Torch of Freedom

needed. Most of all, he had an uncanny ability to jury-rig his plans as he went along, seeing opportunity unfold whenever those plans went awry where most spies would see nothing but unfolding disaster.

There was great courage there, also, but Anton had that as well. So did many people. Courage was not really that rare a virtue in the human race—as Victor himself, with his egalitarian attitudes, was quite fond of pointing out. But for Cachat, that level of courage seemed to come effortlessly. Anton was sure the man didn't even think about it.

Those qualities made him a very dangerous man, at all times, and a scary man on some occasions. With his now-extensive experience working with Victor, Anton had come to be certain that Cachat was not a sociopath— although he could certainly do a superb imitation of one. And he'd also come to realize, more slowly, that lurking beneath Victor's seemingly icy surface was a man who was . . .

Well, not warm-hearted, certainly. Perhaps 'big-hearted' was the right term. But whatever you called it, this was a man who had a fierce loyalty to his friends as well as his beliefs. How Cachat would react if he ever found himself forced to choose between a close friend and his own political convictions, was difficult to calculate. In the end, Anton was pretty sure that Victor would choose his convictions. But that wouldn't come without a great struggle—and the Havenite would demand complete and full proof that the choice was really inescapable.

Princess Ruth probably hadn't parsed Victor Cachat as thoroughly and patiently as Anton Zilwicki had done. There were very few people in the galaxy with Anton's systematic rigorousness. Ruth was definitely not one of them. But she was extremely intelligent and intuitively perceptive about people—surprisingly so, for someone who'd been raised in the rather cloistered atmosphere of the royal court. In her own way, she'd come to accept the same things about Victor that Anton had.

Anton had once remarked to Ruth, half-jokingly, that being Cachat's friend and collaborator was quite a bit like being an intimate colleague of a very smart and warm-blooded cobra. The princess had immediately shaken her head. 'Not a cobra. Cobras are pretty dinky when you get right down to it—I mean, hell, a glorified rodent like a mongoose can handle one—and they rely almost entirely on venom. Even at his Ming the Merciless worst, Victor is never venomous.'

She'd shaken her head again. 'A dragon, Anton. They can take human form, you know, according to legend. Just think of a dragon with a pronounced Havenite accent and a hoard he guards jealousy made of people and principles instead of money.'

Anton had conceded the point—and now, watching Ruth's half-irritated and half-affectionate exchange with a Havenite agent she'd once detested, he saw again how right she'd been.

It's not that easy, all things considered, to hold a grudge against a dragon. Not for somehow like the princess, at any rate, with her horror of appearing silly. You might as well hold a grudge against the tides.

'Just trying to stay in practice,' Victor said mildly, 'in the unlikely event I should be presented at the Manticoran court in Landing. Wouldn't want to fumble with royal protocol, even if it is all a bunch of annoying nonsense, because it would undermine my secret agent suavety.'

'There's no such word as 'suavety,' ' replied Ruth. 'In fact, that's got to be the stupidest and least suave word I've ever heard.'

Victor smiled seraphically. 'To get back to the point, Ruth, I don't happen to think it's likely myself that this Dana Wedermeyer person'—he pointed to the pad—'is anything other than what she or he seems to be. Which is to say, a very highly placed Mesa Pharmaceuticals manager giving orders to a subordinate. Or, rather, ignoring a subordinate's complaints.'

'But . . .' Ruth looked back down at the pad, frowning. 'Victor, you've read the correspondence yourself. Pharmaceuticals' own field people out here were complaining about the inefficiency of their own methods, and this Wedermeyer just blew it off. It's like she—or he, or whatever—never even looked at their analyses of her own corporation's labor policies.'

For a moment, the frown darkened into something very harsh. 'The murderous and inhuman labor policies, I should say, since they amounted to consciously working people to death. But the point for the moment is that even their own employees were pointing out that it would be more efficient to start shifting over to increased automation and mechanical cultivation and harvesting.'

'Yes, I know. On the other hand, despite their complaints, Pharmaceuticals was showing a profit.'

'But only because Manpower was giving them a discount rate on their slaves—and pretty damned steep discount, too!' Ruth argued. 'That's one of the points their own managers were making—that they couldn't count on that discount rate lasting forever.' She grimaced. 'If it went out from under them, if they had to start paying the full 'list price' for their slaves, then the inefficiencies their people here on Torch were pointing out would have really come home to bite them! In fact, there was this one—'

She paged through the documentson her pad for a moment, then found the one she wanted and waved it in triumph.

'Yeah, this one! From what's-his-name,' she glanced at the display, 'Menninger. Remember? He was talking about Pharmaceuticals' overall exposure. They were already leasing their entire operational site here on Manpower, but they were counting on Manpower's giving them preferred slave prices, as well, and let's face it, Manpower transtellars don't have a whole lot of fraternal feeling for each other. Manpower's eaten quite a few of its Mesan competitors along the way, and this guy was worried they were setting Pharmaceuticals up for their next sandwich by putting them deep enough in Manpower's pocket they'd have to accept an unfriendly takeover or go bust!'

Jeremy X cleared his throat. 'Let's not forget how closely most Mesan corporations collude with each other, as well, though. Sure, they've demonstrated a huge share of shark DNA over the years, but they do work together, as well. Especially when they're engaged in something the rest of the human race isn't all that likely to want to invest in. Openly, at least. And you can add to that the fact that we're certain that many of them are actually owned, in whole or in part, by Manpower. Like Jessyk.'

Anton pursed his lips, considering the point. 'You're suggesting, in other words, that Manpower was deliberately accepting a loss in order to boost the profits of Mesa Pharmaceuticals—in which they possibly have a major ownership share, even if they don't control it outright.'

'Yes.'

'Which was part of my point about wondering if this Wedermeyer might be working for someone besides— or, in addition to, maybe—Pharmaceuticals,' Victor said. 'If Manpower does have a hidden stake in Pharmaceuticals, then they may have been in a position to go on offering their 'discount rate' forever. As long as they were charging enough to cover their bare production costs, at least. I mean, there's nothing in the correspondence from this end that's concerned with humanitarian considerations. They're simply saying they could squeeze their profit margins upward, in the long run, if they started switching over. Even by their own analysis, it would have taken quite a while to amortize the equipment investment, especially assuming their outlay for slaves stayed where it was. They were more concerned about the long-range consequences of losing that rate—of having Manpower yank it out from under them, or threaten to, at least, at a time when it would give Manpower the greatest leverage with them. But there's nothing in the correspondence from the Mesa end to explain why the locals' analysis was being 'blown off,' to use your own charming term Ruth. Suppose Wedermeyer was quietly representing Manpower's interests? Wanted Pharmaceuticals deeper into Manpower's pocket . . . or simply knew there'd already been a quiet little off-the-books marriage between them? In that case, he or she could very well have been in a position to know they were worrying over nothing. That their 'discount rate' was grandfathered in and wasn't going to be going away anytime soon.'

Ruth had her lips pursed also. 'But what would be the point, Jeremy? Oh, I'll grant the possibility of Wedermeyer being working for Manpower. I doubt her own supervisors would have missed it if she was doing it against their interests, though. I mean, Pharmaceuticals has been around for two or three T-centuries, too, so it damned well knows how the game is played. Somebody besides her had to be seeing at least some of these memos, given the extended period over which they were written. The fact that she didn't even bother to come up with an argument —not even a specious one—for her position suggests she was pretty damned confident that she wasn't worried about getting hammered by one of her own bosses. That only makes sense if Manpower does own Mesa Pharmaceuticals, and what possible motive could they have had for hiding that connection, really?