“Yeah, but how’d you spot that much that fast.”
“I’m his son.”
They gathered the luggage, a great deal of it, and loaded it into another ground car for transport over to Aram house.
“So, what did you wanna talk to me about?” Jimmy asked as they rolled smoothly through the narrow lanes of Aram’s Inlet.
“Latest word from Andrew is that there’s something big moving into Margary. The construction plans are under review at the Sector Authority. They’re sealed, of course, but rumored to be very much not the ‘Five Stanyer Plan’ that Margary is claiming.”
“How does he know, if they’re sealed?”
“Five year plans don’t require Joint Committee on Transportation review.”
“Yeah, they do,” Jimmy argued.
“Margary Mining Authority filed their plan three stanyers ago and it was approved. It’s not due for re-review by the full committee until next stanyer when they file the next stage plan.”
Jimmy blinked as his brain unraveled the news. “It’s not Margary Mining that’s doing the construction?”
Tony shrugged. “Unless they’ve got something brand new that’s come up in the last stanyer or two, they’ve no reason to modify their plan now. It’s due for a rubber stamp review in the next couple of stanyers. If they wanted to do anything big, the smart money would do it then. They still have work to do on the plan that’s already in play.”
“What has that to do with us?”
“I don’t know, but it’s the only piece of anomalous information we got that has anything to do with this end of the universe. Andrew doesn’t know either, but Violet wanted you to know what they know.”
The car rolled up to the delivery entrance of Aram House and they got out, gave the bellman instructions and a twenty cred tip, before walking into the hotel lobby.
The desk clerk recognized Jimmy and Tony on sight and smiled. “Mr. Pirano, your father is up on The Roof. He’s waiting for you there. The suite is clear.”
“Thanks, William,” Jimmy said, and they headed for the elevator.
The Roof was not literally the roof, although it was added after the hotel was initially built. It was added to the roof. It was, for all intents and purposes, the local equivalent of the presidential suite, although it was really more an independent residence. Aram House was the tallest building in Aram’s Inlet at ten stories. In the olden days, The Roof was the Pirano’s home and the place where Jimmy grew up. He had fond memories of the place from his early childhood. Later, of course, he spent more time on the boat with his father than on The Roof with his mother. When she died, Angelo found a place for them closer to the quay and turned The Roof over to the hotel to maintain, and rent out as they saw fit with the proviso that any Pirano could use it as they needed. Jimmy had used it for visiting Combine officers over the stanyers. The view from The Roof, panoramic and sweeping across the shipyard, fish wharves, moorings, and over the headlands to the sea to the east never failed to impress visitors.
The elevator up to The Roof was around the corner from the regular elevators. You had to walk around a blind corner to find it and it didn’t work unless you had the key card. Unless your thumb print was on file with the concierge system. Jimmy–like Angelo–was on permanent record as part of the hotel’s charter for the space. Tony and Jimmy rode up and stepped out into the foyer. The outer doors were open and Angelo called from inside. “Come in! Come in!”
He’d taken his tailored jacket off and was sitting on the sofa with a bottle of wine already open on the table in front of him. “Ah, boys. Good. Come in! Have a glass of wine! We need to catch up on old times.” He waved them in and indicated chairs, pouring wine.
Jimmy and Tony settled into the heavy chairs opposite the Ole Man. Jimmy took a sip of the wine before replying. “Good to see you, too, Pop.”
Stephanie returned and nodded. “We’re clear, sir.”
The Ole Man nodded to her. “Pull up a chair, my dear. Let’s talk a little shop. What the hell is going on here, Jimmy?”
“The management company sent quotas that are impossible, and they’re using that to drive down the price of the Combine’s shares.”
The elder Pirano looked at his son for several long ticks. “Impossible? Aren’t they just twenty points more than last year’s?”
Jimmy nodded. “Yes, but the models are already maxed. We’d need twice as many boats to catch that many fish on the current grounds.”
Angelo sipped his wine before replying. “Tony? You’re usually a good problem solver. What’s your take?”
“Insane, Angelo,” Tony said. “We can build more boats, but we don’t have crews. We can open new grounds, but you know better than anybody that’s more like a three year development than a single season’s effort. We’ve got every person we can find already on the boats. We even have spare boats that we can’t use without the manpower to fish them.”
Angelo focused back on his son. “So, that’s why you sent me that message from the Pumpkin?”
Jimmy nodded. “I couldn’t imagine that you’d stand for deporting everybody from St. Cloud for failing to make quota.”
“That’s stupid. Of course not,” Angelo said. “But it is the rule in the Combine’s charter. Fail to meet quota by a given amount and you lose your boat.”
“No boat, no job. No job, no permit. No permit, off you go,” Jimmy said.
“Just put ’em on a different boat, Jimmy,” Angelo said.
“I’m not making this clear, Pop. The quotas are so high there is no way anybody is going to make quota. Every boat will be tied up for lack of skipper, because all the skippers will be pulled ashore and stripped of working credentials.”
“That can’t happen, Jimmy,” his father said.
“I know that, Pop, but that’s what we’re looking at.”
“The Combine board didn’t authorize shutting down the planet, Jimmy. You’re reading too much into the directive.”
“It’s not just me. Violet’s got the same problem.”
“Violet? I thought you divorced her.”
“She’s the head of Allied. They have the same problem with production quotas. There isn’t enough land in production to meet the quotas.”
“Put more land in production.”
“Takes too long to come up to speed,” Tony said.
Angelo sat there for several long ticks, his eyes flickered back and forth as if he were reading something on the inside of his head. “Show me the directives.”
Tony slid a display out of his pocket and pulled up the relevant documents.
“Send it to me, too, if you would, Mr. Spinelli,” Stephanie asked..
Together they looked at the document and Angelo frowned. “This isn’t right. Stephanie, how did this get through?”
Stephanie frowned at her screen. “I don’t know, sir, but the changes between this and the documents we authorized are subtle. I’m running validations now.”
“What’s the situation on the waterfront here, Jimmy?” his father asked.
Jimmy ran through the problems with people leaving the planet out of fear that they’ll be caught in a mass exodus at the end of the season. He outlined the steps he’d take to reassure them, but didn’t get too deeply into the collaboration between Allied and Pirano on trying to piece together what was going on.
“You think this is just a stock manipulation scheme intended to drop the price of the Combine’s share value to make way for a takeover bid,” Angelo said.
“Yes, Pop, I do.”
Stephanie spoke into the pause. “The documents we have on file and home office match the documents that were sent to the planet. They are very slightly different than the documents that were approved by the board, but the differences are extremely small. An extra word here, a deleted word there, and a different word in a few other places. The management group was authorized to make these kinds of small scale edits to the contract, but the changes don’t add up to a substantially d
ifferent document. The board of the Combine authorized these quotas on the basis of increased production capacity on the planet,” Stephanie said.
“But we don’t have that kind of increased production, and we can’t get it in such a short time.”
“What’s the biggest obstacle?” Angelo asked.
“Trained people and productive fishing grounds. We can make more boats, but we don’t have crews.”
“There’s lots of water out there, Jimmy.”
“Yes, I know, Pop, but the satellite imagery doesn’t show a lot of possible sites. Without the people, there’s no reason to build the boats. Without the boats, finding new grounds doesn’t help.”
Stephanie said, “Current landings are not far out from the new quotas this year.”
“Yes, but it’s always like that in the beginning of the season. We’ll get the biggest landings early on and as the fishing pressure builds, the catches will drop off drastically. We can’t maintain that level of production,” Jimmy said.
“Why not?”
“You’ve been out there, Pop. You know what happens when the boats hit the grounds, day after day.”
The Ole Man sighed. “Yes, I do, Jimmy. Now, I’m tired and need some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow. Stephanie will let you know when. When you come back, stop telling me what I know. Start telling me something I don’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Callum’s Cove
March 16, 2305
Rachel stepped into the kitchen just in time to hear, “Otto, this has to stop.”
Richard stood glowering across the table at his son. A collection of carvings lay strewn across the surface between them. The similarity to the shark on the terminal left no doubt in Rachel’s mind what was going on. Otto stood at the kitchen sink.
“Hello, Mother. Welcome home.”
“Otto!” His father raised his voice, stopping just short of a shout. “I’m trying to talk to you about these carvings.”
Rachel was tired from the long day at sea and didn’t need the drama playing out in her kitchen. “Richard, stop being an ass. Sit down. Let Otto pour the tea and we’ll eat dinner.”
Richard turned to confront Rachel. “Look at these–these–these—”
“Whelkies, Richard, whelkies.” She took a deep breath. “Those are real whelkies, Richard. Stop pretending you don’t know.”
“These aren’t whelkies. They’re crude approximations. They’re barely recognizable.”
“Whelkies are carved by shamans.”
Having it laid out so baldly took him halted his tirade momentarily. “This is not how I taught him to carve. What will people say when they see these?”
Rachel hung her heavy coat on the hook behind the door and kicked off her boots. She padded to the sideboard in her socks and collected a cup of tea. “Thank you, Otto,” she said before settling at the kitchen table. She took time to sip a bit of tea and gather herself before returning Richard’s belligerent gaze with a calm one of her own.
“I don’t know, Richard. What will people say?” There was a warning hint of steel in her words.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something like, ‘Aww, what a pity is father didn’t teach him better,’ or perhaps, ‘How can he call himself a shaman when he can’t carve any better than that?’”
“But he can,” Rachel said.
“I know he can. I’ve seen him do it.” He reached into a side pocket and pulled out a couple of the smoothly carved exercise pieces–a ball in a cage and a series of linked rings–tossing them onto the table so hard they nearly slid off the far side. “He can carve as well as anybody. Better than most.”
Rachel cradled her mug in one hand and picked up the linked rings in the other. “So, what’s your problem?”
“These things. He’s been carving them secretly and storing them in a drawer!” He rounded on Otto. “Did you think I wouldn’t find them?”
“No, Father. I expected you would.”
“Then why did you hide them? Why are you carving them in secret?”
Otto observed is father for a few heartbeats. “I hardly call keeping my work stored in a drawer ‘hiding it’ nor does the fact that I carve while you’re busy fishing classify as ‘in secret’.”
Rachel closed her eyes and lowered her face into her mug. She didn’t know whether she should slap him for his insolence or cheer him for his spine. She had to stifle a nerve-driven giggle.
“You arrogant whelp,” Richard took a deep breath.
“Richard,” Rachel said before he could get started again. “Why don’t you get your tea, sit, and we’ll all discuss this like a family, shall we?”
Otto brought two mugs of tea from the sideboard, placed one at his father’s place at the table, and took his own seat, leaving Richard the only one standing.
Richard sat, somewhat heavily, resting his elbows on the table and massaging his forehead and temples with outstretched hands as if trying to rub away the tension. He sighed deeply before dropping his hands, picking up his tea, and taking a careful sip.
“All right, then,” Rachel said. “Thank you.” She turned to Otto. “Please explain, if you can. You carve these so beautifully.” She held up the linked rings hooked over a single finger so the chain dangled and swung. “Why do you carve those so crudely?”
“I don’t know,” Otto said.
“That’s stupid. You have to know.” Richard said.
Rachel quelled him with a look. “Try to explain it, hon.”
Otto stared at his mug, spinning it in his fingertips on the heavy wooden table. “Yeah, I suppose it is stupid, but I don’t really know why.“He nodded at the rings still swinging on his mother’s finger, “Except those are dead. It doesn’t matter how they look. They’re supposed to be smooth. I can carve them smooth. It doesn’t matter.” His voice had taken on a dream like quality, an airy-ness. He whispered across the table top.
“If you can do that, why can’t you carve these that well?” his father asked, his face wrinkled in an ugly scowl.
“Because they’re not dead.”
Richard gaped.
“Otto?” Rachel asked. “Would you mind going out to the shop for a half a stan or so, so your father and I can talk?
“You mean, so you can talk about me behind my back?”
“Yes, dear.”
His head came up with a snap and he stared at her.
She smiled. “Sometimes parents need to talk about their kids without the kids hearing that conversation. That’s not a bad thing, really, although I hated it when my parents did it to me, too.”
Otto sighed. “Okay, sure. The timer will ding when the fish is ready to come out of the oven.” He shrugged into his jacket, took up his tea, and headed for the shop.
Rachel didn’t speak until the faint slam of the shop door reached them. “What are you thinking, Richard?”
“This is unacceptable work.” He swept the pile of whelkies together in the middle of the table.
“Why? Because you say so?”
“Of course.”
“And who are you, exactly, to be passing judgment?”
“I’m his father and the shaman. If I can’t pass judgment, who can?”
“Who says anybody needs to? Or even should?”
“Just look at these.” He pointed to the collection once more.
“I’ve seen them, Richard. I have one. I look at it every time I sit at my terminal. It was the first one he carved. It was the first expression of his own sense of what a whelkie is.”
“I know that! But how long ago was that? Weeks? Months? His technique hasn’t improved one iota over that pathetic attempt at a shark!”
“Or maybe it was because he got it right the first time. Maybe his work isn’t the one that’s missing the mark.” She winced inwardly at the slap she’d just delivered to the man she loved.
He sat there, very still, his breathing slowing. “Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think, Richa
rd. But everything you’ve said about these is based on how they reflect on you. Have you even considered that this has nothing to do with you? That this is Otto finding his own style of carving? His own voice as shaman?”
“But what will people think?” Richard asked again, turning his head to stare at her with pain in his eyes.
“What will people think about what, Richard? About the carving? About Otto? Or about you?”
He sat there, staring. “I can’t believe you’re going to take his side in this.”
Rachel sighed. “It’s not about sides, Richard. It’s about a kid who needs love and support while he’s trying to cope with what has to be the strangest, most frightening experience of his life. This time last spring, the only thing he cared about was catching a fish. You and I sat here at this very table and talked about how he wasn’t showing any interest in becoming a shaman. Now? He’s not only showing interest, he’s giving every indication of being one of the most gifted shamans on the South Coast and you’re complaining?”
“Oh, come on!” Richard said. “Gifted? Look at these!”
“I am looking, Richard. You look!” She picked up a bird and waved it in his face. “What is this?”
“A curlew.”
She picked up another. “And this?”
“Fox.”
“Not a dog? Not a wolf? Maybe a dingo? Could be a cat?”
“No,” Richard shook his head. “It’s a fox.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, just look at it. It’s obviously a fox! The way it’s sitting, you can tell.”
“So this thing, this crude, horribly executed carving is without a doubt or question in your mind, a fox?”
He closed his mouth with a snap and turned his gaze back to the figures on the table.
She picked up the first one again. “This is a curlew. Not ‘some kind of wading bird’ but a curlew, a specific kind of long legged shore bird. Hacked up, primitive, rough as it is. It’s a curlew.”
Richard’s eyes tightened as he prepared a response, but she forestalled him by throwing his own words back. “Look at them, Richard. Really look at them. That one? A wolf. That one? Dolphin. That one? Robin. That one?”
South Coast (Shaman's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1) Page 16
