Hot Sky at Midnight

17

nakamura made a small but imperious gesture with two fingers of his hand and the brightly glinting image of what looked more or less like a gigantic steel-jacketed hornet without wings sprang into being in the air of the vast barren room where he and Rhodes were having their little talk. It nearly filled the entire space.

“This, Dr. Rhodes, is the prototype of our starship. I show it to you not because your work for us, if you were to cast your fortunes in with us, would pertain in any way to our starship program, but simply because I am eager to demonstrate to you the extent of our far-flung scientific endeavor. May I have the pleasure to offer you one more glass of cognac?”

“Well—” Rhodes said. But Nakamura was pouring already.

Rhodes suspected that he was getting a little tipsy. Nakamura dispensed the cognac with a free hand.

It seemed safe to be drinking this much, though. Rhodes had recognized from the beginning that he was out of his depth with a Level Three man; he expected to be outflanked and overwhelmed at every step, and that provided him with a certain armor. He had already resolved that he would agree to nothing at this first meeting, regardless of the acuity of Nakamura’s manipulative techniques. He was an experienced enough drinker to know that a little cognac, or even a great deal, wasn’t going to alter that resolution; and it did help him fend off the anxieties that arose in this challenging situation, here on this alien turf, in the presence of so formidable a corporate figure.

The conversation had been altogether one-sided. Rhodes knew that he was here to listen, not to try to make an impression. The impression had already been made. Kyocera-Merck probably knew more about him than he did himself.

At the beginning, Nakamura had asked a few bland, nonspecific questions about Rhodes’ current research projects. It was purely a courtesy: plainly Nakamura wasn’t trying to elicit corporate secrets from him. Rhodes told him what was already public knowledge about Samurai’s gene-splicing program, and Nakamura listened politely, prompting him now and then, guiding him through an account of the familiar and the obvious.

Then the focus shifted to Kyocera-Merck. “We too are deeply concerned about the fate of our species on this troubled planet, Dr. Rhodes,” Nakamura said, as gravely as any undergraduate about to launch into some environmental harangue. “Like you, we feel that some biological modification of the race will be necessary to equip us for the coming changes; but we have not, I think, made as much progress along that road as your great company has. As you surely are already well aware, that is why I have asked you to come here today: to explore with you the possibility that you might choose to transfer your extraordinary skills to our laboratories.” With a smile and a minute bowing gesture and a flick of his hand, Nakamura indicated that there was no need for Rhodes to reply just yet to this first explicit statement of the purpose of the meeting. “We have, however, made some remarkable strides toward an entirely different kind of solution. I speak of our attempts, of which you have probably heard rumors, to develop a faster-than-light spaceship that will be capable of conducting human colonists to suitable planets outside the solar system.”

It was then that Nakamura brought the model of the starship prototype to vivid life in front of them.

Rhodes took an involuntary step backward, as though fearing the thing would fall on him. But all it was, he knew, was a holographic image.

Nakamura said, “You have heard reports of our starship program?”

“Only the sketchiest outlines of it,” Rhodes said truthfully. “Essentially all I know is that there is such a program. And has been for several years.”

“Yes. As there is, also, at Samurai Industries. Were you aware of that, Dr. Rhodes?”

“To about the same degree. What we hear, though, is that Kyocera is much farther along the track than we are.”

“That is correct. We have made successful ground tests and are now almost on the verge of making our first experimental flight.” Nakamura’s eyes took on a brilliant sheen. He was offering Rhodes classified information, now: a small quid as down payment for the soon-to-be-requested quo. “A problem has developed, however, involving the nature of human perception under the extreme conditions of faster-than-light travel. And here is where our starship program and your own gene-splicing specialty overlap.”

Rhodes was taken off balance by that. Was Kyocera trying to hire him to do some kind of starship work for them?

“The difficulty,” Nakamura said smoothly, “is that the faster-than-light stardrive creates a variety of apparently unavoidable relativistic distortions. The occupants of the ship will travel in an altered space, in which, among other things, the visual signals reaching their optical nerves will be completely unfamiliar to them. Our eyes, of course, are designed to receive light in a particular segment of the spectrum and to decode the patterns formed by that light according to our expectations of the shape of things. Within the starship, under the influence of a drive field that is literally deforming the surrounding continuum in order to push the ship through the space-time fabric at nonrelativistic speeds, light waves will be subjected to extreme stress. The information received by the optic nerves of anyone on board will be incomprehensible. The crew will, in effect, be blind.”

It was hard for Rhodes to imagine a Level Eight or Nine executive making such a speech. In the managerial ranks science was generally considered something that could safely be left to the lower echelons. But Nakamura seemed actually to understand what he was saying: his phrasing, though stilted in the megacorp-Japanese style, did not have the rigidity of a memorization.

Rhodes wondered if he was going to be asked to deal somehow with this blindness problem. That appeared to be where Nakamura was heading, anyway.

Unexpectedly, the Kyocera man said, “Do you know of a certain Dr. Wu Fang-shui?”

Rhodes was astonished. He hadn’t heard that name in years.

“A legendary figure in the history of genetic surgery,” he said. “The most brilliant member of his generation. A worker of miracles.”

“Yes. Indeed so. And do you have any idea where he is now?”

“He’s been dead a long time. His career ended in a terrible scandal. The story I heard was that he had committed suicide.”

“Oh, no, my dear Dr. Rhodes. That is not true.”

“Not a suicide?”

“Not dead. Dr. Wu was a fugitive for many years, yes, after the lamentable scandal to which you refer. But he has been found, and is in fact currently in our employ.”

Nakamura’s bland statement amazed Rhodes so much that his hand shook violently and some of his cognac spilled. Nakamura replaced it in a smooth, almost instantaneous motion.

“That’s hard for me to believe,” Rhodes said. “I don’t mean to doubt your word, of course. But it’s very much like an astronomer hearing that Galileo has turned up alive and is designing a new telescope. Like telling a biologist that a new paper by Gregor Mendel is about to be published. Or a mathematician hearing that Edgar Madison is—”

Nakamura smiled crisply. “Yes, I quite understand,” he said. His tone left no doubt that he was cutting in to prevent Rhodes from running through the entire scientific pantheon in his boozy verbosity. “But the celebrated Dr. Wu chose to disappear, not to die, after the exposure of his illicit experiments in the Free State of Kazakhstan, which is, I think, the scandal to which you were referring. He underwent significant alterations of his appearance and took refuge on one of the L-5 worlds. It happens, Dr. Rhodes, that his Kazakhstan experiments included research into alternative modes of vision. He is at this very moment engaged in retrofitting the crew of our experimental starship so that they will be able to cope with the visual problems posed by faster-than-light travel.”

Rhodes shakily conveyed his glass to his lips.

The sinister old bastard still alive! Performing his magic at this very moment in some K-M laboratory! Who could have imagined it?

“And if I were to join the Kyocera staff,” Rhodes said, “I would be put to work under Dr. Wu in this starship project, is that it?”

“Not at all. From what we know of Dr. Wu’s Kazakhstan research, he ought to be able to deal with the problem of visual perception under faster-than-light conditions in very short order, with no need for the assistance of even so distinguished a scientist as yourself, Dr. Rhodes. Aside from which, it would be foolish of us to divert you from your own present research path.”

“You mean you would want me to go right on with what I’ve been doing at Santachiara, but under Kyocera-Merck auspices?”

“Exactly. Even though we have high hopes for our star-ship program, we recognize that colonization of other solar systems is only one possible solution to our problem. It would be foolhardy of us to ignore the avenue of adapto research. And we at Kyocera-Merck are greatly concerned by your company’s apparent superiority in that field.”

So it had occurred to them, then, that Samurai was positioning itself for nothing less than world domination.

“I see,” Rhodes said.

“Therefore we are prepared to duplicate your present research facility, or to go as far beyond its capabilities as you desire. We’ll provide you with whatever equipment you would need, at whatever budgetary level you deem appropriate.”

Dry-throated now, Rhodes said hoarsely, “You make this sound very appealing.”

“We intend to. We would hope, naturally, that you would bring most or all of your current research group over to us with you.”

“That might expose me to some problems of legal liability, wouldn’t it?”

“It might expose us to some legal liability,” Nakamura said. “The corporation, not you as an individual, doctor. And we are prepared to shoulder that risk.” He extended the cognac bottle. “Another?”

Rhodes quickly put his hand over his glass.

“Thank you, no.”

“I believe I will,” said Nakamura. He filled his glass and lifted it in a toast. He seemed gracious, relaxed, charming, now: a true pal. “It would be premature, I would think, to discuss such details as salary, now. But I’m sure you understand that we are prepared to be extremely generous, both in terms of direct compensation and in terms of advanced grade levels for you and your most important colleagues.”

Rhodes’ mind was whirling.

“Now, as to the connection of Dr. Wu Fang-shui to what we have been discussing,” Nakamura said.

Yes. Wu was involved in this somewhere, Rhodes remembered.

“When he is finished with the starship project—a matter of just a few months, we estimate—it would be quite possible for us to transfer him to your group. As a research consultant, let us say. A senior adviser, neither superior to you nor inferior, but simply affiliated with your enterprise as a reservoir of available technical skill of a highly advanced nature. For example, we have it on good report that a member of your group has made an extremely bold, even radical, proposal for a new line of research that could be unusually fruitful, but which at this point is hedged around by potentially insuperable technical stumbling blocks. It might be the case that a scientist of Dr. Wu’s stature, approaching these obstacles with a fresh vision, so to speak, might be able to offer suggestions which—”

Rhodes was stunned.

They knew about Van Vliet already? Apparently so. And were dangling no less a figure than Wu Fang-shui to help him bring Van Vliet’s proposals to completion?

Incredible. Incredible.

“I will have that drink after all, I think, Mr. Nakamura.”

“Certainly.” Nakamura poured him a double, perhaps a triple.

From some previously untapped depth of his soul Rhodes managed to say, “You realize that I’m not able to give you any definite answer to any of this today.”

“Of course. This is a serious step, virtually the restructuring of your whole life. I am aware of the strong commitment you feel to Samurai Industries, or—to put it more precisely—to Santachiara Technologies. You are not a man who makes great decisions lightly or swiftly. We know that—we have watched you very closely, Dr. Rhodes, surely you are not surprised to hear that—and we value that trait in you. Take your time. Think things over. Discuss what I have said with your most trusted friends.”

“Yes.”

“I hardly need stress the importance of discretion in these discussions, of course.”

“Hardly.”

Nakamura rose.

“We will be in touch, Dr. Rhodes.”

“Yes. Certainly.”

“It has been a rewarding first meeting for me, and, I trust, for you as well.”

“Yes. Very much so.”

As Rhodes was leaving, Nakamura actually offered him a formal bow of the most punctilious sort. Rhodes did his awkward bearish best to imitate it.

A Level Three, bowing to me, he thought. Incredible.

Mr. Kurashiki was waiting to lead him back to his car. Rhodes sat in it for a long moment, feeling dazed, wondering where to tell the car to take him. It was still fairly early in the afternoon. Return to the lab? No, not now. Not in the shape he was in. He was as close to drunk as made no difference, he was soaked in sour high-tension sweat, he was altogether exhausted. He felt close to tears. An interview with an actual Level Three; an offer to design a new lab for himself, expenses be damned; and, of all flabbergasting things, Wu Fang-shui himself thrown in as office help. Rhodes was dazed.

He needed to talk to someone about this. But who? Isabelle? Jesus, no! Ned Svoboda? Not really.

Paul Carpenter, that was who. The only person in the universe he completely trusted. But Carpenter was somewhere out at sea jockeying icebergs around. For the moment, Rhodes knew, he was on his own, struggling to contain a secret that was so big it felt like a lump of molten brass in his throat.

“Take me home,” Rhodes told the car.

He didn’t feel at all like a Level Eight departmental head, or like an internationally respected scientist. What he felt like was a small boy who had gone swimming out too far from shore, and had no idea now of how to get back to land.