Unease runs deep among investors, who fear that Roger Gordian has created a patchwork monster, a multi-limbed aberration whose lifeblood is being diverted away from its corporate center to sustain its unwieldy reach. To be blunt, as UpLink's once highly valued stock continues to lose ground, it becomes less critical to ask whether its problems are due to hubris, inattention, or simple bad judgment on the part of its executives, and fitting to state the obvious bottom line — its board has failed to uphold its basic fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, namely guaranteeing a premium return on their investments.
Let us pause here to consider an image of cojoined or 4 'Siamese" twins— better yet, make them triplets — their bodies connected by an implacable tube of flesh, nerves, and intertwined blood vessels. In the cradle, they coo and embrace. As young adolescents they plan for a future that seems a bright, infinite frontier.
But adulthood brings change and discord. One of them grows to enjoy composing gentle romantic poetry. Another's great pleasures are drinking and arm-wrestling in rowdy taverns. The third simply likes to fish in the sun. Miscreated, mismatched, and miserable, they try to reach some lifestyle accommodation, equally dividing their time between preferred pursuits, but their basic incompatibility of nature causes all three to fail.
The poet cannot write because the long nights in hard bars make soft, lyrical thoughts impossible, and because he suffers hangovers from the alcohol flowing through their common bloodstream. The prodigal grows depressed and contrary while his versifying brother struggles to focus on the intricacies of rhyme and meter. Their constant arguing exhausts the fisherman, so that he merely sleeps away his mornings by the stream, and his rod frequently drops from his fingers to be dragged off into the water by a darting bass or trout, gone with a splash.
Eventually the three brothers wane and perish. The cause stated on their death certificates? One does not know the medical term, but perhaps it might rightly be called overdiversification.
What can be done to spare UpLink from a similar demise? For answers we might contrast the untenable generalism of its expansion to the cautious, focused growth of Monolith Technologies….
Although it wasn't yet time for the reception to conclude, Marcus Caine was feeling bored and stuffy-headed in the packed United Nations chamber. From his place at the dais, he sat staring past exotic floral arrangements at a profusion of television cameras, cables, floodlights, and microphone booms, all manipulated by a crew of scurrying technicians. Behind him was a large collapsible backdrop showing the U. N. symbol, a globe viewed from the North Pole and surrounded by olive branches. Because this was a UNICEF event, there was the added touch of a woman holding a young child in the center of the globe. Caine's wife, Odielle, sat quietly at his right, her face thin and clamped. On either side of them were officers of the organization's Executive Board and high-ranking members of its parent body, the Economic and Social Council. Below him, rows of interpreters in headsets were translating their insipid, windy speeches into six languages.
As the current speaker droned away about Caine's philanthropic largesse, he absently glanced down the length of the table at Arcadia Foxcroft, Lady Arcadia, his connection to the Secretariat, and the woman who had arranged the ongoing event. Wanting to stop his mind from drifting off entirely, he stared at her, made her his fixed point of concentration. It wasn't hard. She had the sort of face one would expect to see on a fashion model's head-shot — exciting, glamorous, provocative. Her peach-colored dress accented a spectacular figure. Lively blue eyes flashing, delicate lips parting over perfect white teeth, she was having a conversation with the fellow next to her, laughing at something he'd said. Though he couldn't hear the laughter from his seat, Caine was very familiar with the sound of it.
Somehow it always made him think of sharpened glass.
Caine watched her. A man-killer, Arcadia. And aware of it, as were all women of her type. She brushed back a wisp of auburn hair, revealing one of the diamond earrings that he'd bought for a small fortune at Harry Winston's and given her while they were in bed the previous night. He had dropped them between her thighs after they made love, and she had found that tremendously arousing. As she'd put them on, and then slid on top of him, groaning breathlessly, awakening him to delight again, he'd wondered how many other sexual dalliances she was having even while they conducted their affair, how many other partners were lavishing her with expensive gifts. Doubtless quite a few. Which was all right. Bad girl, Arcadia. He had his fair share of her, and thought it was only sporting to let the rest of the boys have theirs.
Besides, he liked to imagine her engaging in hidden, illicit acts out of his presence… just as he thrived on the tension of having his wife and mistress seated in the same room, rubbing elbows, making small talk, secrets running between them like unseen trip wires.
Caine was dimly aware that another speaker had taken the microphone. A famous Hollywood actress who had married a New York congressional leader, semi-retired from the big screen, moved out to East Hampton, damped her incandescent beauty behind scholarly wire glasses, and become a dedicated spokeswoman for children's causes. Caine wished he'd dated her when the chance had presented itself some years back. Now she was expressing her admiration of his professional standards, his accomplishments in wedding the mass media to computer technology, his inroads into new Asian cable television markets. She raised a chuckle from the crowd with a line that used the word "gizmo," shifted her tone to one of sober concern, and last but not least, praised his unflinching commitment to the Children, capital C. Thanks to Marcus Caine, she concluded wryly, it was truly becoming a small world after all.
Throughout the speech Caine kept his eyes on Arcadia, watching her flirtatious interaction with the dignitary beside her. He understood her quite well; indeed he and she were alike in a great many ways. Born in Argentina, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy German expatriate and his one-time maid, she had been raised by her mother without paternal involvement or financial assistance, and was turning tricks in the streets of Buenos Aires before she was twelve. A decade and several wealthy clients later, having taught herself the manners and forms of sophistication, she slept her way into England's green and pleasant bowers, married a sputtering old lord who was ripe for the grave, secured his inheritance, and thus guaranteed her place in elegant High Society — make that capital H, capital S, please. She was a poseur, plain and simple. An urchin who had snuck into the ball and charmed her way into favor with the invited guests. No wonder her every gesture seemed an exaggeration. As if she constantly needed to prove herself to herself.
Yes, Caine understood her. As he sat among U. N. appointees chosen for their social status and connections, graduates of elite schools, men and women whose bloodlines and fortunes could be traced back centuries, pampered exquisites who were little more than walking family crests, how could he not? They were to the manor born. His father had been a sales executive who retired with a moderate pension after an undistinguished and psychologically anesthetizing career. His mother had taught third grade until she became pregnant with him and settled into being a housewife. Caine himself had been a good student throughout his youth, and attended Harvard for two years on a merit scholarship — but it had been withdrawn in his fourth semester when he'd gotten into some difficulties, and he'd never obtained his degree. Had he not fostered several important friendships before his expulsion he'd have been finished even before entering the race.
The fine ladies and gents in his company would have been astonished, completely astonished, if they knew what he thought of them, how contemptuous he was of them….