Chapter 5

Later that evening, I washed the few dishes left over from eating my simple home-cooked dinner, and I poured myself a glass of port. I dimmed the lights and got myself comfortable in my leather easy chair. With a prepatory sip of my port, I closed my eyes and activated the HUD.

I recalled my experience of first meeting Geelan at the Salvador, setting the replay's start point to just shortly before I arrived at the bar. Recalling the experience in real time would be a slower way of reviewing the materials that might define for me a useful direction in which to pursue this crook. But I didn't want to just review paperwork and follow paper trails. I wanted to study him again, in person, and I wanted to see if there were clues in our conversation as to what his ultimate intentions had been or where he might have headed after persuading me to transfer my life savings to him. Finding Geelan now would be a nearly impossible task. I figured that my only hope now lay in my own unyielding thoroughness.

I hit the play button, and my body slipped back into the full, recorded experience, complete with physiological and emotional sensations, courtesy of the nanite network inside my body.

It's dark outside, and chilly. The wind from the Bay is whipping papers and litter around, and flapping at my jacket collar. Hands jammed into my pockets, I find I don't need to tighten my arms to burrow in against the cold, because the uphill climb to the Salvador is keeping me warm. My breath is steady, through stressed, and I keep a consistent pace. My eyes are looking everywhere, trying to spot the Sirian. I worry about him hiding in dark corners or jumping on me from behind. The rational part of my brain tells me that he may simply be entering the club shortly before me, and I may be able to catch a glimpse of him. No such luck. I get closer and closer to the front door of the Salvador, and there's no sign of anybody.

I pull open the door, and step into the dim, dank warmth of the club. It's a small place, elegant in its time, ornamented with wooden countertops and booth dividers, puffy green-covered seats, banker's lamps hanging from the wall and a few English paintings, scenes of polo and whatnot. I never understood why a bar called the Salvador should be decorated in a British motif, but there's no time for such diversions now. I'm in search of alien life, and I expect to find it. I just hope it doesn't waste my time.

I walk slowly through the bar, along the booths, looking for this sickly-white, neck-flaring character. You'd think he'd be the easiest thing in the world to find in a small bar, but you haven't been to a seedy San Francisco bar lately. The ghostly pallor of its resident drunks alone might lead less observant eyes astray.

As I half-expect, he's in the last booth, facing away from me. I walk past him and turn around. His zombie death stare changes suddenly as he spies me. His eybrows leap up, and his mouth puckers in an expression I am learning suggests excitement, rather than shock or alarm. "Mr. Brennan!" he says with his kind's characteristic lisp. He stands up, faces me formally, and shakes his head violently.

Without thinking, I nod in acknowledgment, then wonder what this kind of opposite gesture means to a Sirian. I don't want to shake his hand...it's probably slimy, and judging from the look and tone of his skin, I'm guessing he clawed his way out of a grave in the city cemetary before making his way over here. "How you doin'," is all I can come up with.

I sit down across from him. I haven't unzipped my jacket yet; I'm ready for a quick departure.

"I am so glad you came, Mr. Brennan," Geelan says, sitting down. "This is a historic opportunity for us."

"So you said."

We stare at each other, saying nothing. Who's supposed to go first? I figure it's up to him. He's the one who wants to talk to me.

"I'm sorry if I inconvenienced you at this hour, but I have been trying hard to find you, and this kind of opportunity does not reward hestitant action."

Let's just get on with it. "You mentioned you have an alternative source for rimonium. Where?"

"Ah, first things first," he replies. "Forgive me, but before I reveal that information, I must have established with you a legal partnership. Of course I trust you, but I must protect at all costs the one piece of information I have that gives me an exclusive edge over my...competitors. You understand."

"No, I don't. I don't get into partnerships with people I don't know and information I can't verify."

Except I had done just that in the end, and I briefly cursed myself for not practicing what I preached.

Geelan gently waves his hands in front of him, as if he's demonstrating to a child how a bird soars on the wind. A gesture of assurance? "There is so much you will learn. You will learn more than enough to allay your concerns. Perhaps I should start with a broad outline."

I sit back and unzip my jacket. I don't know Sirian body language well enough to tell a liar from a truth-teller, but instinctively I know this guy's about to tell me a whopper. I wave to the bartender. I might as well comfort myself with some tasty brew while I indulge him.

"As I mentioned to you earlier," he begins, "Atlas currently retains the only source of raw rimonium, on the planet Gaia. A very contentious and expensive source. Bad for everybody. I, on the other hand, have a friendly alternative source, with whom I have already negotiated, and from whom I have already secured, generous and exclusive mining rights. At a ridiculously low price."

"Sounds too good to be true."

Well, my skepticism was still intact. How had he worn it down?

"Yes, it sounds to good to be true," he acknowledges."That is why you and I shall soon become very wealthy." He returns to his pitch. "While I have in my possession information and mining rights of tremendous value, there are two key items I lack: the complete finances to pay the enormous start-up costs of the equipment and personnel, and the expertise to manage such an operation. You, my friend, have the expertise I need to manage such an endeavor. If you are also willing to commit the rest of the money I need, we have a fifty-fifty partnership in the making."

A short woman in a cocktail dress appears at our table. "What can I get you gentlemen?"

Geelan's eyes shoot down to the table, as if doing so will make the intruder go away. I look up at her. She's the reason I came here. "Screwdriver."

She turns to the alien. I can tell she hasn't seen too many of them, judging by the way she is staring at him with slightly oversized eyes. But then, most people only see videos of Sirians anyway. The humans and aliens keep themselves largely apart. "And…you, sir?" she stammers.

"He's not having anything," I answer.

She nodds awkwardly and leaves.

Geelan's eyes come back up after she is gone. He looks earnestly at me. "I have put up my own business as collateral in this venture," he says. "That is how certain I am of its success. But it is not enough."

"What's your business?"

He passes a SuperNet link to my HUD. I see the icon pop up in the corner of my vision and send it away. I can look at it later.

"I'm afraid the name of my company is not pronounceable in your language," he says.

Of course it isn't, you slimy cheat, I murmured to myself in my easy chair, before taking another sip of port.

"But the name esentially means Geelan's Metals Dealership. I confess it is a fancy name, one that suggests a large staff, even though I work alone."

Of course you do. Con-artists don't like company.

"Still, I do a brisk business, and my company is worth nearly 57 million credits."

That is a good chunk of change for a loner. If it is true.

"With my business as collateral," he continues, "I have secured a loan from my bank for 150 million credits. But I need another 150 million credits to even set up the operation. You can provide the balance, as well as manage the operation, once it's running. And take a fifty percent cut of the profits."

I wave it off. I have a more important question. "So, how did you come across this other source, wherever it is?"

He starts to open his mouth, but the cocktail waitress shows up with my drink. She sets it down, I thank her, and take a pull. Geelan's voice is noticeably quieter when he answers.

"As I have told you, I was once a metallurgist, and I am now a metals dealer. Most of my business is in the Sirius system, but there are other…buyers. One of them is on another world far from here. I sell to a couple of manufacturers there. I was there for a visit, and they mentioned that geological surveys had turned up an unusual metal in a remote valley, a very large vein of it, which they had not yet seen on their planet. Nor did they know of any practical use for it. It was only scientifically interesting. They were curious, and asked me if I knew what it was. I asked them to describe It in more detail, and they showed me the geological surveys, which I will show to you shortly as well. I studied the surveys and immediately knew that the vein was rimonium. The exceptional nature of this opportunity was obvious to me.

This guy spun a good story. So good it should have been obvious to me from beginning to end how ridiculously false it was.

"So what did you do?" I ask him.

"I immediately consulted the local records to see who owned the land. It was remote government land, of little use or interest to the locals. So I negotiated cheap and exclusive mining rights to the entire region, rights I now possess and am eager to exploit."

I shake my head. I'm having a hard time believing it. "You're a stranger to them, you show up, buy rights to an entire region of land, and they just let you do it? I'm sorry, but if a stranger suddenly showed up on my planet and wanted exclusive mining rights in an area with a metal I had just discovered, you can bet I would have held onto it."

"No, no, you would not," the alien insists. "This is remote land. It is not used for anything. They have nothing important there but a scientific curiosity. I pay them a sum for mining rights to the entire region, far beyond that minor curiosity, a sum that is handsome to them but cheap to me, particularly considering the returns to be had. The region does already contain other useful minerals for mining. My negotiation is perfectly rational to them. Of course I would not bother with the other minerals now. I am only interested in the rimonium. But they do not know that, nor do they care."

"Didn't they wonder why a metals dealer wanted to buy mining rights?"

"I quickly created a shell mining company, just something to show them. As far as they are concerned, I represent a legitimate mining interest."

Jeez, the guy didn't even hide the pervasiveness of his cheating nature. That was an obvious mistake, bragging to me how he conned somebody else, and it should have tipped me off.

"But you're not a mining interest," I point out.

"I am an entrepreneur. Yes, I largely deal in metals, but whenever I find a worthwhile business opportunity, I take it. I know that I can create a mining interest…all I need is equipment and management." Geelan holds his hand out toward me. "I need you."

I stare at him with a skeptical expression. But I can feel the stirrings of hope deep in my belly, a building excitement at the possibility. "Let me see the surveys."

He reaches into a small case beside him, and slides a few sheets of paper across to me. I gaze at him like he's some kind of alien…but then he is one, after all. "Paper?! Why don't you just send it to me?"

"This information is highly sensitive. I cannot afford the security risk of maintaining or sharing it digitally. Writing it down is the only way to keep it safe."

So primitive. So paranoid. I shake my head and look at the computer printoffs. "They originated in computer form," I point out to him.

"I received the digital maps from the…contacts that gave them to me. But I immediately printed them on paper and permanently erased all digital record I have of them."

"But your 'contacts' still have them digitally."

"Of course. But they are…far away. Minding their own business. And nobody but me knows who and where they are."

Whatever. I chug some more of the screwdriver and take a closer look at the surveys. A lot of numbers, some chemical notations, some seismic graphs. I study the map of the terrain itself, as if I can identify the location of this "remote valley" in our huge universe simply by studying some topographical lines on a piece of paper. I'm kidding myself, I realize, but I concede that it does look like a genuine geological survey, and the highlighted vein certainly is rimonium.

My anger at Atlas starts to bubble up from the dark inner cupboards in which I had stashed it. Here it was again: the opportunity of a lifetime. An entirely new find, a whole new process. A revolution in the making. And those scumbags didn't believe me. Didn't think that an uneducated space miner out in the Asteroid Belt knew what he was talking about. Boy, I could have made them millions if they had let me pursue naon-rimonium when it had first begun to emerge. But no, they had to stumble about for years, blowing opportunity after opportunity, risking discovery and competition, and finally pissing off another culture when they finally did decide to go after it.

Maybe I could turn out to be their vexing competition. Maybe they didn't take my suggestion because it was made for me. I deserve the money to be made from it. I was the one with the vision. If there is a good way to vindicate myself, this is it. Exploit an entirely new source of rimonium…cheaply, easily, and I must say, a bit underhandedly, which feels especially good to me at the moment.

I look back up at Geelan. He cups his hands and opens them to me, in offering. "I have more data, if you wish to see it," he says.

"Let's have it," I answer, taking a lasting slug of vodka and orange juice.

I eagerly study the financial projects he hands me, and I can see very clearly the money to be made here, if it's all true. Boy, my juices are really starting to flow now.

I paused the replay and snapped open my eyes. I slugged back the drink in my hand, and choked on the port that I had somehow confused with my screwdriver. Damn that stereographic recall.

I coughed harshly and sputtered a bit, and eked out a curse or two between wheezes. Swallowing and aggressively clearing my throat, I finally leaned my head back again.

Well, there it was. At least I knew where he'd hooked me. It had been my pride. My anger at Atlas and my desire to shove their mistake in their face and to wipe my ass with their mistakes. I sighed, and shook my head. Damn me. Here I sat in my flat, a place I wouldn't be able to afford at the end of the month, living on a fifty-credit ration for poor people, courtesy of the government. And all thanks to this sly crook Geelan, who had some good backup material to show off, for sure, but an offworld alien who somehow knew that the most vulnerable spot in a man's armor is his need to be right.