Leaving Earth Vol. 1 (Leaving Earth Omnibus)

by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  'Very good, sir. If I might, then, be allowed to furnish you with some additional information, which the previous CEO left in my possession. It may help in your dealing with those who are not working for the best interests of the company.' With perfect economy of motion, and deceptively swiftly, Mr Grey produced a metal memory stick.

  'Thank you, Mr Grey. You may leave it on the desk.' For some reason Grum had a visceral aversion to the idea of having Mr Grey move inside his personal space, even to the point of taking something from his hand. The man positively exuded danger on an animal level.

  Mr Grey nodded and did so, then started for the door as Grum hastened to move out of the way. Before Mr Grey left though, Grum felt he had to ask something. He had asked it before and Mr Grey had evaded, to a degree.

  'Mr Grey. What exactly is your job?'

  'My job, sir, is the happiness and welfare of the CEO of USSMC.'

  Clear as mud. 'Thank you, Mr Grey. Please call before visiting again.'

  Mr Grey nodded, as if he had nothing to add and was not about to repeat himself, and left.

  Information, he had said. Grum was overwhelmed. His instincts must have been right. There was no way this level of detail could be obtained legitimately. There was dirt on everyone. Of course there always was in the general sense. No-one lived a squeaky-clean existence, no matter how much they projected that image. In fact, usually in direct opposition to how much they projected it. But it was all in this archive. Information going back to several years before USSMC had come into being. Sometimes a long way before, where certain types of research were involved.

  Knowledge was power. Grum now supposed — in a less dramatic sense, but no less disturbing — that this had been how people had been removed if they were seen to be getting in the way of Kelvin's goals.

  Blackmail.

  But if there was enough information here to do something as simple, but nefarious, as blackmail, surely there was enough information to do something more ethically sound, and yet equally effective? It had to be worth a shot.

  Chapter 22

  GRUM'S new office was finally finished. The disaster had caused all manner of damage, but the building remain structurally sound, so there was no need to move offices or to additionally reinforce anything. The explosion, itself, had been big enough to do serious damage to frail human bodies, and tear quite heavy doors off hinges, and throw things — like bodies and doors — around, but had not been strong enough to damage the structural framework of the building. The fireball had not been hot enough for long enough — the key for structural integrity, he had been told — and the shockwave not powerful enough to damage the supports.

  So most of the work had been internal reconstruction and cosmetics.

  That had given Grum the chance to change the design of the CEO's office. It was no longer the plush, leather-clad opulence of the former occupant, but a functional space. The half of the room nearest the large, but sparse, desk had walls filled with screens. The half further away held a smallish boardroom-style table and standard — but good quality — office chairs. This was not the office of someone who would sit and simply watch over his domain. This was the office of a working Chief Executive. There were still small touches of elegance, which might impress the observant visitor, but by-and-large it was a workspace.

  Grum had moved into the office the day after he had received the archive from Mr Grey, and it had taken him a further two days to formulate his plan of attack. There was certainly enough information in the archive to have anyone in the company removed — including himself and Stew, unsurprisingly — but what Grum had looked for were the motivations of those who were opposing him.

  He had found them.

  It had not been all that hard. There were commonalities with previous situations, and he supposed that Kelvin had simply steamrollered over them, rather than actually addressing them. For these directors, though, it was mainly now just habit.

  Like any position you hold too long — literally as well as figuratively — it hurt to move afterwards. You were not comfortable, but you wanted to avoid pain. So, Grum's solution was to find the source of pain and either remove it, or alleviate it as much as possible. If that did not work, then there was always the option of adding the stick to the carrot.

  He had called the Four Abstainers — as he thought of them — one by one and arranged meetings in his office.

  The sources of pain were only slightly varied. All had worked for the companies which had formed USSMC in some kind of senior management position and had been given a position on the board in compensation for losing those positions. Most had never been trained in corporate governance beforehand and so had fallen back on what they knew — management. What they all feared — the major source of pain — was losing the managerial aspect that they had clung to even in governance roles because that was what they knew. That was something Grum could try and fix.

  He told all of them that in a constantly changing world of corporate governance it was imperative that the board of USSMC were as up-to-date as possible. He, himself, was keenly aware that he had only been in managerial roles until now, and so he would be taking courses in corporate governance and would they like to come along at his expense? That was why he had the meetings separately, and in his office.

  Each and every one was defensive and resistant to start with, but the very office itself lessened that. It was something that they were more used to, as Grum was himself. His admitting his weakness in one role — from a position of security in that role — allowed a space for each to at least agree that it was an important matter. That was an opening which Grum exploited.

  Three of the directors agreed that extra training would not go amiss, that they would be happy to take Grum up on his offer, and how unlike the previous Chairman he was. Clearly a working man, like them, not like they had feared — and with the unspoken addendum of "not like Kelvin Goldstein". Grum got the distinct impression that they had all become bullies in reaction to Kelvin's bullying tactics.

  One of the directors — while agreeing on most points — did not want to take Grum up on his offer of training. Instead he confessed that what he would most like to do would be to go back to a senior management position, and that he was especially excited about the Nevada spin-off. He wanted to know if Grum would support him in his application for CIO in that new company.

  Grum had to force himself not to laugh. He said that he had trained Ben to management, himself, but that having another experienced senior manager on the team would probably be welcome, and that he would talk to Ben personally about it.

  It would not immediately "fix" everything, but it would give everyone the room to reassess without being reactionary, which was an important start.

  After those meetings, Grum put some thought into how to alter the re-organisation proposal to address the board's corporate safety concerns. While he was reasonably sure that he would probably get the vote in his favour, it would reinforce his own image of working consideration if he did the work and gave it consideration.

  He began to realise that the board's governance concerns could be addressed if he set up — and here he sighed aloud in his office — management committees to handle the transition. At least that would allow the re-org to start. So he drew up a new plan with all the dotted lines you could possibly eat to indicate the indirect and transitional management structures. No big-bang change, no "right first time", just gradual change from bad to good. It was messy to his way of thinking, but probably the best way to handle the board's worries.

  He sent the revised proposal to the individual directors for perusal ahead of their next meeting, with a note saying that if there were any urgent issues, he would be happy to address them. Then he got on with trying to sort out the mess the business was in.

  USSMC's willingness to admit culpability and the immediate — in corporate terms — action in getting the best of all possible care for the victims — as well as paying for it — went quite a long
way with the public. For that reason, it went quite a long way with the federal and state governments as well.

  Funding for anything non-nuclear was back on the table for discussion and Grum pointed a loaded Steve Branch at it. All the nuclear programmes were still off the table, though, pending the outcome of the court case, which meant that they were very effectively shut down from USSMC's perspective. All except UMBRA, which miraculously still had funding from all sources. The international programmes were back on track for all types of research, which gave at least some avenues for USSMC to explore.

  Somehow, someone had found out about the soon-to-be opening on the board of directors, because he had an email from a General he had never heard of about putting a name forward from one of their own governance teams, to be considered as a replacement. That made Grum nervous, but he agreed to discuss the idea with the board as a whole, and include it in the Agenda for the AGM, when the board member who was leaving would actually step down. He did not bother to ask how they knew. It was government. If they really wanted to know something, and they knew what they were looking for… They could find it.

  The last thing on his to-do list was something he had been avoiding, because it really did not sit right with him. Stew and Steve had been after him to address the increasing demands by the press, to know what and how much USSMC was doing in the particular case of Fey Sikes. The thirteen year-old girl who had nearly died in the disaster and had suffered horrific injuries.

  He did not want to put that poor girl centre-stage for the world to gawp at, and so he had ignored the demands. But now, the silence was turning to conspiracy theory. Everything from Fey actually being dead and USSMC covering it up, to insane suggestions of experimentation. So Grum was going to have to deal with it.

  Or rather… Within strict guidelines, Stew and Steve would have to deal with it. He authorised the release of the extent of USSMC's financial involvement in her care, high-level descriptions of the latest medical technology being used to help her recover, but with an injunction to remember that the parents must authorise everything and that the poor girl was still in a coma.

  Chapter 23

  THE board accepted the re-org proposal at the second reading. None of the directors had any particular recommendations or points of contention to raise before the meeting, although there were several suggestions to clarify one point or another.

  So now it was down to putting it into practice, which was where Grum took of his governance hat completely and put his management hat firmly on. He did not care a great deal about who exactly was on each transition committee, so long as one or two key members were there. In that respect, he decided to use the unfortunate committee situation as proving grounds for potential senior management positions. It slowed down the appointment process, but hopefully would speed up the interview process.

  Stew would be chairing the committee in charge of gathering together all the R&D resources into one new Division without disrupting any actual implementation programmes. There were a few problems with that. Such as the occasional team consisting of only a couple of people who did both jobs, but then there were teams who were overstaffed for what they were doing, so it balanced out. In any case, It was Stew's problem. The direction which Grum had given Stew was that each department had to divest themselves of R&D, but could have their own implementation teams, or hire the services through the expanded Professional Resources department which incorporated the old HR function as well as that of the internal professional services resource co-ordination which SyncDep had started.

  Given the hard choice he had forced on Hank, Grum went to talk to him directly about it.

  'So you're taking R&D back off me? That's great! I could use a tonne more generators!' said Hank.

  Grum laughed. 'You don't get to keep all the R&D budget, Hank! If all the Divisions with R&D kept the budget they had, there would be no money left to fund R&D! That was part of the problem. R&D was being funded inconsistently, so now it's going to be in its own Division with its own budgetary responsibilities.'

  'So, no extra money?'

  'Not this time, Hank. You already have the lion's share of the company's budget, now that Nevada is being hived off.'

  'How's that going?'

  'Ben reckons he'll be ready for IPO proposal come the AGM.'

  'That's not far off!'

  'No, indeed.'

  'You know I'm a fan of Ben's he'll do the right thing by us. How much control are we keeping?' asked Hank.

  'Haven't decided exactly, yet. We might keep an absolute controlling interest, or just a large stake. We'll see how the beancounters reckon it.'

  'Now, what is this I saw at the last board meeting? You had everybody onside, to some degree or other. No obvious antagonists.'

  'I just found the right way to deal with them rather than threatening and yelling at them all the time. You know that most of the board — the old board, that is — was made up from senior managers from the various companies. Well, no one had thought to give them governance training.'

  'You offered them a training package?!'

  'Not quite. I offered to take them along and pay, personally, when I go for my governance training.'

  'Oh, that is well done. I'm impressed. I did see one guy who wasn't really involved, though. Not anti or anything, just seemed like he didn't care. Was that a failure?'

  'No. He's resigning from the board.'

  'What?!'

  'That's strictly on the QT, mind.'

  'Oh sure'n for sure. What made him do that?'

  'He wanted to go back to senior management. So Ben's taken him on at Nevada.'

  'And how's that working out?'

  'Ben says the he is doing really well a CIO. The soon-to-be-ex director only flies back for board meetings, now.'

  'Lot of things going on at the AGM.'

  'It's a crunch time, for sure. Which is another reason I wanted to talk to you, Hank. I think that's a good time to have the decision made about your role.'

  Hank stiffened, then relaxed again.' Already made it, Grum. I'm staying on the board.'

  'Chosen your candidate for here?'

  'Followed your lead, once again. I put the four most likely candidates on the transition committee with Vann to chair. Grum made to speak, but Hank held his hand up to stop him. 'I promised her it was only temporary, but that I wanted her to watch the other members for signs of possible VP-hood. She's cool with that.'

  'Works for me. How are they going with implementation teams?'

  'Well, we were a little top-heavy on that score, as it turned out. I've got too many implementers who want to hang around in Space, as it were.'

  'You know that I'm giving Professional resources the ability to create "bench resources"? You could either let the extras hire out to them as T&M, or let them go there permanently. Or negotiate for somewhere in between. Up to you. Or your replacement.'

  'I think I might give that one to the committee and see who comes up with the best solution.'

  'Good plan. And speaking of plans. It's time I went and got on with everybody else's.'

  'Hah! OK, Grum. See you again soon. We'll have to go for another game of pool soon, so long as you promise not to give me a heart attack, this time!'

  'It's a promise on the pool, at least!' Grum yelled over his shoulder as he left Hank's office.

  Promises, promises, thought Grum, as he headed to look over the construction work which was still ongoing for the observation deck. Made a lot of promises.

  He had promised something to almost everyone in some form or another.

  It would not be easy to deliver on most of them, but he would do it. That was the point of a promise, after all. No point in promising something easy. If it was easy, you just did it, no need to promise anything. It was the hard stuff you needed promises for. Which was why they got broken. Sometimes they were too hard to keep. But you had to try.

  He was keeping his promises to the board, so far. Both the spoken and unspoken on
es. One of the unspoken ones was "I am not like Kelvin Goldstein", and so far he had kept it, but that was surprisingly hard. So many times he was confronted by board-level ignorance which left him very close to just trying to enforce his ideas rather than persuade. That was why he wanted people on the board who were experienced in this kind of company. When someone on the board said something like "but why have an R&D Division at all?", it rocked him. He felt like shouting at them: "WHERE DO YOU THINK THE BLOODY PRODUCTS AND PROGRAMMES COME FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU IDIOT". But he could not do that. That would be counter-productive. It would also be breaking his promise.

  Then there were the promises to the various committee members that their voices would be heard, no matter how inexperienced they were at this sort of thing to start with. For that purpose he had formed — of all horrors — a steering committee, with himself as chair and the chairs of each of the other committees as members. So far that was working to make sure that any conflicts were resolved and that all the committees were heading in the same direction for the same purpose. It also reinforced his authority over the other committee members, while giving them a voice. Keeping the promise.

  He was desperately trying to keep his own promise — again, unspoken — to Fey and her parents that she would survive and live a healthy, happy life. In his own mind, the most injured of everyone was a symbol of success in whether he was keeping his promise to the rest of the survivors or not.

  He had kept his promise to the government or military, or whomever, about putting forward the name of the Major they wanted on the board, and the board had agreed to interview them with a view to adding to the complement, rather than replacing a member, but that a final decision would not be taken until the AGM.