Ten Directions

by Samuel Winburn

  But her single pointed focus on her academic career and in gaining the approval of her father had been all consuming, and she had neglected to inform herself properly about her Tibetan heritage. Now, of course, she regretted this.

  How her parents had met was still not entirely clear to her. And, on top of it, her father had stolen her mother away from her family, never to return. Perhaps they would be bitter? Li An braced herself for rejection. Instead she was greeted with an ocean of tears, white scarves, and warm embraces. She had come home at last.

  A year or two later, when the Warming pushed the climate past another tipping point, a China on the brink had nearly fallen over. The best attempts at modern agriculture sequentially failed and the political situation fragmented. All of humanity was joined in a global anguish that, fifty years later, was yet to fully stabilise. The last Great Famine. During those amazing years, Kalsang’s guru displayed extraordinary generosity by sharing everything and caring for anyone who took refuge in their village, Tibetans and Chinese alike. Night and day Li An had driven herself to exhaustion working to help others. She had once voluntarily gone without food for a month, quietly giving her own food to those more vulnerable, or frailer of mind. But, despite her efforts, many died and in a daze of despair and starvation she had wandered into the hills to die.

  She had collapsed by the fire of the great Dilgo Jangchub Rinpoche, one of the greatest solitary meditators in Tibet. Kalsang smiled at the memories his name invoked. Jangchub Rinpoche was Kalsang’s teacher as well. A quiet old man always dressed in a tatter of patches from discarded monks’ robes. His words were few, but his instructions were profound. Kalsang felt that a few comments, delivered with the usual dry humour, from this great master conveyed more realisations than a year debating the most esoteric subjects with the best scholars of Ganden.

  The proof behind this sentiment had been demonstrated when, after the famine, Li An had descended from the hills as Lobsang Wangchuk and entered Ganden Monastery, the foremost centre of the Tibetan Buddhist revival through the first half of the 21st century. Women were not even permitted to stay on the monastery grounds after dark. However, with her guru’s mystic blessings, she effectively disguised her gender beneath monks’ robes and was granted admission. For ten years she studied the great classics while concealing her identity. She was a brilliant student, and at the end of this time she attained the grade of Geshe Lharampa, the highest of monastic degrees, with a rank of equal first within the monastery.

  Then, at the end of her examinations, His Holiness the Dalai Lama had stridden calmly up to her. “I have only one final question for the venerable Geshe. Answer this correctly and you are indisputably the best that Ganden has produced in a hundred years.” All the monks had leaned forward with great anticipation. Kalsang had been there, a young boy of nine, huddled together with his classmates. What profound question was His Holiness about to put to this magnificent scholar?

  “Are you a man or are you a woman?”

  The great Geshe, eyes filling with tears, quietly turned and walked out of the monastery, back towards the hills from whence he had mysteriously come. As His Holiness turned to walk away Kalsang saw the old man smile and overheard the hushed remark, "how wonderful, most excellent."

  Kalsang did not discover the full truth until years later when, possessed by an intense fervor, he had gone in search of the elusive scholar. Following a confusing trail of clues and rumor he had finally located the hermitage. Instead of the great Geshe, eyes full of fire and insight, he had found only a gray haired woman tending a fire. Kalsang smiled, remembering how with great pride he had marched into the campsite and declared that he was looking for his guru, the great Geshe Wangchuk.

  “Perhaps you had better take a seat. Then, after a while, maybe you will be able to see the Geshe.” For a week Kalsang had sat outside, bundled against the cold wind while the old woman periodically disappeared into a cave, apparently conferring with the great meditator for long hours at a time. Finally, full of impatience and impetuosity Kalsang had stood up and confronted the woman. “Look Anila, I have traveled a long way and with due respect I will not be put off any longer. I am going to ask the Geshe to be my teacher now." He then strode confidently into an empty cave.

  When he emerged from the cave his puzzled expression caused the old woman to double over in laughter. His face became red with anger. Wiping the tears from her eyes she had given him a very strange look, as if she were a long lost relative of his who had not seen him in many years.

  “Okay," she said, "I accept you as my student.”

  Chapter 9 - August

  Conversations among the assembled Directors dropped off as August’s hair preceded him into the room. The divine desolation of the moonscape visible through the teardrop shaped windows of the Apollo room seemed to suck the last voices out into the surrounding vacuum. The silence that replaced them was a proper fanfare for the arrival of a god. August replied with a smile, giving his leave for the universe to continue.

  Gudanko’s hands twitched as he adjusted the collar on his kurta, perhaps giving away some effect of the absence of breakfast on his hypoglycaemia. Perhaps not. "I see that you have arrived. At last. We have been waiting."

  Vladimir Gudanko’s impeccably tailored presence dominated the far end of the room. He was the CEO of Energia Nova, a Com that had recently purchased a large interest, although not controlling, in Mirtopik. From a purely commercial angle, it was a good match. Energia Nova was the dominant space transport business. Mirtopik was the major conglomerate monopolizing the lunar Helium-3 supply, and thus controlling the fusion energy industry that had was the main power source of the expansion into space. From the perspective of the clashing personalities of the two companies’ leaders, it was a disaster.

  Gudanko smiled at August, or as close to a smile as the Ukrainian could approximate. August smiled back. How he loathed the man. Gudanko had been a complete pain-in-the-ass since he had come onto the Board, mounting a single-minded campaign against August’s vision. What galled August the most was that Gudanko was just a numbers guy, but a relentless one. Nothing mattered more to him than the steady accumulation of the indicators of power.

  Gudanko’s strategic vision never rose beyond assuming control and the chief tactic he used was to bludgeon his opposition with the bottom line. August refused to see him as a worthy opponent. Now, however, the dismissiveness that he usually directed towards Gudanko was replaced by a cautious reappraisal of the man most likely to want him dead. Of course, Gudanko wouldn’t act against him directly. That would require passion.

  Gudanko scanned the room with opaque blue eyes. Was he counting out his alliances or confirming the locations of the bathrooms and emergency exits should the need for either arise. It might be all the same with him. The wearying predictability of his movements convinced August that Gudanko could be discounted as an assassin. It would be too inconvenient to his schedule.

  Dmitri smiled wryly from across the room, quietly reflecting August’s contempt for Gudanko’s insipid manner. Thankfully though, Dmitri refrained from crossing the room as was customary for him, to exchange hugs and kisses. The action would have triggered a line-up of supplicants that would have left August exposed to a potential transfer of fatal nanodroids.

  August quickly assessed the twenty odd women and men gathered in the room, all uncomfortable in adapting their balance to the lower gravity. Besides Dmitri, none had bothered to visit Mirtopik’s principal asset, their He-3 mines on the moon, no doubt due to Gudanko’s complaints about cost. That he had allowed the expense for this meeting sent a clear message. They were coming here as one last homage before they finished him off.

  His killer would likely be a woman. August didn't know why this would be, but today he trusted his instincts. Miranda Nirai perhaps, the leader of thus far feeble successes by the panarchists to insert their influence into the Mirtopik Board. That would be unlikely given that a mainstream panarchist would not want to touch of
f a war. Her protégé, Siobhan Maclean, more radical but perhaps too obvious. Helen Rodriguez, from the Los Angeles office where Calvin30 had identified the threat, ambitious and unyielding, Dmitri often complained to August about her. She was tense, incessantly picking at the static cling of her sari, but perhaps no more so than usual. Her face was subtly pinched in a way that August felt mirrored his own internal anxiety. She was waiting for something, watching everything closely. Perhaps she was his assassin. Perhaps not. August reminded himself to restrain his impulse to race to a conclusion. Looking for a specific killer might blind him to an attack coming from an unexpected corner. Right now, his back was the main thing that warranted watching.

  August returned his attention to the issues of the moment, such as the absence of breakfast. It cut against the grain for August to withhold generosity, especially to esteemed guests who had travelled so far and, more to the point, who would today decide his fate. Still, the food had to be scanned and, besides, it fit with his strategy to keep Gudanko off balance with an empty stomach. He had noticed that Gudanko’s state of mind was invariably linked to his metabolism. It was his only weak link. Seeing his enemy suffer, or imagining it happening beneath the unperturbed surface, was just an added bonus.

  "Welcome my friends, I trust your flight up went well."

  Judging from the dishevelled and exhausted appearance of some of the board members, the flight had gone about as well as could be hoped for. First there was the crushing acceleration required, even with a top of the range space plane, to escape the Earth’s gravity. Then there were the myriad discomforts of zero gravity that remained uncomfortable even for someone like August who was acclimatized. The travel time was nearly a day and a half, even when one didn’t include the stopover at one of the orbital space stations waiting to transfer to a lunar ferry.

  The wonder on most of their faces, however, reminded August that such hardships were scarcely noticed by those experiencing the moon for the first time. Today they lived an experience shared with only an elite fraction of their fellow Earthlings. And to arrive here with all the fanfare of power was an experience of raw orgasm. Celestial overlords, from their heavenly palace, looking down on the farcical insignificance of the mother planet. All of them, perhaps even someone as bloodless as Gudanko, were in awe of their accomplishment.

  And August was glad that they had come. Today could very well be his final battle and he was happy for the advantage of fighting it on his home turf.

  "Where is the food?" August exclaimed in staged horror.

  "I was going to ask the same thing," Gudanko commented dryly.

  "One moment, apologies my friends," August made a show out of dressing down Linda while almost-but-not-quite out of hearing range. She did an admirable job of playing along, exiting the room on the verge tears. August resolved to add a healthy bonus to her paycheck this month.

  "My sincere apologies. Evidently there are some technical difficulties in the kitchen holding things up. It may be a few minutes."

  “There seem to be some difficulties in your organisation, as might be expected.” The usual dig from the chronically pedantic.

  August grimaced but continued graciously, "I'm worried that our general business might run into the AGM schedule. Should we start now so that we don’t leave the shareholders waiting?"

  After these usual housekeeping discussions were finished, a tea trolley was finally wheeled out and the shareholders left their chairs to commence the real business of the day. Touching base, inquiring as to the well-being of the others’ spouses and children, commiserating over failed business dealings, marriages and divorces, exchanging bets on the next Lunar Formula 1, and extending invitations to lunch, to dinner, to spend time at each-others’ vacation homes. Groups formed and broke away from the main table.

  Gudanko stood by the tea trolley refilling his plate and sipping his tea and scalding his mouth when August unexpectedly patted him on the back.

  "How are you going old boy? The food certainly took long enough, eh? I'm famished." August sipped the triple scanned cup of tea that Linda had provided him.

  Gudanko responded with perfunctory cordiality as August picked up a cake from a full platter, winking cheerfully into the Ukrainian’s stalwart gaze. "How’s young Julius these days? Still popular with the girls I hear? Such a scoundrel." He gave Gudanko a nudge.

  August imagined that Gudanko returned a scowl, which of course he didn’t. Before taking another sip of tea, Gudanko paused to run his tongue over the scalded flesh on the top of his mouth. Gudanko, a conservative captain of industry, was known to be acutely embarrassed by his son’s scandalous exploits, which were constantly appearing in the neurobloids. Again, the man gave away nothing.

  Dmitri and several more astute board members cocked their heads to watch. August was clearly throwing down a gauntlet, even if Gudanko didn’t deign to notice.

  "I hear that you aren’t too keen on some of our little projects up here? We’ll just have to give you a bit of an education," August prodded, a bit louder.

  More heads turned.

  "I think I've had all the education I need,” responded Gudanko stiffly, giving away the minimum exasperation for August to work with.

  "I'm sure you have. A great deal of education apparently, in engineering. Tell me, did they provide any technical training on achieving greatness?"

  Gudanko’s face flushed mildly. He regarded August as if he were casually evaluating alternate options for pest control. The attention of the room compelled him to respond.

  “The same as with any other thing. Step by step from steady foundations.”

  August shook his head disapprovingly. “Step by step to the stars my friend? I would think the only way is to fly.”

  August collected another cake and walked away to rejoin a group of senior executives and Board members. Occasionally August would glance through the crowd at the ghostly neurovisor images of the shareholders signing in for the Annual General Meeting. One by one they appeared, sitting in the same room in chairs that weren’t physically there. Although the shareholders could see one another, they couldn't see the Directors chatting and eating cake and walking through them. A shiver passed through August - a momentary flashback to his dream and his inexplicable Moon-walk escapade and a reminder that, depending on the outcome today, tomorrow he could become just as insubstantial.

  Soon the neuroview version of the room was filled to capacity with shareholders and the Directors made their way to their seats to log on to the session so that they too became visible in the world of ghosts. August surveyed the audience before making his own entrance.

  Representatives of nearly every nationality on the Earth were present. This was one of the truly undeniable advantages of the free Coms. The panarchists, although they collaborated around the planetary environmental cycles and in the ecoversion of Com rivals, were invariably composed of one ethnic or religious group or another, and they defended their tribal identities fiercely. It was the grand paradox of the times that the self-proclaimed defenders of the planet possessed no shared global culture.

  August knew, of course, that this was a superficial assessment. The gathering of shareholders was far from a utopian harmony of difference. It was a seething battleground. For a start, many in the audience were battling for the other side. Hub investors and holdings by ecoverted Coms made up a significant proportion of the shareholders. The only thing holding them in check was the fact that they hated Gudanko even more than they hated him. Gudanko had won his shares by taking advantage of the Last Famine in Russia through becoming the buyer of last resort and through a long list of other efficiently executed immoralities. August may have been a turncoat, some might gladly kill him if they had the chance, but for the moment he was the lesser of two evils. By remaining flexible to the demands of the Rev campaigns and generally maintaining the terms of the Peace, he had avoided a head-on confrontation. For the time being the panarchists had been content to pick away at periphery holdings,
like BilongMeCom.

  Another bloc was the big industrials, which for the most part was Energia Nova, their subsidiaries, and alliance partners. This was where the main threat to his leadership lay. The players not in these two blocs were an odd assortment of free investors and space enthusiasts. This was where the balance of power lay, and it was to this group that August planned, as usual, to make his pitch.

  August made himself visible to the assembled neurocast participants and ascended to the pulpit with an exaggerated moonwalk bound. "My friends," his voice cut through the murmured conversations of the audience.

  "I welcome you to the Moon, and beyond. Together we have travelled a long and winding road to reach our position today. There have been many challenges along the way, but we will prevail! This year has been the most dramatic in the modern resurgence of humanity in Space. In this year alone, we have nearly doubled the number of known extra-terrestrials. Doubled the number. Think about that. Ten years ago, when our team assumed leadership, Mirtopik Com was in disarray. Our critics were sounding the death knell for free capital. The Second Wave had imploded. The era of human exploitation of Space seemed set to end."