“China says you are fired.” Julia spit on him and fired two more rounds into his back to be sure.
And that was the end of Oliver Tehom.
Chapter Eight: Liberty
“Miss Liberty Van Meter?” An older woman called into the crowd of seated applicants. The sprite of a woman that stood in response to the call was an unexpected change from the crowd of men and women that wore their suits just as tightly as their frowns and serious expressions. Her smile was contagious and the serious faces around her couldn’t help but crack a slight grin when they saw her nervously prance to the doorway for her interview.
The pair walked together into a small meeting room that reeked of middle management in both design and aroma.
“My name is Wendy Jacobs, I have been Simon Tehom’s private secretary for more than a decade. You come highly recommended, but if I can be blunt you are not what I expected at all.” Wendy sat as she spoke and looked across the desk at the young woman who said nothing in response.
“Liberty is a strange name, you do not hear nouns for names very often.”
“I go by ‘Elle’ Mrs. Jacobs. A nickname, I find it more fitting a professional work environment.” Elle spoke as clear as a glass of water with no fear.
“So you traded a noun for a letter? Interesting.” Wendy was doing her best to get under the girls skin, get her to lash out or show some kind of weakness.
“We ran your background check, as you were informed it was rather exhaustive due to the nature of our company and the political climate of late. You previously worked as a speech writer for President Starkey?”
“Yes Ma’am, I started at the capitol as an intern after college, several members of the assembly took a shine to my writing and put me to work.”
“Mr. Tehom doesn’t give many speeches, why do you want to work for the Consortium?”
“The Tehom Consortium is the only beacon of hope left in the world Ma’am, the Republics are failing around the world. Democracy is dying under the weight of the world. I think that Simon Tehom is the best hope for Freedom and Liberty.”
“As in the concept, or for yourself? You talk like a speech writer, double meanings and such.”
The two stared at each other for an awkward few seconds, sizing one another up. Elle knew her limits were being tested, but she dared not strike back. She needed this job, nothing to go home to.
“You know we are little more than communists here don’t you? You are in a company town. We don’t get paid much, some around here don’t get paid at all.” Wendy spoke true.
“Yes but you still recognize Freedom and Democracy as ideals worth something in society. I fear the concepts are getting lost, even in Texas.”
“I have heard the speech writer tell me why she wants to work for the Consortium, but I haven’t heard from you. Why are you here? You come to an interview in casual clothes when your peers show traditional respect and professionalism in their attire. You smile when others are stern. Why do you think you would fit in here?” Wendy walked the line between accusation and insult expertly.
“I am here because I want to be a part of something bigger than myself, something that isn’t about personal power or wealth. A safe place of people who love their work, not what their work does for them, but what it does for others.”
“Ok Miss Van Meter, I get it.” She scribbled on her note pad a few notes.
Elle said nothing, she sat politely and quietly but still maintained her mischievous grin.
“I have quite a few spots to fill, but they must be filled by the right people. Besides speech writing what interests you?”
“I have always been interested in spaceflight and astronomy, but I didn’t go that way with my education. That is what first attracted me to the Consortium, but my life never took me in that direction.”
“Until now. What changed?”
“To be honest, politics have gotten dirty in Austin. I was asked to do something I didn’t agree with and I was fired.” The smile on Elle’s face finally turned to shame and she put her head down slightly.
“You know you have to tell me…”
“I was asked to get involved with one of Mr. Starkey’s political foes, in order to provide leverage in an upcoming procedural vote. A personal involvement, a manufactured affair. I refused.”
“Not the cut throat type then?” Wendy raised an eyebrow.
“My Mama taught me to respect myself, and my Papa could sense good and evil just shaking someone’s hand. I have never felt the need to bend a knee to others or to hide what I believe.” Elle looked directly into Wendy’s eyes and could sense that she had just gained control of the conversation.
“There is more fighter in you than I would have thought Miss Van Meter.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Really now? Isn’t the pen mightier than the sword?”
“It is, but a pen won’t get you out of a bad situation fast enough.”
“Do you carry?”
“What self respecting Texan girl doesn’t?” Elle regained her grin.
“I think you are going to fit in here just fine Liberty.”
“Please call me Elle.”
“What did your Mama call you?”
“Liberty.”
“I thought so. Liberty, I do not normally do interviews, we have a human resources department for that. I am hand picking someone to replace me as Mr. Tehom’s private secretary. I have a room full of highly qualified empty suits that are going to tell me exactly what they think I want to hear. Then I have you, a highly qualified little Texas fireball with nowhere to go. Are you sure you want this?”
“How do you…”
“Liberty, I know more about you than your own parents. Simon has been plagued by assassins, thieves, con-artists, and power grabbers since he was born. I know how many men you have dated, if you cheated on any of your tests in college. I know that everything you own is in a suitcase and the other one is empty for appearances. I know you hated your 4th grade teacher because you thought he smelled like boiled cabbage and gave you the creeps, the only C letter grade you ever earned in school. I even know the score of the last soccer game you played in grade school. I also know that you were alone in an elevator with Mr. Tehom for ninety seconds as an intern seven years ago when you were just out of college, if you were an assassin, a gold digger, or anything else other than what you seem you would have at least said something to the man. Instead you hid your face and turned away and he never took notice. We know everything about everyone that can possibly get close to Mr. Tehom, we have to.”
Elle looked shocked; she had never told anyone she had almost met Simon Tehom. “Is he in that much danger so often?”
“Simon is a good man. He walks a tight path, just like his grandfather did. His path was given to him, but too early. His grandfather had someone, a constant companion and friend before he started all of this. When she died Daniel Tehom nearly lost himself and was never the same. Simon has never had anyone to count on, other than his mother. I have done my best to be a friend to him. But I am old, and tired. I am tired of being tired instead of just retired.”
“You want me to replace you?”
“It will take time, and a lot of work. I won’t just throw you into the deep end of the pool just yet. You will start as my assistant in the morning if you are willing?”
“I…”
“Yes?”
“I expected to work in the company paper or…”
“We could do that, I do have a position for Junior Assistant Editor…” Wendy shuffled papers around pretending to look for a job sheet.
“No, no. In the morning then?”
“In the morning Miss Van Meter, 7th floor. Stop by the desk on the way out and give them this card, they will get you a place to stay.” Wendy handed Elle one of her business cards with a five digit employee number on it and then stood and exited the room. “See you in the morning.”
“Yes Ma’am.” Elle replied.
While the battle of West Texas had been easily won, the exchange had cost both the Republic and the Consortium dearly. The Far East communist nations now took notice and interest in them and began to sense a threat. The last remnant of the United States was beginning to be worked into the ground level propaganda of the worldwide communist machine.
The political pressure had gotten so great that the Republic had forced Simon Tehom into giving the Chinese complete access to the design schematics of the Tehom 51 HEMPW system as a concession to prevent all out war. The Chinese had also demanded as an element of the peace treaty official rights over the planet of Mars and a non-competition pact.
The death of Oliver Tehom had widely been reported as a suicide. A last act of honor after his defeat against Texas, only rumors persisted of his murder at the hands of Julia. Simon felt a rather strange feeling of relief at his passing even though his former fiancée had finally managed to kill a Tehom.
All of this proceeded one of the worst years in the Tehom Consortium’s history under Simon Tehom’s tenure. The orbit of Mars and it’s vicinity to the earth had virtually created a no fly zone policy for the bulk of the year. The Consortium had been forced into capitulation and had to inform the Chinese international committee anytime they moved anything extra planetary within one astral unit of Mars and the Earth for a full eighteen months.
The Consortium reverted inward and worked tirelessly on research and development. Massive stockpiles of ore and raw materials simply sat in space waiting till they could get permission to bring the payloads back to within the moons orbit. China had grown completely paranoid over their launching of their Mars colonial expedition; the entire world simply paused and did their best to stay out of their way.
While the Republic had become a large blip on the radar of the Chinese and Russian nations, it was one of many. Although united under a curtain of red, the various nations still bickered, fought and played games with one another. The Republic of Texas had done its best to simply stay out of the fray between them. The largest political discord happened when the Chilean Premier threatened in an open meeting to withdraw from the South American Communist Nations and was assassinated on live television by his body guard.
Where is this all going to end? Freedom is nearly extinct, Liberty an endangered species.
Simon Tehom had spent far too many nights awake worrying over the state of the world. It seemed as if the entire planedt had begun pressing in on him and the Consortium’s little corner of Texas. President Starkey had taken advantage of Tehom’s uneasiness and unwillingness to get involved in politics. Simon had been forced to do things he regretted, and knew that he would continue to regret.
“Mr. Tehom?” a voice called to him from outside his office door which he had left cracked open.
“Yes?” Simon’s voice cracked, it had been several hours since he had spoken aloud.
A young woman entered. She was small in stature, all of 5 foot tall with nothing to spare. Her hair bright red and curly to the point of ringlets past her shoulders, and on her face she wore an almost permanent sarcastic catlike grin.
She wore a long flowing skirt of the gypsy style and a faux corseted top.
Simon was instantly drawn to the woman, everything about her drew him in and both soothed him and set him on fire at the same time. He had felt this way with Julia years ago but had long since given up on love and resolved to be lonely, buried in his work.
“My name is Elle… I mean, Liberty Van Meter. I was supposed to meet Mrs. Jacobs here this morning and start as her assistant. I am so very sorry to bother you, but I have been waiting in the office for an hour and she hasn’t come in yet. I am not sure what to do.”
Simon this girl will be the death of you.
Every ounce of him poured into his heart and Simon could say nothing. He simply stared at her and his eyes started to water slightly.
“I… I am sorry Sir, I’ll go.” Elle felt foolish or as if someone was playing a trick on her and began to retreat back out the door.
“No!” Simon blurted out; something in him couldn’t stand for her to leave. “Please, don’t go. Come sit, let’s talk. Have you had breakfast?”
Elle walked into the center of the large room and watched as the most powerful man in the world fumbled around with a paper plate and offered her a doughnut. Then he started to nervously make tea for her and she couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she had just eaten.
“Where are you from?” Simon managed to finally make it back to his desk without tripping or falling over. It was a small victory for a man smitten.
“Cooper Texas sir, I was born there.” Elle couldn’t stop smiling and felt the strings of her heart pulling toward him.
“Your name is Liberty? That is…” Simon was trying to know more, but didn’t want to tread into insult.
“My mom always said that my father chose the most beautiful thing he knew when he picked my name. My mother wanted to name me Charlotte. He considered himself a lifelong student of political theory. Socrates, Hobbes, Swift, Locke, and Rousseau; his office was always full of books.”
“And Machiavelli…” Simon countered,
“Such a small book isn’t it? Yet such a profound impact on the world.”
“You have read it then.”
“My father read it to me as a young child.”
“Do you agree with him?”
“My father, or Machiavelli?”
“Either of them.”
Elle looked directly into Simons eyes and seemed to peer directly inside of him. “Machiavelli was a fool, and my father was no fool. Anyone who wants to be feared instead of loved is foolish. I think all any of us wants is to be loved. I agree with my father, it is better to be loved than feared.”
Loved.
Wendy Jacobs walked in to the open door of the office and instantly Simon stood up and looked guilty as if his own mother had just caught him kissing a girl.
“It was very nice meeting you Elle.” Simon said as he stood.
Elle looked behind her and smiled brightly at Wendy who winked at her.
“Come on Liberty, Mr. Tehom is a very busy man.” Wendy said as she left them alone for just another minute.
“Elle would you have dinner with me tonight?” Simon stammered over his words and felt sixteen again.
“I’d love to Simon.”
It was the beginning of a lifetime.
Chapter Nine: Mars and Beyond
“They did it. The Red bastards did it!” Hamish Rauto shouted across the low lit room of cubicles.
“They landed everyone safely? No casualties?” Travis Martin peered over the cubicle wall that separated them.
“Not one, they are streaming video across the web of the colonists setting up shelters and the ice wells.”
“They are lucky, I am sure the Chinese saw this first group as an expendable test crew. That is why they only sent a hundred.”
“Only a hundred. That sounds terrible.”
“Is this real time, or delayed?” a small crowd had appeared behind Hamish to watch the video stream on his monitor, Florence Gross spoke.
“I’m sure it’s going through the standard Chinese censorship filters, timestamp says this was an hour ago.”
The group sat and watched the historic moment, the first extra planetary colonists setting up longhouse type structures which had been carefully dropped one by one by supply craft at a rate of one a week for eight months. On another video feed ice condensation wells were being drilled into the rim of permafrost three hundred kilometers south of the central colony at Argyre Planitia.
“Each one of those people has more cojones than I do.” Travis said with a sense of awe in his voice.
“You act like any of them had a choice to go or not.” Florence crossed her arms, “You know the Chinese, I’m sure all of them have family held in a camp somewhere in case they say something bad or the colony has a mutiny or something.”
“I st
ill can’t believe they didn’t land an exploratory team first, these are the first humans on Mars!”
“Too much of a hurry, when you hurry mistakes are made, these people will be lucky to be alive in a month.”
The crowd broke into a low chatter of personal conversations of topics ranging of awe and wonder, to distrust of the Chinese and everything in between.
Only one man had not joined the group huddled around Hamish’s computer terminal. Gerald Baker was a shell of a man he had been just a few years ago. He rarely shaved his beard or brushed his hair, he slept in a sleeping bag under his desk. He wore a winter beanie hat to keep his hair out of his face even in the heat of a Texas summer. Gerald had become a man obsessed. His workstation consisted of a series of eight monitors that connected him to the network of radio telescopes, extra solar observatories and the library of research data the company compiled on a daily basis.
Whenever Gerald stepped away from his work, even for a few seconds his mind flooded with figures and time allocation conundrums. Gerald had been given a team of thirty people arranged into three eight hour shifts. It took on average four minutes to catalog and organize each solar system and to confirm or discard computer analysis results. Even with a team of thirty people, working six days a week the Extra Solar Observatory Team were only able to keep up with ten percent of the constant data stream of information. Gerald was scared to death that the goldilocks planet would be overlooked and get lost in the overage. His team had viewed him as an office troll, their absent supervisor rarely spoke to anyone and when he did was snappy and impolite.
Gerald Baker had very little time for anyone, his mind wrapped around planets billions of miles away one by one in four minute intervals before speeding along to the next.
When the data from Eta Cassiopeiae streamed across his screen, Gerald paused and took a large sip of coffee. He had been fooled before due to exhaustion and sleep deprivation. There were large blocks of time he had spent on planets that looked just right, and then a single overlooked figure discarded an hour of assumptions built off that single oversight.
Tehom: The Tehom Legacy Book One Page 7
