'Got some IDs, struck out on others,' Avi says. 'Basically, the heavy set Filipino gentleman is Marcos's bagman. Responsible for keeping the famous billions out of the hands of the Philippine government. The Taiwanese guy-not Harvard Li but the other one-is a lawyer whose family has deep connections to Japan, dating back to when Taiwan was part of their empire. He has held down half a dozen government positions at various times, mostly in finance and commerce-now he's sort of a fixer who does jobs of all sorts for high-ranking Taiwanese officials.'
'What about the scary Chinese guy?'
Avi raises his eyebrows and heaves a little sigh before answering. 'He's a general in the People's Liberation Army. Equivalent to a four-star rank. He's been working their investment arm for the last fifteen years.'
'Investment arm? The Army!?' Cantrell blurts. Re's been getting uneasier by the minute, and now looks mildly nauseated.
'The People's Liberation Army is a titanic business empire,' Beryl says. 'They control the biggest pharmaceutical company in China. The biggest hotel chain. A lot of the communications infrastructure. Railways. Refineries. And, obviously, armaments.'
'What about Mr. Cellphone?' Randy asks.
'Still working on him. My man in Hong Kong is sending his mug shot to a colleague in Panama.'
'I think that after what we saw in the lobby, we can make some assumptions,' Beryl says.[16]
Randy figures there's no better time to ask this question. And because he's known Avi longer than anyone else, he's the only one who can get away with asking it. 'Do we really want to be involved with these people?' he says. 'Is this what Epiphyte Corp. is for? Is this what we are for?'
Avi heaves a big sigh and thinks about it for a while. Beryl looks at him searchingly; Eb and John and Tom study their shoes, or search the triple-canopy jungle for exotic avians, while listening intently.
'You know, back in the forty-niner days, every gold mining town in California had a nerd with a scale,' Avi says. 'The assayer. He sat in an office all day. Scary-looking rednecks came in with pouches of gold dust. The nerd weighed them, checked them for purity, told them what the stuff was worth. Basically, the assayer's scale was the exchange point-the place where this mineral, this dirt from the ground, became money that would be recognized as such in any bank or marketplace in the world, from San Francisco to London to Beijing. Because of the nerd's special knowledge, he could put his imprimatur on dirt and make it money. Just like we have the power to turn bits into money.
'Now, a lot of the people the nerd dealt with were incredibly bad guys. Peg house habitues. Escaped convicts from all over the world. Psychotic gunslingers. People who owned slaves and massacred Indians. I'll bet that the first day, or week, or month, or year, that the nerd moved to the gold-mining town and hung out his shingle, he was probably scared shitless. He probably had moral qualms too-very legitimate ones, perhaps,' Avi adds, giving Randy a sidelong glance. 'Some of those pioneering nerds probably gave up and went back East. But y'know what? In a surprisingly short period of time, everything became pretty damn civilized, and the towns filled up with churches and schools and universities, and the sort of howling maniacs who got there first were all assimilated or driven out or thrown into prison, and the nerds had boulevards and opera houses named after them. Now, is the analogy clear?'
'The analogy is clear,' Tom Howard says. He is less troubled by this than any of them, with the possible exception of Avi. But then, his hobby is collecting and shooting rare automatic weapons.
No one else will say anything; it is Randy's job to be troublesome. 'Uh, how many of those assayers got gunned down in the street after they pissed off some psychotic gold miner?' he asks.
'I don't have any figures on that,' Avi says.
'Well, I am not fully convinced that I really need this,' Randy says.
'We all need to decide that question for ourselves,' says Avi.
'And then vote, as a corporation whether to stay in or pull out right?' Randy says.
Avi and Beryl look meaningfully at each other.
'Getting out, at this point, would be, uh, complicated,' Beryl says. Then, seeing a look on Randy's face, she hastens to add: 'not for individuals who might want to leave Epiphyte. That's easy. No problem. But for Epiphyte to get out of this, uh . . .'
'Situation,' Cantrell offers.
'Dilemma,' Randy says.
Eb mumbles a word in German.
'Opportunity,' Avi counters.
'...would be all but impossible,' Beryl says.
'Look,' Avi says, 'I don't want anyone to feel compelled to stay in a situation where they have moral qualms.'
'Or fear imminent summary execution,' Randy adds helpfully.
'Right. Now, we've all put a ton of work into this thing, and that work ought to be worth something. To be totally above-board and explicit, let me reiterate what is already in the bylaws, which is that anyone can pull out; we'll buy back your stock. After what's happened here the last couple of days, I'm pretty confident that we could raise enough money to do so. You'd make at least as much as if you had stayed home doing a regular salaried job.'
Younger, less experienced high-tech entrepreneurs would have scoffed bitterly at this. But everyone on this crew actually finds it impressive that Avi can put a company together and keep it alive long enough to make it worth the work they've put into it.
The black Mercedes cruises up. Dr. Mohammed Pragasu strides over to meet it, greets the South Americans in fairly decent Spanish, makes a couple of introductions. The scattered clumps of businessmen begin to draw closer together, converging on the cavern's entrance. Prag is making a head count, taking attendance. Someone's missing.
One of the Dentist's aides is maneuvering towards Prag in lavender pumps, a cellphone clamped to her head. Randy breaks away from Epiphyte and sets a collision course, reaching Prag's vicinity just in time to hear the woman tell him, 'Dr. Kepler will be joining us late-some important business in California. He sends his apologies.'
Dr. Pragasu nods brightly, somehow avoids eye contact with Randy, who is now close enough to floss
