Holy God, they got busy fast, Holloway thought. At the foot of the cliff was a small but growing site, its perimeter marked by a high modular predator fence. On the inside of the fence, machines clear-cut the area, shaving the ground down to the dirt to serve as a foundation for permanent structures. Outside the area, robots were drilling holes to expand the fence line, their operators on the safe side of the barrier. When the holes were drilled, another set of robots would place the additional modular fencing and link it to the existing fence, pushing out the perimeter in steps until there was enough room for whatever structures ZaraCorp needed. Holloway looked around at the nature on display around him; it wouldn’t be there for much longer.
“Skimmer, identify,” came a message through Holloway’s infopanel.
Holloway arched his eyebrows at this. “The hell you say,” he replied. “Identify yourself first, pal.”
“Skimmer, identify yourself now or you will be shot down,” the voice said.
“Shoot at me and I’ll land this thing on your skull,” Holloway said. “And I’d get away with it, too, because you are on my claim. Now, you identify yourself or we’ll see each other in court, and you’ll be wearing a body cast.”
There was silence for a minute, then “Skimmer, you are cleared to land at the beacon.” An image materialized on the info panel, showing a beacon and a landing circle a small distance from one of the larger structures. “Mr. Aubrey is expecting you.”
Damn right he is, Holloway thought. Holloway set the auto-approach to the beacon. He was on the ground a minute later, and as he climbed out of his skimmer, he noted two men approaching. He recognized one as Joe DeLise, part of the ZaraCorp security detail from Aubreytown. He was one of the security guys Holloway rather emphatically didn’t drink with.
“Oh, it’s you,” Holloway said. “Figures. You never bothered to identify yourself, Joe. That’s a violation of ZaraCorp regulations. I could have you written up.”
“The next time you don’t identify yourself, Holloway, I will have your skimmer shot down,” DeLise said. “I’ve got my orders.”
“And I have my stake contract,” Holloway said.
“It’s not your stake anymore,” DeLise said.
Holloway cracked a smiled at that. “I don’t think ‘exigent circumstances’ will go quite that far in a court of law, Joe. Not that I wouldn’t mind hauling your fat ass in front of a judge to find out.”
“Gentlemen, please,” said the other man, who had watched the exchange of pleasantries between Holloway and DeLise with a bemused look on his face. “Mr. Holloway, Mr. DeLise does indeed have orders to ground any approaching skimmer that will not identify itself, by force if necessary. Mr. DeLise, Mr. Holloway’s claim to this find is still very much in effect. So you’re both right, and now you both may stick your dicks back into your pants.”
DeLise audibly ground his teeth at this but said nothing. Holloway crooked his head at the second man, amused. “And you are?” he said.
“Brad Landon,” the man said. He walked up to Holloway and held out his hand. “I’m Mr. Aubrey’s personal assistant. I’m here to take you to him.”
“He’s too busy to greet me himself?” Holloway joked.
“Of course he is,” Landon said, in a tone that told Holloway that his response, while a joke in return, was also in fact completely serious. Landon turned to DeLise. “Thank you, Mr. DeLise. I will take it from here. You may go back to your post.”
“I want the skimmer waxed before I get back,” Holloway said. DeLise shot him a look and stomped off.
“Do you always antagonize people when you meet them, Mr. Holloway?” Landon asked, as they set off across the base.
“I’ve met DeLise before,” Holloway said. “Lots of times before. That’s why I’m antagonizing him.”
“I see,” Landon said. “I thought perhaps it was one of those stereotypical hostility-to-authority things.”
“I doubt Joe’s an authority on much,” Holloway said. “He’s one of those guys who thinks the job description of ‘cop’ reads as ‘professional thug.’”
“His service record is clean,” Landon said. “I know. I saw it before I approved his being stationed here.”
“I think it’s interesting that you seem to be under the impression anyone’s going to say anything bad about a company goon in a company town,” Holloway said.
“Point taken,” Landon said. “You think we should transfer him back, then.”
“Hell, no,” Holloway said. “Every night he’s here is a night he’s not beating up someone in a bar. You’re doing the citizens of Aubreytown a favor.”
Landon gave a slight smile at this.
The two men were approaching the area of fence Holloway had seen as he circled: Robots on one side of the fence were drilling holes, with the operators on the other side, maneuvering them from small stations bristling with levers. As they approached, Holloway was aware of an increasing sensation that felt like what happened to his ears if he climbed in altitude too quickly in his skimmer. He swallowed hard, to no use.
As Holloway got closer to the operators, he realized that one of them was Aubrey, wearing a ZaraCorp hard hat. Another man stood next to Aubrey’s station; Holloway suspected it was the actual robot operator, politely and silently waiting for Aubrey to get done playing around so he could get back to work.
Landon pulled out a palm-sized infopanel and pressed it. “We’re here,” he said into the panel. From the robot station, Aubrey turned and motioned them over.
“Having fun?” Holloway asked, as they approached. He noticed Landon pursing his lips slightly in disapproval. Holloway had apparently forgotten that he was not supposed to speak until spoken to.
“Fun isn’t the point,” Aubrey said, climbing out of the station. He took off his hard hat. “One day I’ll be running ZaraCorp. Dad always said that it was important for a leader to know what his people do and how they do it, and Grandpa said it to him, and so on. Every Aubrey does a tour of our businesses and tries his hand at the jobs our people do. Gives us a grounding.”
“So twenty minutes with a fence-building robot makes you a better leader,” Holloway said.
“It was a half hour, actually,” Aubrey said, catching the sarcasm and returning it. “And maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t, but even you might agree that coming out and participating in our operations is better than me simply being fed grapes in a country club, waiting for the old man to kick off.”
“When you put it that way,” Holloway said. The ear thing was getting worse. He swallowed again.
Aubrey watched Holloway with interest. “Feels like your ears are plugged, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Holloway said.
Aubrey pointed to a large box on the fence line. “It’s a speaker,” he said. “Turns out zararaptors and other predators here hear higher frequencies than we do, and they hate loud noise. We’re blasting twenty-five-kilohertz frequencies at about a hundred sixty decibels. They hear it and take off running in the other direction.”
“Huh,” Holloway said, and swallowed again.
“Used to be, we’d just shoot the things with automated sentries,” Aubrey said. “But animal rights groups didn’t like that much. Bad for our public relations. We figured we would give this a try.”
“Very humane of you,” Holloway said.
“Cheaper, too, as it happens,” Aubrey said. “But it does have the side effect you’re experiencing. You can’t hear it, but you can feel it, all right. Stay here long enough and you’ll get a migraine. Then you’ll get a nosebleed.”