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She laughed. "You don't know me very well, do you, Vico?"
*
"Is this really a good time to be popping the champagne glasses?" said Ramdakan. "You haven't even started the assault yet."
They were sitting in Lem's office. The music and dancing in the warehouse had stopped, and everyone had returned to work.
Lem had thrown up an image of the city of Imbrium on the four walls, giving the impression that he and Ramdakan were sitting in the middle of a small park in the heart of the city. Ramdakan kept dabbing at his head with a cloth and sipping from the lidded goblet Lem had given him.
"Festivities boost morale, Norja," said Lem. "You should try it sometime. People might actually enjoy working for you."
Norja looked horrified. "Why would I want people to enjoy working for me?" He said the word like it was poison. "That makes them complacent and lazy."
Lem took a sip of his fruit drink. "Why I am not surprised to hear you espouse that philosophy. Then again, you are my father's chief financial adviser. You must be doing something right."
"Which leads me to why I'm here."
"You didn't come for the dancing?" Lem asked.
Ramdakan ignored that. "The Chinese have confiscated and retrofitted Formic transports. This is a serious problem."
"Actually it's an enormous convenience. That's how we're getting the MOPs out of China. But I suspect you already knew that part, too. Tell me, who on my staff is your source of information? I'd so like to know so I can pinch their ears off."
Ramdakan spread his hands and smirked. "Please, Lem. You made the announcement to a room full of Juke employees. You think that intel isn't going to get back to me?"
"I like how you call it 'intel.' Feels military. That's the business I'm in now these days, you know. Military operations. Oh, wait, your little mole already told you that, too, didn't he? Gosh. Snitches spoil all the fun."
"Will you stop being juvenile for a moment?"
Lem leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "No, Norja. I won't. This is who I am. You don't think I have a shot at achieving anything in this company, I'm the scorn of everyone on the Board, why should I bother performing for you? I'm Lem Jukes, remember? The son of Ukko Jukes, forever stuck in the shadow of his father. Isn't that what you said, Norja? Something to that effect?"
"This isn't about you, Lem. This is about the company."
Lem leaned forward. "Let me tell you exactly why you're here, Norja. Cut me off, if I'm wrong here. You're all in a tiff because you've just learned that China has Formic transports in their possession. This appalls you for two reasons. One, you didn't already know this fact, which means your lines of intel out of China have crumbled. And two, your panties are really in a wad because one of our primary competitors, WU-HU, is based out of China and they will almost certainly get their hands on that Formic tech, which they will promptly reverse engineer and use to their great economic advantage."
"Yes, but--"
Lem held up a finger. "I changed my mind. Don't cut me off. I'm just getting started. Where was I? Ah, yes, reverse engineering.
"So now here you are, Norja Ramdakan, Esquire, conscientious member of the Board, come to my office to impress upon me the importance of preserving some of the Formic tech inside the mothership. The secrets to interstellar travel are there, after all. New drive systems, self-sustaining life-support systems, alien alloys, advanced navigation, a ship that can travel at a significant fraction of lightspeed. The laundry list of goodies up for grabs is long indeed. And each little widget is its own fortune waiting to happen.
"With a prize like that in the hands of Juke Limited, nothing and no one could stop us. We would be the most powerful and profitable corporate entity for centuries to come. We would open the stars to humankind, forever preserve our species by spreading throughout the universe. How am I doing so far?"
Ramdakan cleared his throat. "Yes, well, you clearly understand what's at stake. But--"
"But the question on your mind is: How do we preserve something we're about to destroy?"
"It's a valid question," said Ramdakan.
"It most certainly is, and the answer is, you can't. You can preserve some tech, sure, but you can't preserve at all. This is a war, Norja. When the smoke clears, we can pick u
p the pieces and see what we've got. But we're not going to put the bottom line before the fate of Earth. My father and I agree on that much."
"Precautions can be made, Lem. You can take steps now to ensure that the most tech is preserved."
"I am taking such steps. Victor Delgado and I have discussed this. He knows we need to preserve as much tech as possible. He understands the value of that ship."
"He's not a Juke employee."
