‘You’re not the symbol for the system, Gerald. Militant environmentalists would look for somebody else, not the only one they can sometimes work with. Perhaps it’s the other way about, and you’re a thorn in the side of militant representatives of the system.’
‘They’d have taken the chance to snuff me out while there were still decisions to be made at EMCO,’ Palstein said dismissively. ‘As you so nicely put it, I’m letting Imperial Oil go to the wall and I’m winding up our involvement in oil sands. If I had done this before helium-3, it might have made sense to get me out of the way so as to be able to keep grubbing around in the muck, but these days? Every unpopular decision I make, the circumstances make for me.’
‘Good, then let’s consider Palstein the private individual. What about revenge?’
‘Personally, against me?’
‘Have you been stepping on any toes?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Not at all? Bedded someone’s wife? Stolen their job?’
‘Believe me, right now nobody wants my job, and I don’t have time to go bedding other men’s wives. But even if there were personal motives involved, why would someone take a shot at me in such difficult terrain, out in public? He could have killed me here at the lake. In peace and quiet.’
‘You’re well guarded.’
‘Only since Calgary.’
‘Maybe somebody from your own ranks? Do you stand for something that the powerholders at EMCO don’t want at any price, no matter what the situation?’
Palstein laced his fingers together. He had switched off the outboard, and the little yacht sat on its reflection in the water as though glued in place. Behind Keowa’s head, the cheerful hum of a bumblebee lost itself in the silence.
‘Of course there are some at EMCO who think we should just sit out the whole helium-3 business,’ he said. ‘They think it’s idiotic to buy in with Orley. But that’s unrealistic. We’re going bankrupt. We can’t afford to wait anything out.’
‘Would your death have changed anything for Imperial Oil, in particular?’
‘It wouldn’t have changed anything for anyone. I wouldn’t have been able to make a few meetings.’ Palstein shrugged. ‘Well, as it is, some of them I can’t make anyway.’
‘You were supposed to fly to the Moon with Orley. He invited you.’
‘Truth be told, I asked him whether I could come along. I would have really liked to have flown.’ A dreamy look came into Palstein’s eyes. ‘As well as which, there are a lot of interesting people up there, maybe I could have talked up a joint venture or two. Oleg Rogachev, for instance, he’s worth fifty-six billion, the world’s biggest steel producer. Plenty of people trying to close a deal with him. Or Warren Locatelli, he’s worth nearly as much.’
‘EMCO and the world market leader in solar cells,’ smiled Keowa. ‘Doesn’t it make you angry that your industry used to be so powerful, and now you have to court favour with these kinds of people?’
‘It makes me angry that EMCO didn’t listen to me at the time. I always wanted to work with Locatelli. We should have bought Lightyears when the time was right.’
‘When you still had something to offer him.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s absurd, isn’t it? Doesn’t it seem like history having the last laugh – the oil bosses dictated what happened in the world for nigh on a century, and then, in the end, they weren’t in a position to turn new developments to their advantage?’
‘Every kind of rule ends in decadence. Anyway, I’m sorry I can’t help you with any more reasons for trying to kill me. I’m afraid you’ll have to keep looking elsewhere.’
Keowa said nothing. Perhaps it had been naïve of her to hope that out here, on silent Lake Lavon, Palstein would whisper dreadful secrets in her ear. Then she had an idea.
‘EMCO still has money, is that right?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You see.’ She smiled triumphantly. ‘So what you did was, you made a decision, where there would have been an alternative.’
‘And that would have been?’
‘If you’re investing in Orley Enterprises, then you must be thinking of considerable amounts of money.’
‘Of course. But really, there’s no alternative there either.’
‘Depends on who’s interested, I would say. It needn’t necessarily be about keeping EMCO in business.’
‘What else?’
‘Shutting the place down and taking the money elsewhere. I mean, who might have an interest in actually speeding up EMCO’s end? Perhaps your rescue plan actually gets in someone’s way?’
Palstein looked at her with melancholy in his eyes.
‘Interesting question.’
‘Think about it! There are thousands out of work who would reckon it makes a lot more sense for EMCO to use the money for their welfare bills, at least for as long as it takes them to get new jobs, and then the ship can go down for all they care. Then there are the creditors who don’t want to see their money blast off to the Moon. A government that has dropped you lot without batting an eyelid. Why exactly? EMCO has know-how, after all.’
‘We have no know-how. Not on the Moon.’
‘But isn’t it all resource extraction, even up there?’
Palstein shook his head. ‘It’s space travel more than it’s anything else. Then, Earth-based technologies can’t just be mapped onto the Moon one to one, especially not in our line of work. The lower gravity, the lack of atmosphere, it all brings its own problems. A couple of guys from coal-mining are involved, but otherwise they’re developing completely new techniques. If you ask me, there’s a completely different reason why the government just dropped us. The State wants to control helium-3 extraction, one hundred per cent. So Washington has grabbed the opportunity with both hands, and they’re aiming not just to get out of the armlock the Middle East had them in, they want to be free of the oil companies as well.’
‘Stick the knife in the kingmaker’s ribs,’ said Keowa mockingly.
‘But of course,’ said Palstein, almost cheerfully. ‘Oil has made presidents, but no president wants to be a puppet for private business unless he’s the biggest fish in that pond. It’s just in the nature of things that the new-crowned king wants to get rid of the kingmaker first thing, if he can. Just think of what happened in Russia in the nineties, think of Vladimir Putin – ah, heck, you’re too young to remember that.’
‘I’ve studied Russian history,’ Keowa said, smiling. ‘Putin was supposed to be the oligarchs’ puppet, but they underestimated him. Characters like that guy with the unpronounceable name—’
‘Khodorkovsky.’
‘Right, one of the robber-barons from Yeltsin’s day. Putin came onto the scene, a little bit later Khodorkovsky wakes up in a prison camp in Siberia. It happened to a lot of them.’
‘In our case, the problem solves itself.’ Palstein grinned.
‘Nevertheless,’ said Keowa insistently, ‘during the big crisis sixteen years ago governments all over the world put together packages worth billions to save the banks from sinking. There was talk of pain in the financial markets, as though it were the banks and the board members who were suffering, not the armies of small investors who lost their money and never saw it back from State guarantees. But the states helped the banks. And now they’re doing nothing. They’re letting the oil giants go to the dogs. It doesn’t matter how much they’d like to be free of them, that can’t be in Washington’s interest.’
Palstein looked at her as though at an interesting fish that he hadn’t expected to catch in this lake.
‘You want a story, no matter what it takes, don’t you?’