by Kevin Bragg
Now he had me intrigued.
‘Alright, Mr Porter. I’ll be there within the hour.’
‘Do you know the location of our corporate offices?’
‘I assume you’re on Mars. The rest I can figure out on the way.’
‘Give reception your name. They will be expecting you.’
‘Right. See you shortly.’
We both rang off the line.
I drained the contents of my highball, grabbed my things and directed my feet to the nearest subway station.
On the way, I dug up as much detail as I could on Porter and HTS from the web. High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) Intergalactic did exactly what the name implied they did: built superconductors. The company owned a flashy headquarters in Research District 2 and their main production facility occupied real estate in the IM. They also had offices and factories sprinkled throughout the known systems. Samuel Porter served as the company’s CEO and had done so for the last two decades.
Forty-five minutes later, I strolled through a pair of glass doors into a spacious, atrium-style lobby. Light flooded through the glass walls and ceiling to cast a warm glow on a myriad of displayed products made by HTS Intergalactic. Down the middle of all this ran a wide carpet to a massive reception desk.
‘Welcome to HTS Intergalactic. How may I be of assistance?’ asked a tasty piece of set decoration sitting at the desk.
I sized her up. It took me a few seconds to realise she wasn’t made of flesh and bones. An ultra-realistic model. Must have cost Porter a mint.
‘I’m here to see Mr Porter. The name is Daniel Helmqvist.’
‘Of course. One moment.’ She typed something into her computer. ‘Mr Porter will be right down. Please make yourself comfortable.’ She motioned to a nearby armchair.
I settled into one of two thick-cushioned Lawsons, grabbed a MIX13 from a nearby table and skimmed through all of the ‘innovative products and services provided by HTS Intergalactic’. Samuel Porter called my name as he approached.
Coming towards me, he checked in a shade over 180 centimetres tall and between 80 and 85 kilos. His bald head reflected the afternoon sun with a waxy brilliance. He wore a bespoke dark navy suit with a silk waistcoat and a matching patterned tie.
I stood up to greet him.
We shook hands. ‘Nice place you have here.’
‘Thank you, Mr Helmqvist. Business has been good to us lately,’ Porter replied with that odd butler inflection I had heard over the phone. ‘Would you please follow me?’
Porter led me to his office on the top floor of the three-storey building. On our way, we passed his personal assistant. Definitely human, and very easy on the eyes. Before I had a chance to make an introduction, he ushered me through a set of thick, wooden double doors and offered me a seat at an executive conference table.
‘Can I offer you something to drink?’
‘A gin and—’
In my peripheral, I caught a glimpse of an antique gallery wall clock. Neither hand pointed to Happy Hour. I checked myself and cleared my throat.
‘A cup of coffee. Milk. No sugar, please.’
‘Right.’
He eyed me with caution. I clearly had gin on my mind and it did not go unnoticed.
While we waited for his assistant to bring my coffee and Porter’s cup of tea, he grabbed a MIX13 from his desk and took a seat next to me. He opened up a few documents on the computer and was about to send them to a holographic display when the arrival of our drinks interrupted him. He flipped the tablet over to cover the screen with a look of mild panic. Strange reaction.
Once we were alone again, Porter leaned in and dropped his voice down to a level best described as conspiratorial. ‘What I am about to show you, Mr Helmqvist, is very private and very damning. However, I’ve been assured that you are an honest man with a great deal of integrity. So I can trust your discretion, yes?’
‘Who told you that about me?’
‘The District Attorney.’
‘You know him?’
‘We play golf once a week.’
By playing golf, Porter meant swinging a stick at a screen and chasing after a digital ball. Because the Martian environment is not conducive to the real thing, enthusiasts climb into sophisticated, immersive VR chambers and play any number of famous courses. They create clubs around these machines and even hire architects to design new courses for them. Rich people…
‘And I came up in a conversation?’
‘I called him this morning and asked if he knew of anyone good at solving problems… other than the police.’
‘And he gave you my name?’
‘He did, indeed.’
‘Heh, who knew?’ I asked rhetorically with a slight chuckle. ‘Anyway, you can trust me.’
‘Right,’ he said dismissively, once again. ‘As I was saying, this is a sensitive issue for me.’
Porter flipped the MIX13 back over, opened his email and sent a message from earlier this morning to the holographic display set in the centre of the conference table.
Embedded into the email was a video. When Porter began to play it, a factory tucked away in a tropical forest faded into view.
The video looked to be taken at a distance but the zoom capability allowed for some detailed close-ups. The images on the screen appeared to be the business end of a mining operation or mineral processing plant. The video went on for several minutes and then went blank.
A second later, the screen became a blur of images, moving too fast for me to process. Between the flashes of images and, at times, transposed over them, words appeared that looked like they had been cut out of a magazine – like some crazy ransom note.
Pillage
Plunder
Death
Destruction
Genocide
And so on and so forth.
The screen dissolved into nothingness. After maybe a second, words materialised once more in a blood red script that oozed down the screen.
Naughty, naughty, HTS! We know your dirty little secret.
After a few seconds, the sentences faded away and were replaced by something I had never seen before.
3
A bipedal creature, covered in a soft, green mossy fur, filled the entire screen. On first glance, it bore a strong resemblance to the Great Apes found on Earth – long, muscular arms, short powerful legs, thick torso, sloping cranium and elongated muzzle.
However, upon closer inspection, a few differences took the beast out of the zoo and placed it firmly in the imagination of Verne. It had a third limb under its left arm. A three-jointed scraggly-looking appendage with an extra digit on the hand. Dagger-like teeth filled the creature’s mouth. Definitely not made for munching on bananas. And its eyes looked more arachnid than mammalian. I believe the technical term for it was creepy as hell.
The image faded again and another message arranged itself on the screen.
We know what you’ve done.
Twenty million credits buys our silence.
Be ready to transfer the money by midnight UTC, Saturday.
If not, we go public.
We will contact you soon with the transfer details.
‘What the hell was that thing!?’
‘It is the native species on the planet Ithilles,’ Porter replied. ‘We have named them thillians.’
‘Who is “we”?’
‘HTS Intergalactic.’
‘Since when do you get to name species?’
‘Since we were the only ones who knew about them until now.’
‘Aside from the obvious blackmailing that’s going on here, I’m lost. Care to elaborate?’
After a couple of minutes of uncomfortable silence, Samuel Porter began to speak in a slow, deliberate manner. He sounded like a professor I once had in undergrad.
‘As you may know, when the group, Innominate, leaked all of the technical documentation on a Faster Than Light programme developed by the United States – colloquially known as Space F
olding – humanity entered a type of Space Race unrivalled by the previous centuries. Since the information became public against their wishes, the US government decided to make the technology available to anyone clever enough to build a ship that could use it without fear of legal retribution.’
He took a breath and a sip of his tea. I waited patiently for what I knew was coming. What every kid learns in school as soon as they are old enough to read.
‘Any corporation with enough capital to invest in Space Folding did so,’ he continued. ‘Thousands of companies poured millions of credits into devising a propulsion system, which could take them anywhere in the galaxy in a matter of seconds. The results were chaos. Ships crewed by hundreds vanished, never to return. Rights to ownership of Earth-like planets disputed. Can a corporation, or a country for that matter, claim an entire planet as their own? If not, how much ownership of a planet could they claim? In response to these questions and incidents, the United Nations passed Security Council Resolution 10191, which established the Galactic Court.’
I couldn’t be certain this was ever going to end but nothing seems to be more energising to an old man than a captive audience.
‘In an unparalleled show of solidarity, every country on the Council,’ Porter waxed on, ‘recognised the Court’s authority as a mediator in all matters beyond the atmosphere of the Earth and exploration of the galaxy continued. As FTL technology became cheaper and more reliable, travel to places once before thought to be impossible became possible. The base level of knowledge and understanding of our universe grew exponentially. New materials were discovered. New species of flora and fauna. In fact, one such find, Gravitronium, allowed New London to grow from the tiny research outpost that is now the Spaceport to the wonderful metropolis we have today—’
I couldn’t take it anymore and snapped. ‘Yes, yes! I do know! I know a substratum of Gravitronium laid down far under the surface of New London has given us a near 1g environment within the domes. We have the joy of living like Earthlings without the benefit of breathable air. I know all of this because everyone knows this—’
Porter looked annoyed at me cutting him off and launching into a diatribe. I needed to calm myself.
Serenity now. Serenity now. I chanted to myself a few times.
‘What I don’t understand – or rather have the patience to wait to find out – is what this has to do with Ithilles and those green monsters.’
‘Ithilles and the thillians are HTS’s greatest secret.’
‘Well, you boys have done a pretty good job of keeping quiet. I didn’t even think it was possible to find a planet with life on it without anyone else knowing.’
‘I suppose we are fortunate in that regard.’
‘What’s so special about it?’
‘Our research and development group found Ithilles nearly three decades ago. We’ve kept it a secret because the planet contains a very valuable resource.’
‘Where’s it located?’
‘In a system about forty-two light years from here, within the constellation Ophiuchus. We stumbled upon it quite by accident and discovered it had all the necessary conditions to support life, as we know it. However, we also discovered the planet was already inhabited.’
‘The ape-looking thing?’
‘Yes, Mr Helmqvist, among other lesser life forms, but the thillians were the dominant species on the planet. Despite their being a primitive sort of hominid, they possessed a crude form of social hierarchy and limited technology use. Moreover, their resemblance to the apes on Earth is remarkable and might have some larger implication.’
He paused to take another sip of his tea.
‘However, one thing that is fascinating,’ he continued after he placed his cup back on its saucer, ‘is that their centres of power are all located in, or around, the ruins of some other ancient civilisation. We have found crumbling remains that suggest Ithilles was once populated by a much more advanced race of peoples, for lack of a better term. Whether the thillians killed them off, a natural disaster subsumed them, or they simply died out we do not know.’
‘So are these thillians the resource you mentioned?’
‘Oh no. Not in the least. They have some curious physiological aspects to their development but they are just that – a curiosity.’
‘Then what are you after?’
‘Are you familiar with the compound yttrium?’
‘Rare earth metal used primarily in the manufacturing of super conductors.’
Porter raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Very good, Mr Helmqvist. Then you also know that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find on Earth and rarely found as a free element.’
I nodded.
‘We discovered it in abundance on Ithilles – as a free element no less. Entire pristine veins of the mineral waiting for someone with the means and the determination to pull it out of the ground.’
‘Sounds like a windfall for your company, Porter.’
‘Indeed. Almost too good to be true.’
‘And let me guess, the thillians weren’t too keen on you setting up a mining operation?’
‘Sadly, no. They are an aggressive, territorial species. As soon as a company ship touched down on the planet, they attacked the landing party. Only a handful made it off Ithilles alive.’
‘So you sent a private army there to secure it by force?’
‘That’s correct. After the fate of the first group, we did not want to make the same mistake twice.’
‘Mass extermination?’
Porter closed his eyes and bobbed his head up and down.
‘Genocide on a planet known only to HTS just to get your hands on some raw material?’
‘Regrettably, yes.’
‘You seem awfully contrite for someone waist deep in this whole business.’ I fought hard to keep the anger burning in my chest at bay. Corporate greed. A story as old as civilisation itself.
Discovery of a new planet with a new species and their subsequent elimination was a lot to take in. I began to wish in earnest that the cup of coffee in front of me had a slug of whisky in it.
‘I assure you, Mr Helmqvist, I am not proud of my company’s past but it is a legacy that I inherited.’
‘Why not pull out and be done with it?’ I asked, trying to regain control of my emotions.
‘Our production, our profits, everything depends on cheap access to yttrium. To leave would be financial ruin. A lot of people’s livelihoods are at stake.’
‘How many people know about your operation on Ithilles?’
‘The company’s executive board. The facilities manager. Two members of our Applied Science division. And the head of our private security detail.’
‘I’m guessing your security detail are all synthetics?’
Porter nodded again. No loyalty issues there. ‘Roughly then, what? Ten people?’
‘Fourteen to be exact.’
Enough for a leak, especially if someone grew a conscience.
‘How trustworthy are the ones who know the history of the planet?’
‘They all have a considerable financial stake in the company and I know each one personally. Twenty million is not that great a sum to them.’
Must be nice. ‘Care to tell me where the footage came from?’
‘It is archived footage an HTS team took soon after the occupation of the planet. These blackmailers found a way into our computer system and stole the recordings.’
‘Why on Earth would you even keep anything like that? I’m surprised it took this long for someone to find it.’
‘Sometimes these things slip through the cracks and subduing the planet happened before my time, which always made it, more or less, an abstraction to me. Anyway, it can’t be helped now.’
I shook my head at his deference. The annihilation of species slipping through the cracks like he forgot to buy milk at the grocery store. ‘Who else in the company knows about this email?’ I asked instead.
‘I am not sure, Mr He
lmqvist. However, I believe that you and I are the only ones aware of it.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right. If this thing goes public, you’re looking at some pretty serious charges from the Galactic Court. You and everyone else with firsthand knowledge. Your associates could do something rash.’
‘That is preposterous! Even if they were moved to violence, killing me would hardly solve their problems.’
‘It might or it might not.’ I shrugged. ‘What I do know is that if you are dead, they can pin all kinds of horrible things on you and you can’t deny them.’
‘Not necessarily, Mr Helmqvist. This all took place well before my time as head of the company.’
‘Is that a risk you’re willing to take? A staged suicide with a note explaining your role in the perpetuation of this secret. Disgust with who you’ve become. Goodbye cruel world. If done right, your death wouldn’t even warrant an investigation. Seems plausible to me. The rest would be damage control for the other members of the board. Corporations have survived worse.’
He tensed up. ‘I am certain these blackmailers have contacted no one else. If so, I would already know about it.’
The conversation lapsed as I tried to process everything. After a few minutes, Porter broke the silence.
‘Will you take the case?’
I restarted the video. ‘I need a few more minutes to think about it.’
The images and the text flowed past my eyes. All the while I weighed the benefits of doing business with a man like Porter against my conscience. By the end of the video, the scales were clearly tipped towards ‘the benefits of doing business’. In my line of work, high-minded platitudes didn’t pay the bills.
‘I’ll take the job.’
‘Splendid! When can you start and what is your fee?’
To my surprise, I didn’t regurgitate my usual spiel immediately after he popped the question. Instead I swung for the fences. ‘Ten thousand.’
‘Ten thousand per day?’
‘Too low?’
‘Quite the contrary! Do you always charge this much? If so, it’s a wonder you have any clients at all.’
‘Nah, usually my rates are pretty reasonable. I’m making an exception here. But I tell you what, if I don’t solve this case before you have to pay the blackmail, I’ll waive my fee.’
