Read Online Dark as Day by Charles Sheffield - Free Book Online Page B

was not doing well.
    “Too many names,” Kate complained. She was wearing a low-cut dress that showed off her shoulders and breasts, and she tugged at it now as it slipped lower. “Too many names, and too fast. I can’t keep them straight. Weasel and who are supposed to meet with this leaseholder?”
    “Rezel and Tanya. Second cousins of mine, a couple of years younger than me. They’re real party types.”
    “Yet Uncle Prosper is willing to send them to negotiate a deal with someone nobody in the family has ever met? From what you’ve said I thought Prosper sounded like he knew where he was going, even if he’s a dried-out bag of bones. Now he sounds like he’s crazy.”
    “Oh, Prosper knows what he’s doing. Rezel and Tanya have had diplomatic and psychosexual training, and in the past they’ve been very successful. They’re smart, they work as a team, and they’ll do absolutely anything to get results.”
    “Anything?”
    “Pretty much. Uncle Karolus calls Rezel and Tanya the nympho twins.”
    “But you wouldn’t know about that? Never mind. Prosper said they might need you, too. Why not Cousin Hector, he sounds like he doesn’t do much.”
    “He doesn’t. People won’t let him. He looks like a berserker hero, tall and blond and with a profile like a Viking. That’s where it stops. He’s Uncle Karolus’s son, but even Karolus says Hector would be better off with his brain removed and replaced with a bowl of fruit.”
    “I still don’t see why they want you involved. You’re busy here.”
    “I’m just backup. Uncle Prosper doesn’t know who the leaseholder is, but he asked around and got word from somewhere that it’s a kind of freak recluse computer-modeling type.”
    “Just like you. But uphill work for Weasel and Stoaty.”
    “I think that’s what’s worrying Prosper. No one else in the family will put their lily-white hands anywhere near a computer, so he sees me as a default option. That’s why I may have to hop out to Saturn.” Alex paused, stared at the table, then took in half of his drink in a single swallow. “But I haven’t got to the other part of the meeting—”
    * * *
    “ ‘The old order changeth.’ ” With phase two of the Starseed contract voted on and accepted, Prosper was moving on to new business. He was handing out printed sheets for distribution around the table. “With or without the effects of the Starseed contract, Ligon Industries has been losing ground. The printed columns summarize the combined assets for each of the top ten commercial enterprises in the solar system, as they were a decade ago and as they are today. You will observe that two of the current top ten were not present on the earlier list. Delop SA and Sylva Commensals are new entries, replacing Global Minerals and Turbide. Delop are engaged primarily in Saturn system development, and I do not have to describe Sylva Commensals to some of those here.” His eye glanced briefly at Lena Ligon as he went on, “We, I am happy to say, are still in the top ten. I am less happy to note that we have slipped from third to ninth place.”
    Great-aunt Agatha Ligon, her hundred and ten years impossible to guess from the trim, youthful body and lively gray eyes, said sharply, “Ninth! Pah! I remember when we were number one.”
    “So do several others present.”
    “We should never have left Earth! It was a ridiculous decision. I told Gonville so at the time.”
    “Possibly. But I would have you note that Global Minerals, which was formerly a top ten enterprise, elected to remain on Earth. It now occupies the thirty-fourth position on the list. Permit me to continue. My analysis suggests two possible futures for Ligon Industries. We can continue as we are, watching our relative size and influence decline over the next decade. Or we can seek merger with some other group, preferably one of the rising powers in the solar system. You may have your own suggestions. I, of course, also have my