Frankle looked at him as though he was completely around the corner.
“My
Rostoff said smoothly, “I suggest, Bull, that in highest confidence we issue you one percent of the preferred stock of the Donal Mathers Radioactives Mining Corporation.”
The other grunted contempt. “The word’s already gone out that the dividends are going to be practically nothing. That you claim you’re plowing back practically everything you take in, into the corporation.”
Demming placed his fat hands over his fat belly and said, “That’s the common stock, Bull. We’re talking about the preferred. We’ve had to grease a few palms in Geneva, but the charter of this corporation is rather unique. In fact, as a result of Colonel Mathers’ recommendations it comes under the head of Solar System Security and anyone wanting to make a thorough investigation of it would have his work cut out.”
The labor leader grunted. “I see. I might’a known anything you two were connected with would have some fancy angles. One percent isn’t enough. I’ll need at least three.”
“Three!” Rostoff blurted. “Are you drivel-happy, Frankle?”
Don Mathers was getting only about half of this. He hadn’t known anything about a special charter that involved Solar System Security. He supposed that some of the endless papers he had signed without reading were involved.
Bull Frankle’s expression was one of disgust. “At least three. Damn it, Max Rostoff, I’ll have to spread it around but plenty, to keep my lieutenants in line. You don’t think I run this by myself, do you? The One Big Union controls over a billion workers. You want to keep them quiet, don’t you? No strikes, no slow-downs, no sit-downs, no nothing. Any trouble and my goons go in to quell it. I’m not just talking about the few tens of thousands on Mars and the satellites, though at the rate you’re going there’ll be shortly a damn sight more than that. I’m talking about all of your enterprises involved in this corporation to any extent whatsoever.” He looked at Demming. “Take your Interplanetary Lines, for instance. Your maintenance men are muttering about a strike. Okay. I’ll see there’s no strike.”
Rostoff and Demming looked at each other.
Rostoff said, “What do you say, Lawrence?”
Demming closed his eyes, but nodded.
Rostoff said, “It’s a deal. Three percent.”
The labor leader looked at Don suspiciously.
“Don’t he have a say?”
Rostoff said smoothly, “Colonel Mathers operates on other levels. He leaves business matters in our hands. That is, he can’t be bothered with details.”
Bull Frankle came to his feet after shooting Don a quick look of contempt. He said, “This is the biggest rip-off in history.”
Rostoff nodded as near to pleasantly as his face allowed. “We’ve already come to that conclusion, Bull. And using practically the same words.”
It was Si Mullens, Don’s energetic public relations head, who came up with the brainstorm which was to become the beginning of the end for the space hero.
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
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
