‘We used these incompetent men from the Agency, mostly. I suppose the worst was that business with the Roxy theatre. Imagine burning down a whole movie house just to kill one robot. And then they bungled it.’
Roderick said, ‘Wait a minute. To destroy me, you were actually willing to burn up a whole theatre full of people?’
‘Well of course you have to see this in an historical perspective, balancing a few hundred lives against — as we saw it — the survival of the human species. Not that we’d have authorized it specifically.’
‘Indeed not,’ said the other. ‘Too inefficient, no finesse. Those Agency men were always ham-handed, let’s not forget the incident of the red stocking-cap.’
Roderick asked what red stocking-cap.
‘Don’t you remember? You were supposed to be wearing it at the Tik Tok Bar, but you cunningly planted it on some old derelict — another life lost, I fear.’
‘Still, Wood, you were a most excellent quarry. Much too good for those yahoos from the Agency.’
‘Have I got this straight?’ Roderick asked. ‘You really murdered innocent people, just to destroy me?’
‘Heh heh, well of course you weren’t the only target. We had to make extensive use of Agency men and even one or two private hit-men, my word yes.’
‘What are you saying? You just went out and, and butchered people right and left?’ Roderick’s voice was loud now, and everyone in the room had turned to stare. ‘Butchered people right and left, just for some principle — some
‘Ah well, aren’t policy and principle so often confused, in these troubled times? But to say we
‘Within our framework for speculation, there was nothing else we could do,’ said the chairman, laying his hands on the table. ‘We were in a zero-option scenario.’
‘Precisely. Precisely. Precisely.’
Roderick had reached the door when the chairman said, ‘Leaving? That’s unwise, Mr Wood. Without our protection, you’ll automatically become the property of KUR International. They’ll probably take your head to pieces.’
‘Suits me.’
XXIV
Just take a seat, Mr Wood is it? I’ll see if somebody can, excuse me… Good morning, KUR Innernational… Mr Swann? One moment… Ginny, there’s a Dr Welby on three to talk to a Mr Swann, is he in your office? No? Then he must be Patsy’s new boss or, everything’s in such a mess around here today, oh is he legal? Great… Lois have you got a Mr Swann? I have a Dr Welby for him on three… Good morning, KUR Innernational… Yes there is but I don’t know when, I can put you through to the press office…’
Roderick sat down with a group of reporters: tired-looking men and women in waterproof coats, some with aerials sticking up from the backs of their necks, some fiddling with cameras or pocket memo machines, some sleeping.
‘You covering this too?’ someone said, and when Roderick did not reply, went on: ‘I drew the short straw, I wanted to cover that management consultant mass murder story, sounds like some juicy stuff there, cops say the guy’s been doing it for years, cutting women’s legs off.’
‘Juicy stuff? Is that what you call it?’
‘Well sure, easy to get a handle on a story like that, you got sex, big business, police incompetence, a sadistic fiend, that’s all prime stuff, you automatically get first or second slot in the six o’clock. Whereas this Moxon takeover is not exactly a surprise, is it?’
‘Takeover?’ said Roderick, surprised.
‘I mean it should rate a paragraph on about page 733 of the financial news teletext; nobody cares who runs big corporations nowadays, or who owns them, or why. I mean it’s slightly less interesting than say the intrigues of Ruritanian internal politics; I really hate this financial desk job.’
‘Don’t underrate it, kid,’ said an older reporter, waking up. ‘You start believing it’s worthless, pretty soon everybody else believes it’s worthless. Pretty soon companies start asking themselves why they should go on throwing champagne press receptions, whole system could melt down under us, leave nothing but real news to report.’
They stared out through the glass wall at real rain splashing on the perfectly square acre of concrete that separated the KUR Tower from real sidewalks and streets.
‘Okay, it’s a real meaningful job. So where’s the champagne?’
Someone adjusted his camera by focusing on the receptionist, behind her violet desk. Today she had taken the trouble to appear in violet hair, nails and lipstick, and now she smiled and turned so that the violet telephone receiver did not hide her smile. ‘Good morning, KUR Innernational… I can give you the press office… Ginny, did you
‘Besides,’ said the older reporter, ‘a conglomerate like this is interesting for its own sake. It’s like an incredibly complicated puppet — you never know where all the strings lead until you pull them and see what jumps. And something like this — Kratt keeling over like that during the negotiations — it’s like the puppeteer dropping all the strings. Now we’ll see how good Moxon is at picking them up and sorting them out.’
‘Yeah, but he’s bringing in a lot of strings of his own,’ said the younger. ‘I heard there’s gonna be a complete changeover of personnel, with—’
‘Well, there he is, let’s ask him.’
There was a stampede past the reception desk to where Everett Moxon, flanked by press aides, waited to greet them.
‘Mr Moxon, is it true you seized the moment to pull the takeover, because Kratt, who always opposed you, was safely out of the way?’
‘Everett, look this way?’
‘Mr Moxon, would you say KUR is shaky, with some of its subsidiaries—?’
‘What kind of changes do you envision for—?’
Moxon grinned Presidentially. ‘Boys and girls, one at a time, please. I thought we might go up to the penthouse and do this over a few glasses of champagne, okay? But I’ll just say now that Mr Kratt and I may have had a few minor disagreements, but we always saw eye to eye on all major decisions about the future of KUR. And when he recovers, he knows he can go on as chairman of the board as long as he likes. As you all know, the takeover has been in the cards for a long time. We like KUR, and KUR can use our capital. But let me say, let me just say that there is not going to be any asset-stripping, the Moxon Corporation is not an asset-stripping operation. Naturally we’ll have to look over the whole basket of apples and get rid of any bad ones, but only to protect the rest. Anyone here like champagne?’
‘What I’d like even more, Mr Moxon, is to know what are your plans for the KUR banking subsidiary, with General Fleisch—’
Still clamouring questions, they packed into elevators and disappeared. The receptionist said, ‘Ginny, have you seen him? Not him,
Upstairs Everett Moxon walked around holding a glass of champagne and smiling for five minutes before