The secretary came to an end.
Don said, “Is any of that supposed to be news to me?”
Demming ignored that and muttered, his eyes still closed, “Thank you, Dirck. Max?”
The other magnate took over after taking a swallow from the glass of sparkling wine before him. He looked at Don calculatingly and said, “A few days ago, Mr. Demming and I flew in from Io in his private space yacht, accompanied only by his secretary here, Dirck Bosch. The yacht is completely automated, without crew. As a matter of fact, I am sorry Mr. Demming was along, and he is sorry I was along. It required that we become partners when we made our discovery.”
Don said, “Look, could I have another cognac?” A feeling of excitement was growing within him and the drinks he’d had earlier had worn away. Something very big, very, very big, was developing. He hadn’t the vaguest idea what it might be.
The secretary stepped forward and dialed the fresh drink.
Maximilian Rostoff ran a hand back over his bald pate and went on, saying, “Lieutenant, how would you like to capture a Kraden cruiser? If I am not incorrect, the Space Service calls them Miro Class.”
Don laughed nervously, not getting it, not knowing where the other was at but still feeling the growing excitement. He said, “In the whole history of the war between our races, we’ve never captured a Kraden ship intact, or even remotely so. It would help a lot if we could. Our engineers would like to get their hands on one.”
Rostoff said, “This one isn’t exactly intact, but it’s nearly so.”
Don looked from Rostoff to Demming and then back again. He said, “What in the hell are you talking about?”
Rostoff nodded, as though that was a reasonable question. “In your sector,” he said, “we ran into a derelict Miro Class Kraden cruiser. The crew—repulsive-looking creatures—were all dead, some forty of them in all. Mr. Demming and I assumed that the spacecraft had been hit during one of the actions between our ships and theirs and that somehow both sides had failed to recover the wreckage. At any rate, today it is floating, abandoned of all life, in your sector. The Almighty Ultimate only knows why it hasn’t been detected by radar, or whatever, long before this.” He added softly, “One has to approach quite close, except from the angle we first saw it from, before any signs of battle are evident. The spaceship looks intact.”
Lawrence Demming opened his porker eyes again, smiled flatly and said, “And that is the cruiser you are going to capture, Lieutenant.”
Don Mathers bolted his new brandy and licked a final drop from the edge of his lip. He said. “And why should that rate the most difficult decoration that we’ve ever instituted?”
“Don’t be dense,” Rostoff told him, his tone grating mockery. “Capture isn’t actually the term. You’re going to radio in, reporting a Miro Class Kraden cruiser. We assume that your superiors will order you to stand off, that help is coming, that your tiny One Man Scout isn’t large enough to do anything more than to keep the enemy under observation until a squadron arrives. But you will radio back that they are escaping and that you plan to attack. When your reinforcements arrive, Lieutenant, you will have conquered the Kraden, single-handed, against odds of —what would you say—fifty to one?”
Don Mathers’ mouth was dry, his palms moist. He said, “A One Man Scout against a Miro Class cruiser? At least five hundred to one, Mr. Rostoff. At least.”
Demming grunted. “There would be little doubt of your being awarded the Galactic Medal of Honor, Lieutenant, especially in view of the fact that Colin Casey is dead and there isn’t a living bearer of the award. The powers that be in Space Command like to have a bearer of the Galactic Medal of Honor around—it’s good for solar system morale. Dirck, another drink for the Lieutenant.”
Don said, “Look. Why? I think you might be right about getting the decoration. But why, and why me, and what’s your percentage?”
Demming muttered heavily, “You are a perceptive young man, Lieutenant Mathers. Obviously, Mr. Rostoff and I have an iron or two in the fire. We now get to the point.” He settled back in his chair again, closed his eyes again, obviously waiting for his partner to take back over.
Maximilian Rostoff leaned forward, his lupine face very serious. He said, “Lieutenant, the exploitation the very earliest stages. There is every reason to believe that the new sources of radioactives on Callisto alone may mean the needed power edge that might give us victory over the Kradens when they appear again. Whether or not that is so, someone is going to make literally billions out of this new frontier. Possibly as much as a trillion.”
“I still don’t see——”
“Lieutenant Mathers,” Rostoff interrupted patiently, “the bearer of the Galactic Medal of Honor is above the law. He carries with him an inalienable prestige of such magnitude that… well, let me use an example. Suppose a bearer of the Galactic Medal of Honor formed a stock corporation to exploit the pitchblende of Callisto. How difficult would it be for him to dispose of the stock? How difficult for him to get concessions from the government?”
Demming grunted and without bothering to open his eyes said, “And suppose that there were a few, ah, crossed wires in the manipulation of the corporations’ business?” He sighed deeply. “Believe me, Lieutenant Mathers, there are an incredible number of laws which have accumulated down through the centuries to hamper the businessman. It is a continual fight to be able to carry on at all. The ability to do no legal wrong would be priceless in the development of the new frontier.” He sighed again, so deeply as to make his bulk quiver. “Priceless.”
Rostoff laid it on the line. “We are offering you a partnership, Mathers. You, with your Galactic Medal of Honor, will be our front man. Mr. Demming and I will supply the initial capital to get underway, the organization and the know-how, the brains. We’ll take Callisto and the other satellite colonies the way Grant took Richmond, to use the old Americanism.”
Don said slowly, looking down at the empty glass he was twirling in his fingers, “Look, we’re in a war to the death with the Kradens. In the long run it’s either us or them. At a time like this you’re suggesting that we fake an action that will eventually enable us to milk the new satellites to the tune of billions.”
Demming grunted meaninglessly.
Don said, “The theory is that all men, all of us, ought to have our shoulders to the wheel. This project sounds to me as though we’d be throwing rocks under it.”
Demming closed his eyes, still again.
Rostoff took up the bottle of sparkling wine from the ice bucket next to him and poured the drink into his champagne glass. He said to Don Mathers, “Lieutenant, it’s a dog-eat-dog socioeconomic system we live under. If we eventually defeat the Kradens, one of the very reasons will be because we are a dog-eat-dog society. Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Our apologists dream up some beautiful gobbledygook phrases for it, such as free enterprise, but actually it’s dog-eat-dog. Surprisingly enough, the system works, or at least it has so far. It leads to progress, the inept fall out of the game. Right now, the human race needs the radioactives of the Jupiter satellites. In acquiring them, somebody is going to make a tremendous amount of money. Why shouldn’t it be us?”
Don said, a dogged quality in his voice, “Why not, if you—or we—can do it honestly?”
Demming’s grunt was nearer to a snort this time.
Rostoff said sourly, “Don’t be naive, Lieutenant. Whoever does it, is going to need little integrity. You don’t win in a sharper’s card game by playing your cards honestly. The biggest sharper wins. We’ve just found a joker somebody dropped on the floor. If we don’t use it, we’re suckers.”
Demming opened his pig eyes and said, “All this is on the academic side. We checked your background thoroughly before approaching you, Mathers. We know your record, even before you entered the Space Service, your, ah, minor peccadilloes. Just between the three of us, wouldn’t you like out of your commission? There are a full billion men and women in our armed forces—you can be spared. Let us say that you’ve already done your share. Can’t you see the potentialities in spending the rest of your life with the Galactic Medal of Honor in your pocket?”
Don said, breathing a little harder, “If it came out, it would mean the firing squad for all of us.”
The fat man was reasonable. “How could it come out? Only we three would be in on it, and it is certainly not to the interest of any of us to reveal anything.”
Don looked at the secretary. “How about him? You’re not even cutting him in, and he knows the whole thing.”
Demming shook his head. “Dirck is completely faithful to me. He’s my man.”
