Patron of the Arts

his hand go offscreen to pause over a computer. “There’s some slack in Operation Epsilon, isn’t there?” He nodded.

“Not that much, though,” he said. He didn’t ask me what I wanted it for. His department was How and When. Mine was Why.

“Project Dakota came in under budget and that hasn’t been returned. The Louvre still wants that Picasso. Sell it to them. Move some of my Lune Fabrique stock. Put everything in Diego Braddock’s name.”

Again, his eyes searched my face, but he said nothing. His fingers moved and he glanced at the readout. “That will about do it. I might have to sell futures on the Baja marijuana crop, but I’ll see. What time do I have?”

“Will a week do it?”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, then nodded. “Ten days at the outside.” He paused, then asked, “This is, or course, a confidential transaction?” I nodded. “You know there will be some difficulty in accounting for the transfers?”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll take care of it.” I had almost added

“When I get back,” but I caught myself. Sandler was not privy to the Diego Braddock persona ploy, and I saw no reason to endanger him with information he needn’t be concerned with.

I clicked off with a wave and sat back in my chair. I had started the cogs turning that would send “Diego Braddock” to Mars. Every man of wealth that I know has at least one standby persona, a nonperson complete with official papers, a history, dossiers, bank accounts, health records, an address, and whatever else was needed. These personas are assumed as needed, either for business or personal reasons, or both. They are sometimes created for a lark, much as Harun al-Rashid donned beggar’s rags to roam the Baghdad nights; the lure of becoming someone else, even for an evening, is strong. I have several of these ongoing personas, plus two that I had needed to terminate, complete with death certificates and burial urns. In various parts of the world there are offices and homes for Andrew Garth, Howard Scott Miles, Waring Brackett, and Diego Braddock. They all had jobs that permitted travel, or were living on stock dividends. I changed the “cast” fairly frequently and only Billy Bob Culberson, a paraplegic genius in Lampasas, Texas, knew them all. He delighted in creating realistic and authentic personalities. Only once did I have to interfere, and that was when he had one persona working for another, and carrying on a correspondence with yet another. It was getting too complex for me, but it amused him.

It is a childish game, but necessary in certain areas of business. Using the existing formats I carefully constructed a schedule that my right and left hand man, Huo, would follow, once I had left. It was necessary that he know the truth, so he could properly manipulate the “leaks” and reports that would create the illusion of my movement on Earth. Everyone was to know where I was at all times. Control was kept informed from Huo’s desk. Nothing extraordinary would seem to happen, just the usual restless Thorne zigzag.

Brian Thorne was on a private five-day SensoryTrip in his Battle Mountain home. No communication.

Brian Thorne was to be reported in the Andes, and his destination was “leaked” at the last moment. Many would rush there, thinking I had some inside information on new iron discoveries. Then I was to be seen in Mississippi, in Tsingtao “incognito,” and sailing on the Tasmanian Sea with Tommi Mitchell.

By that time I should be on Mars. A pretaped report by me would then be given the General Anomaly board of directors by Huo. They would be angry, but too late. In their own interests they would have to keep up the pretense of shuffling Brian Thorne around the world. I felt like a boy sneaking off to join the circus.

And I loved it.

Diego Braddock was one of my easiest personas to don and maintain, for his job was one of asking questions about anything that suited him, a situation not unlike that of his boss, far up the table of organization, a certain Brian T.

It was as Diego Braddock, Publitex scribbler, space-suited and cleared, that I boarded the shuttle for Station Two from Sahara Base Three. In my inner pocket, sealed by thumb ident, were cargo tickets for six containers, already being transferred to the Vasco Nunez de Balboa up at the space station.

The money that I had “stolen” from my own companies had gone for the contents of those six containers, which were, in a way, my trade goods and beads for the natives. They contained frozen bovine ova and sperm, plus the apparatus that would give the nuvomartians their first cattle herds . . . if they lived. There were shimmercloth and entertainment tapes. There were a few cases of wine, all vintages that traveled well, sealed in stasis tubes. The largest container had its own inner environment and held tiny mutant seedlings from the University of California Martian Research Center, trees and plants that the scientists hoped would thrive on the new and still thin Martian atmosphere. The shuttle thundered up through the overcast that had drifted over from the shallow new Lake Sahara to the south, and then the safety ports slid back and we were in space. The trip was short and fast, and we docked at Station Two without incident.

I unbuckled and let myself drift up, enjoying the familiar weightlessness. I kicked off from the seat top and sealed down the faceplate of my suit, as I came up to the exit port with my fellow passengers.

The steward guided us into the lock, where we were greeted by a no-nonsense technician who directed us