“I’ve said nothing along those lines to her,” the older man protested.
“By example, then,” Van countered.
Both Desolls smiled before Trystin looked to Van. “I’ve been checking on the new ship. Aerolis affirms that they’ve met the terms, and we’ll take possession a week from tomorrow. You’ll be ready for that after what you’ll be learning in the next week. As much as you can be.” After the briefest of pauses, he added. “I may not be ready. The director of finance for Outsystem Affairs has asked for an informal meeting next threeday.”
“Why?” asked Nynca. “Do you know?”
“Not for certain. Her assistant suggested that it might be wise for me to be prepared to address why our use of multiple financial institutions was not a way of avoiding taxation. I’ve asked Laren and her staff to prepare a short report on that—one that we could put on any pubnet.”
“They won’t believe you,” Nynca said.
“They may not. We don’t pay profits taxes, because we don’t have any, but still have to pay usage and service taxes, and employee support taxes. I asked Laren to put together a chart comparing us to their politically favored charities and multis. That will be in the report as well.”
Nynca smiled. “Blackmail.”
“Just public disclosure…or the threat of it. If they get sticky, we could also publicize which ministers got support from which of them.”
Van just listened.
“But,” Desoll said abruptly, “I can’t do much yet, not until she gets the information to me, and Van and I have a lot to cover.” He looked to Van.
“You are going to be very busy,” Nynca said to Van before she looked to the older Desoll. “I’ll be in my office when you finish with Van. I have the initial strategy for Aldyst.”
“It won’t be until after lunch,” replied Trystin.
The way Nynca nodded left Van with a vague sense of dread.
“I need to get something from my office,” the managing director said. “I’ll be right back.”
Van walked to the window, looking southeast toward the shuttleport. The senior director returned almost immediately, closing the outer door to Van’s office, but leaving the door to the conference room open. Van turned.
“I thought this was interesting.” Desoll handed Van four sheets of paper, clearly reproduced from an older document. “And extremely perceptive.”
Van glanced down at the top sheet and read the title: Dynamics of Information Handling in a Closed Environment. It was his graduation thesis—or rather the title page and introductory summary. The original thesis had run something like three hundred standard pages, not including the supporting data and citations. “Where…?”
“It’s part of what IIS does.” Desoll made a sweeping gesture that took in the building around them. “We gather information and find ways to make it uniquely usable to our clients. And profitable.”
“That sounds like what many people have claimed for thousands of years. Obviously, IIS does more than that. Why has it been more successful?”
“Because most people truly don’t understand information, what it represents, and what can be done with it. Even those who know what can be done are bound by their own preconceptions. You have to realize that the vast majority of people can only accept and use information that fits their perception of reality. There is a small minority that will see information objectively, but generally cannot find a way to use it profitably. There is a minuscule percentage that can see information objectively and use it, and a somewhat larger group that, if threatened, will accept the assistance of someone who can use information. The last group forms most of our client base.”
“For the sake of discussion,” Van said, “I’ll accept that without question, if you can explain just how you can make information profitable enough to support an Arm-wide multi or foundation with the assets and scope of IIS.”
“Fair enough. How about case studies?” Without waiting for Van’s agreement, Desoll linked to the console and pulsed a set of names and codes. Immediately, the holo projection appeared, displaying the name Aergis Industries, nothing more. “This is an Argenti multi—it is now, but it wasn’t when they first became our client. They designed holo display inserts—pop-ups, side-slides, that sort of thing—for the medianets. They were a glorified artistic job shop, and what they created was based on the market perception of either the companies whose products and services they advertised or of the nets themselves. Those perceptions were generally roughly accurate, but only in a general sense. So…we offered a proposition. Follow our creative lead for a year, and we get half the increase in revenues, plus the right to buy twenty percent of the company, and if they didn’t increase by at least twenty percent, IIS would buy the business at a price that would guarantee a solid profit for the family that owned it.” Desoll shrugged. “They were almost bankrupt. They’re now the dominant creative advertiser in a three-system, four-world market.”
“That says what you did. It doesn’t say how.”
“We started out examining what they were doing, why they were doing it, and identified every single assumption, stated or unstated. Then we checked the assumptions against our databases, and against our psychological model—”
“Psychological model?”
“Yes. That was one of the first aspects of IIS. It started out as a foundation devoted to the study of human behavior.”
“There have been hundreds of—thousands of years’ worth of studies—and no one…” Van shook his head. “What was unique about this model?”
“One unique aspect was that we persuaded the Farhkans to part with some of their data. More than two centuries back, during the Eco-Tech-Revenant War, they’d undertaken a study of human psychology, which they made available to the Coalition in exchange for certain technological refinements.” Desoll smiled. “An outside perspective always adds a dimension that self-study lacks. Then, after restructuring and codifying the Farhkan data, IIS made an effort to collect as many ‘outside’ human studies as possible. For example, a Coalition study of Revenant culture or behavior, and Argenti study of Hyndji attitudes, etc. Then, we did cross-comparisons of the
