The figure bowed its head. "Forgive me, Master, but we have had a good record of trading with ProFax. Our association with them goes back over twenty years. In our experience, there is no one more reliable."
Lever huffed irritably. "If that were true, we wouldn't be having this discussion, would we?" He sat forward, looming over them. "So let me ask you once again, what is the problem? I could understand it if ProFax owned the patent to this process, but they don't. And they certainly don't have a monopoly of the market. So why can't we buy the stuff elsewhere? And why can't we cut the rates we pay for it into the bargain? It strikes me that this is the perfect opportunity."
He sat back, steepling his hands. "Okay. This is how we do it. We get our legal boys to send ProFax a writ, letting them know that they're in breach of contract, then we withhold all payments for products already shipped, and send out a request for tenders to all of ProFax's major competitors. And we do all this right now, understand me, gentlemen? Right now!"
As he uttered the final words, Lever slammed his right hand down on the "cancel" button and hauled himself up out of his chair, even as the images faded from the air.
At that very moment, right across the City, his major Departmental Heads would be being woken up and told of the decision. Yes, and cursing me silently, no doubt, Lever thought, smiling savagely. But that's how it was in this world: one didn't look back, one got on with things. If something made sense, there was no good reason for delay. Nor was there room for sentiment. Both were weaknesses. Fatal weaknesses, if one let them be.
He went across to the drinks cabinet on the far side of the study and pulled down a bottle of his favorite malt whiskey, pouring himself a large glass, then turned, looking about him.
It was a big, ranch-style study with heavy wooden uprights and low rails dividing the room up into "stalls." To his left, beyond one of the rails, stood a mechanical horse, beneath a portrait of himself as a twenty-year-old, bare-chested in buckskins and shiny leather boots.
It was some while—months, if not years—since he had tried himself against the horse, nor had he even thought of it, but now, for some reason, he went across and, ducking beneath the rail, stood next to it, letting his left hand rest on the smooth, cool leather of the saddle while he sniffed in the heavy animal musk of the thing.
Across from him, behind the desk, set back against the far wall, was a big, glass-fronted cabinet, filled with sporting trophies: mementos of an athletic youth. Beside it, lit softly from above, was a head and shoulder portrait of his wife, her fine golden hair set like a halo about her soft, angelic face.
Earlier, he had sat in his private viewing chamber, enclosed in the darkness there, watching a hologram of his son Michael, wrestling with him beside the pool while his young wife, Margaret, looked on. It was an old film, taken shortly before Margaret had died. Michael had been eight then, he fifty-four.
He shivered, thinking of the years between. Twenty years this autumn. Long years in which he'd tried hard to forget; to steel himself against all the hurt and injustice he had felt at her death. At the suddenness of it all. He had buried himself in his work, throwing everything into the task of making his Company, ImmVac, the number one economic force in North America. But it had cost him. He had never grieved for her properly and inside he was hurting still. Even now, after all these years, he could not look at her without feeling his stomach fall away, a dryness come to his mouth. It had been hard, bringing up the boy without her, but he had done it. And for a time it had worked. For a time . . .
Lever turned his head aside, a sudden bitterness making him grimace. After all he had been through—after all he had done for the boy—how could Michael have turned on him like that? And in public too! The arrogance of the boy! The ingratitude . . .
He shuddered, then slapped the horse's rump, angry with himself. Angry, not because of what he felt, but for the weakness, the sentiment he had allowed to sway him.
Ducking beneath the rail he went across and took the envelope from the table by the door, tearing it open angrily. Inside was the letter he had written earlier: the brief note of reconciliation, forgiving Michael and asking him to come back. For a moment Lever stood there, the letter held in one trembling hand. Then, with a spasm of anger, he ripped the thing in half, then in half again, his face distorted with anger and pain.
"No," he said softly, looking about him, bewildered, frightened suddenly by the strength, the violence of his feelings. "Not now, and maybe not ever. No. Not until you come crawling back, begging my forgiveness."
And would that be enough? Would that repair what had been broken between them? No. And yet without it there was nothing. Less than nothing, in fact, for this bitterness, this anger ate at him, day by day, hour by hour, giving him no rest. Like death, he thought, and shivered again, wondering how it was all connected. Like death.
in THREE DAYS Lehmann had brought the local tongboss, Lo Han, to the conference table. Fourteen of his men were dead and six more had joined K'ang A-yin, under Lehmann's lieutenantship. Now Lo Han sat there, three of his henchmen behind him, facing K'ang across the table, making a deal.
"It's too high. Far too high," Lo Han said, spitting out the end of the cigar he had been chewing on.
"Fifteen percent or the deal is off," answered K'ang, turning in his seat to smile at Lehmann, as if to say, "You can fight, but when it comes to making deals, just watch an expert."
Lehmann said nothing, knowing that what K'ang was asking for was ridiculously low. The figures Lo Han was showing in his books were rigged. Even at a conservative estimate he must be raking in four or five times as much. And a sixth of twenty percent wasn't much, seeing as he had been soundly beaten on four occasions now. But it didn't matter. Whatever K'ang agreed to, he, Lehmann, would tear up when the time came, for he wanted a pure one hundred percent of Lo Han's drug trade.
In his six weeks down here Lehmann had learned much about the Lowers. He had watched carefully and listened to Soucek attentively. He knew now how they thought and what they wanted. He knew what motivated them and how far they would go to get what they wanted. He knew their strengths and their weaknesses—particularly the latter—and had come to see just how he could use both to attain his ends.
And what were those ends?
When he had returned to the City from off the mountainside, he had wanted nothing less than total vengeance against the Seven. He had seen himself as a lone figure, slipping between the levels like a shadow, bringing death to the Families and all who supported them. But that was just a dream. As a single man he could not hope to change things, yet by his very nature he was singular: he could not parcel out his thoughts, his hatreds, and share them. Even so, there was a middle way.
Singular he might be, but not necessarily alone. Already he was forming a solid corps of men about him, Soucek chief among them. Men loyal to him alone, however it appeared on the surface. Consulting no one, letting no one into his thoughts, he went about his business, winning allies by the strength of his actions, the single-
mindedness inherent in his nature. He did not have to ask; men followed him, recognizing in him something they had longed for, maybe dreamed of. Men confided in him, seeking nothing in return. Trusting him. Willing to be used by him. Wanting to be used.
Respect and fear. Loyalty and a deep-rooted uncertainty. It was this mixed response to him—there in all who came to know him—that eventually defined for him the means by which he would come to attain that impossible, dreamlike end which was the very source, the fountainhead, of his singularity.
He would use their respect and fear, channel their loyalty and uncertainty, knowing that both aspects were necessary and, in their combination, powerful. But at the heart of things would be his own singular desire, deadly and uncompromising, shaping things, molding those who were both attracted to and appalled by him into a body—a weapon—through which his will would be done.