused to answer any questions along the way. He brought the older man into a simulator bay where four people, who had been in hospital beds only a few weeks before, were now each hooked into a single pod. Many of them had artificial limbs, and each was only just starting to regrow a bit of hair from the extensive neural surgery they'd undergone.

Along the walls, the first quartet of DF-4 Erinyes production models stood, clamped in place, cockpits open.

"What is this?" Shioya asked, looking around the repurposed docking bay.

"This," Ogden declared, "is the seed of the army that you are going to lead. This is the beginning of the force which will, guided by your hand, win the war that my father and his generation lost against the Imperium."

"The Livingston-Baylies production lines..." Shioya began.

"Will continue to gear up until they are producing thirty mechs a year," Ogden declared.

"But to do that, we need the minerals our friend Lars Rydin will extract, and sell to us. You said that we couldn't compete with the Imperial fleet, and you were right. We couldn't. But we will, soon, and I am assembling the pieces now."

"What do you need from me?" the old soldier asked.

"I need you to be my admiral." Ogden extended his hand, and only had to wait a moment before Lobar Shioya clasped it. Two mornings later, Ogden's father was found dead in his bed, his artificial heart non-functional. That very evening, Ogden, in his newly confirmed role as CEO of Autenrieth-Fujita, signed the deal with Lars Rydin. Shioya's file detailing just how many deaths Rydin had arranged gained an additional entry.