“Gentlemen, I am entirely at your mercy.” They laugh overappreciatively.
“We’ll claim your soul later,” says Weitz, who is the one who obviously never had to try too hard in Junior High, High, College Sports, and Business Law School. Vishram’s eye for an audience notes that Siggurdson, the big cadaverous one, finds this marginally less funny than the others. The Born-Again; the one with the money.
Lunch comes on thirty tiny thalis. It is of that exquisite simplicity that is always so much more expensive than any lavishness. The five men pass the dishes between them, murmuring soft alleluias of appreciation at each subtle combination of vegetables and spices. Vishram notices that they eat Indian style without self-consciousness. Their Marianna Fuscos have even drilled them on which hand to use. But for the quiet epiphanies of flavour and mutual encouragements to try a taste of this, a morsel of that, the lunch is conducted in silence. Finally the thirty silver thalis are empty. The maitre d’s boys flurry in like doves to clear and the men settle back on to their embroidered bolsters.
“So, Mr. Ray, without wasting too many words, we’re interested in your company.” Siggurdson speaks slowly, a measured tread of words like a buffalo drive, inviting dangerous underestimation.
“Ah, if only it were all mine to sell,” Vishram says. He wishes he hadn’t taken a side of the table all to himself now. Every head is turned to him now, every body-language focused on him.
“Oh, we know that,” says Weitz. Arthurs chips in.
“You’ve got a nice little middle-size power-generation and distribution company; good build-up, rudimentary semi-feudal ownership model and you really should have diversified years ago to maximise shareholder value. But you guys do things differently here, I recognise that. I don’t understand that, but then there’s a lot of things about this place that frankly makes no sense to me at all. Maybe you’re a little overcapitalised and you do have way too much invested in social capital—your R&D budget would raise eyebrows at home, but you’re in pretty good shape. Maybe not planet-beating, not sector-leading, but good Little League.”
“Nice of you to say so,” Vishram says which is all the venom he can permit himself in this teak arena—he knows that they want to niggle him, nettle him, needle him into a careless comment. He looks at his hands. They are steady on the glass as they were always steady on the mike. It’s no different from dealing with hecklers.
Siggurdson rests his big fists on the table, leans forward over them. He means to intimidate.
“I don’t think you quite appreciate the seriousness of what we are saying. We know your father’s company better than he knows it himself. His move was abrupt but not altogether unexpected: we have models. They are good models. They predict with an acceptable degree of accuracy. This conversation would be happening whatever he decided with regard to you. That this conversation is taking place here is a reflection of how much we know not just about Ray Power, but about you, Mr. Ray.”
Clementi draws a cigar case from inside his jacket. He flips it open. Little beautiful black Cuban cigarillos like bullets in a magazine. Vishram’s saliva glands stab with hungry pain. Lovely smokes.
“Who’s backing you?” he asks with fake nonchalance. He knows they can see through it like a gauze veil. “EnGen?”
Siggurdson deals him a long stupid-son look.
“Mr. Ray.”
Arthurs moistens his lip with his tongue, a tiny, delicate pink darting dab, like a tiny snake lodged in the crevices of his palate.
“We are a registered acquisitions arm of a large transnational concern.”
“And what is that large transnational^ concern in the research division of Ray Power? Might it be anything to do with the results we’ve been getting in the zero-point lab? Results that are turning in neat little positives where everyone else’s are handing back big red negatives?”
“We’ve heard rumours to that effect,” says Weitz, and Vishram decides that he is the cortex behind the whole operation. Arthurs the money man, Siggurdson the baron, Clementi the enforcer.
“More than rumours,” Vishram says. “But the zero point is not for sale.”
“I think perhaps you may have misunderstood me,” Siggurdson says slowly, ponderously. “We don’t want to buy your company outright. But if the results you’ve been getting are reproducible on a commercial scale, this is a very exciting area of potential high yield. This is an area we would be interested in investing in. What we want, Mr. Ray, is to buy a share in your company. It would be enough money to run a full-scale demonstration of the hot-zero-point technology.”
“You don’t want to buy me out?”
“Mr. Siggurdson said no,” says Clementi tetchily. Siggurdson nods. He has a smile like a Minnesota winter.
“Ah. I think I have misunderstood you. Could you excuse me one moment, gentlemen? I have to go to the snanghar.”
Enthroned among the exotic wood panels, Vishram slips his ’hoek behind his ear and flicks open the palmer. He’s about to call up Inder when the paranoia strikes. Plenty of time for these men in suits to have bugged the gents. He calls up a mail aeai, raises his hand like a pianist, ready to type air. They could have bindicams. They could have movement sensors that read the flexing of his fingers. They could have nanochips that read the gurglings of his palmer; they could have sanyassins looking into the corners of his soul. Vishram Ray settles on the polished mahogany ring and zips off a query to Inder. Inder-in-the-head is back within seconds; head and shoulders materialising over the toilet paper holder on the back of the door.
She reels out names and connections Vishram knows only from the pink pages and money sections he would click past on his way to the entertainment listings, attention only caught by the unintentionally ridiculous corporate titles. He thinks of the khaki men with the straitly tilted bush-hats and assault rifles. Hey guys, you’re in the wrong place. The tigers are up here.
He types, HYPOTHETICAL: WHY WOULD THEY WANT MY COMPANY?
There is an un-aeaily pause. When Inder speaks next, Vishram knows that it is the flesh and bone.
“To tie you up forever in due diligence clauses, with the eventual aim of gaining full control of the zero-point project.”
Vishram sits on the warm mahogany seat and the wood beneath and around him seems sweltering and oppressive, a coffin buried in summer earth. It is going to be like this from now on.
“Thank you,” he says aloud. Then he washes his hands to fix his alibi and walks back to the men around the table.
“Sorry to be so long; funny, but I haven’t readjusted to the diet yet.” He sits down, crosses his legs nimbly, comfortably. “Anyway, I’ve had a think about your offer.”
“Take your time,” Clementi suggests. “This isn’t the sort of decision to rush. Take a look at our proposal, then get back to us.” He pushes a plastic wallet of high-gloss documents across the table. But Weitz sits back, detached, planning permutations. He knows, Vishram thinks.
“Thanks, but I’m not going to need any more time and I don’t want to waste any more of yours. I am not going to accept your offer. I realise that I owe you some kind of explanation. It isn’t going to make much sense to you; but the main reason is my father wouldn’t want me to do it. He was as hard-headed a businessman as any of you here and he wasn’t scared of money, but Ray Power is first and foremost an Indian company and because it’s an Indian company, it has values and morals and ethics that are quite alien to the way you do business in the West. It’s not racism or anything like that, it’s just the way we work in Ray Power and our two systems are incompatible. The second reason is that we don’t need your money. I’ve seen the zero-point field myself.” He touches a finger to the flaking corner of his eye. “I know you’ve been politely not staring at this; but that’s the seal of approval. None genuine without this mark. I’ve seen it, gentlemen. I’ve seen another universe and I’ve been burned by its light.” Then the rush comes, that moment when you go off script. Head reeling with adrenaline, Vishram Ray says, “In fact, we’re going public with a full-scale demonstration within the next two weeks. And by the way, I gave up smoking three weeks ago.”