The director took hold of her long, strong hands and looked her up and down, like the fussiest of couturiers, nodding appreciatively. She was wearing a fabulous dress of blue silk underneath a lilac coral-pattern body sleeve made of smart glass lace that might have come from the undersea view on Dallas’s faux fenêtre.
‘Magnificent,’ he said. ‘Quite magnificent.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Ronica smiled nervously. This was the first time she had ever been in the director’s office, and the first time she had been alone with him. Nervous, yes, but at the same time resolved to do whatever he asked of her.
‘Ronica. Short for Veronica no doubt.’
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘After the saint who used her head cloth to wipe away the blood from the face of Christ on his way to Calvary.’
‘Would that be Jesus Christ, sir?’
‘It would.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘According to the Acts of Pilate, Veronica received it back imprinted with the bloody features of Christ’s face, and later used it to heal the Emperor Tiberius. You see how blood connects everything significant in our culture? Even your own name.’
He poured himself a drink but did not offer her one.
‘Sit,’ he said, and took the chair across from her. ‘Tell me. What do you think of Rimmer?’
‘Rimmer?’ Ronica didn’t much care for Terotechnology’s head of security, but she knew that being liked was not part of Rimmer’s job. ‘He seems a bit graceless and intemperate. But his is a difficult job. A head of security ought not to worry about being popular with the troops.’
‘True enough. Popularity is one thing, however; job performance is quite another. That man has been a bitter disappointment to me, Ronica. Needless to say, I’m telling you this in strictest confidence. Indeed, you’re the only one with whom I’ve discussed this matter. I hope I can trust you. Can I? Can I trust you?’
‘Every inch, in toto,’ Ronica answered, without hesitation.
‘Good.’ The director smiled and poured himself another drink.
‘Rimmer was supposed to do something for me. And he let me down, he let the company down. Badly. I asked him to kill Dallas. Instead he made a dreadful mistake and killed Tanaka.’ The director searched Ronica’s face for some sign that she was taken aback by this information. ‘You don’t seem surprised,’ he observed.
Ronica pursed the lips of her dark plum of a mouth. ‘You’re the director,’ she shrugged.
‘I was right about you,’ said the director. ‘The things we have to do for the good of the company don’t always make us liked by our peers. Sometimes these things are unpleasant. Abhorrent even. Like killing Dallas. He was my friend. But for the good of the company I thought he had to be killed.’
‘Are you telling me to kill Dallas?’
‘Oh no. That wouldn’t do at all. Now that Tanaka’s dead, Dallas is much too valuable to kill. No, I want him back here, working for the company again. Just like before. With his wife and child dead, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t have his old job back. They were the principal reason why he had come to represent a major security risk to the company.’ The director waved his hand in the air and laughed wryly. ‘Well, maybe there is one reason why he shouldn’t have his old job back.’
‘Rimmer.’
‘Precisely.’
‘You can hardly persuade Dallas to come back while his wife’s murderer is left alive.’
‘Quite so.’
‘And you want me to kill Rimmer.’
‘In the fullness of time, when we judge it appropriate to do so. As a demonstration of the company’s goodwill toward Dallas.’
‘To show Dallas that Rimmer acted on his own. To prove that this whole episode was a dreadful mistake. Rimmer acted beyond his orders. Which is why he had to be killed. How am I doing?’
‘Brilliantly, my dear. Rimmer will do all the work for you, at least as far as finding Dallas is concerned. When he is properly incentivized, Rimmer can be quite tenacious.’
‘You offered him a second chance.’
‘Yes.’
Ronica tried not to look too pleased. The truth was that she had always disliked Rimmer. She had never met him without receiving a smart remark. Killing him would be a pleasure.
‘Rimmer thinks he’s finding Dallas in order to have another chance at killing him. Quite simply, your job is to allow this search to proceed until he finds Dallas, and then to make sure you stop Rimmer in a spectacularly demonstrative way. Yes, it would ice the cake very nicely if you managed to kill Rimmer just as he was about to kill Dallas. To create the best impression possible. Well, I know you understand all of that. The only question is, will you take the job?’
Ronica stood up, as if she thought that her great height would show her more than equal to the task.
‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ she said. ‘Never even thought about killing anyone. But since I find I can think about killing Rimmer easily enough, I have to accept the possibility of my doing it. And since I can accept the possibility, I must also accept that it is within my capacity — that this does not exceed my competence. Director, you see things in me I perhaps only half see myself. That’s why you’re the director. All I can do is try to measure up to the vision you have for me. So I accept the job you’re prepared to give me, without reservations.’
Standing, the director took Ronica by both hands again and nodded with approval. Where on earth did these young people learn to talk in this way? Of course, he already knew the answer. When your school and university teachers were computers, it was perhaps inevitable that you should grow up speaking like a machine. There were times when Simon King thought that he could have had a better conversation with a Motion Parallax assistant than any young man or woman, like Ronica, who was straight out of college. She had sounded more than a little like some linguistic philosopher, and it was always irritating to the director when people drew philosophy into a conversation. It was like bringing a lawyer along, and there was nothing the director hated more than a lawyer. Except perhaps someone who had failed him dismally. It would be good to see an end to Rimmer and his insolence.
‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘I take it you have a gun?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Ronica pulled up her skirt to reveal a small and intimately holstered automatic and a spectacular absence of underwear.
The director swallowed. ‘Yes, I can see you’re prepared for any eventuality.’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘He won’t be expecting it,’ he said turning away at last. ‘And that should make it easier for you. Just make sure we get Dallas back alive. And when it’s all over, you can have Rimmer’s job. Rimmer’s office. And all Rimmer’s privileges. I’ll even let you keep his blood. I mean, what he has on deposit. Not what’s in his body. I refuse to have anyone who works for this company involved in blood felony, in vamping. It’s a horrible crime, one that strikes at the very heart of our business. Blood’s central to our way of life, Ronica. Never forget that. Without the preservation of blood, there is no remission from the severe claims that disease makes upon our species. All things are conserved through blood.’
Ronica noticed that the director seemed transfigured by what he was saying. His voice rose a couple of semitones as he continued speaking. If she hadn’t been so delighted with the job he had given her and the tremendous opportunity it presented, she might even have thought the director was a little mad.
‘Who so preserveth man’s blood, by blood shall man’s life be preserved. For in the image of the red cells is the immunity and in the immunity is the hope. Until then, the blood of the healthy is the seed of our new society. And that must always be protected. Not just for us, now, but also for the future. So be sanguine. And learn the money-weight of blood. Don’t be ashamed of the blood that runs in your veins, for it is no burden to be healthy and there is no shame in our wholeness. Make blood your conscience, Ronica. In the name of hemoglobin. Now and forever more.’