by D. P. Oberon
“Sara, we need to talk,” Claas said. His square face flushed with sweat and the mop of blond hair edged his forehead.
“Wait, it’s been a long day. Just let me have a drink.”
The cabinet swung open and the Delamain floated out on the hands of a serv-bot. Saradi held out her hands like she were receiving a baby. She kissed the body of the bottle and caressed its neck. The crystal stopper came out with a slight plop. The heady scent of burnt vanilla and caramel caressed Saradi’s nose.
“So, how was your day darling? Meet your friends and go for that run?” Saradi poured the Delamain into a glass with a wide open mouth and swirled the liquid.
Saradi observed the five steps in tasting a great cognac. Observation: she swirled the liquid in her glass and watched the viscosity. The thicker it was, the more aged — and she was glad to see this one coat the sides of the glass in a toffee glow.
First nose at waist level: she held the glass to her waist level and shook it around in a circle, inhaling the heady scent of vanilla pods, plush raisin, and a sliver of mandarin.
“Sara, are you done with your ritual?” Claas’s normally soft-spoken voice rose in agitation, his large jaws grinding together. Symphony No. 9 crescendoed in the background.
Saradi felt the slight tightening of her teeth and held out her hand. She was in the meditative state of savoring her cognac. It was one of the few things she kept exclusively to herself, it was her religious ritual if she ever subscribed to one.
Claas didn’t understand what torture it was to go through Odette’s ten thousand line spreadsheets. The numbers still clamored in front of Saradi stabbing into her eyes.
Second nose at chin level: She could see the delicious golden texture more clearly now. Here, the pods burst into a thicker vanilla-honey, the sliver of mandarin became more powerful, the faintest trace of saliva formed at the tip of Saradi’s tongue.
“Sara, it’s about La Terre Quavois.”
That made Saradi pause. “School? What has Nova done now?”
“It’s not being—”
“Is she making the grade? That school is expensive.”
Third nose at the tip of the nose itself: heady honey and the mandarin and vanilla merged into an otherworldly scent. Saradi swallowed her saliva, preparing for the first taste: the coating of the palate.
“The school just pinged me, Sara. They’re saying that auto payments for tuition bounced—”
Saradi’s brow tightened. “Impossible.”
Coat the palate: the glass caressed her parched lips. She tilted it slightly, allowing only a dribble in. The golden liquid coated her lips and the tip of her tongue. Oh what amazing goodness, the lightest caress of alcohol, a burst of mandarin opening and revealing honey, a slight burn. Now, this is foreplay.
Claas nabbed the glass from Saradi’s grasp: in went the cognac back into the bottle. Her nostrils flared at the fumes from the now empty glass. She watched as Claas’s fingers strangled the bottle’s neck. Like many triathletes, his skinny arms and legs disguised their whipcord strength. Saradi reached for the bottle, but Claas’s fingers noosed tighter around its neck, knuckles whitening.
He had stopped her from taking that first gulp. The inconsiderate man.
A screen appeared showing Saradi’s virtual credit card accounts. Her fingers fell limply on the glass table.
The red square read MasterCard. “This one was declined.” Claas swiped. The blue square read VISA. “This one was declined.” He swiped again. The black square read American Express. “Declined.” Then he gestured and a large sheet appeared besides her showing their credit limit. The words: LIMIT EXCEEDED blinked on all of them.
“What the heck, Sara? These are supposed to be for our daughter’s school fees.”
For a moment, her annoyance at the fact her tasting ritual had been interrupted angered her. “I’ll pay them,” Saradi said. She was going to reach out to House to go through the spreadsheet that showed her personal financial data, but her mind kept slipping. How many drinks had she had today? Her head pounded. She was sick of going through financial records. That’s what she’d been doing for the last two hours.
“Claas, ninety percent of my pay is vested straight into the market, with the remaining ten percent for us. That’s Novalie’s school fees, the mortgage for this wonderful mansion, and a few other assortments and things.”
“Your alcohol bill is through the roof. You buy the most expensive drinks.”
“I’ve cut down, and that’s not the problem anyway. I earn millions of dollars. The market is dying and investments have shrunk. I don’t see a point it taking out the funds now as they would be just prey for somebody else to buy the stock at a good price.”
“When are you getting paid next?”
“Fifteenth.”
“Then don’t put that money in. We need the cash.”
“I … I already spent it.”
“On what?”
She felt a twinge of guilt as she answered. “I sponsored a cognac tasting event in High Paris, I sponsored the Melbourne Arts Gallery on a ten year plan, and I purchased antique bottles of Laphroaig.”
Saradi frowned. “Why do you need the money so urgently anyway? I always defer Nova’s school fees. But I pay them.”
“It’s for my damn implant!” Claas said, slamming his fist against the table. “Like we discussed six months ago.” He held up his hands.
“Ah, okay now I see. For your depression? Yes, I remember. I thought we decided that you could go to the gym and keep active. That fights depression.”
“By Christos the Avenger!” Claas threw up his hands. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t.” He stood, still holding the bottle away from her. “Wattana has already paid the school fees. Pay her back.”
“You asked my mother?” Saradi said, incredulous. What the heck would her mother think of her? That she was a grown woman unable to manage her family’s financial situation?
“Don’t ever go behind my back again. This is my family, Claas, and my mother doesn’t need to be involved in it.” She made to grab at the bottle but he held it away.
“Sara, Bheem’s at war and you need to learn how to cope with that. Not by drinking yourself insensible every night and avoiding looking after your own family.” He trembled. “I can’t do this on my own, Sara. No. I cannot.” His fingers curled and uncurled. “I think we seriously need to consider a separation. If you’re going to destroy yourself go ahead. But don’t take Novalie with you. She’s a child.”
“Divorce?!” Saradi screeched. She leaped over the table, lunging at the bottle. Claas moved back. Her fingers clutching at the bottle and then she fell back and watched in horror as the bottle somersaulted in the air. The tendons on her forearms stretched taut to no avail as the bottle slipped past her fingertips and slammed onto the floor.
“Oh no,” Saradi said. “Oh no!” Her lovely Delamain. It was a hundred year old bottle worth millions gone to crystal shards. The scent of cognac infused the air. Saradi found herself crawling through the cut glass, ignoring the sharp slices against her knees. Her hands scooped palmfuls of cognac mixed with crystal shards. Her palms shook as she sipped at the golden liquid. The shards bit into her soft skin.
“Ma?” Novalie’s voice reached Saradi like lightning.
Novalie’s diminutive form stood at the bottom of the stairs. She clutched a paintbrush in her hand, and her face was smudged in green and yellow.
“Go!” Saradi screeched. “Go!”
Novalie’s body seized like a puppet whose strings had been jerked. The dark curly hair jumped and then settled down. Claas strode to his daughter, corralled her in a gentle embrace, and kissed her head.
Claas’ blue eyes stared at Saradi over their daughter’s trembling head. “You’re unbelievable. The biggest wounds, Sara, are the ones you can’t see.”
Chapter 4 – The Greatest Scientist
On the day they were to meet Sanatani, the Greatest Scientist and proclaimed Savior of th
e World, Saradi and the entire executive team of Autobus-Mannschaft, who were normally unflappable, imperturbable, cool, aloof, calm, and arrogant, couldn’t stop sweating, pacing their offices, or double checking their notes and their reflections.
Saradi went to work at exactly four a.m., and put her office chair into reclining mode. Her level ten upgrades wirelessly interfaced with the service unit and proceeded to refresh her upgrades. She wanted to be completely on the ball this morning.
Aunis Reeves waited patiently in the front of her office. Now as she made her way toward the larger table, where she normally did most of her strategy work, he nodded to the six glistening glasses filled with Spiced Hot Mary’s. Freshly squeezed tomato juice with coriander, vodka, and orange habanero dust.
“Give me a refresher on the iordite situation. I’m going in to meet the Greatest Scientist. I need to know the latest.” Saradi plopped herself on the air-seat and downed three glasses one after the other. This morning she needed more than one. The argument with Claas, and what she said to her daughter kept replaying itself in her mind. She needed to erase the previous night as quickly as possible. She shook her head as her neck goose pimpled from the hot and cold drink. The sour tang coated her lips in a delicious kiss. Now she felt awake.
Aunis said, “These are from our own forensic sources, as requested. The escalating requirements—”
“Wait, did you get rid of that stinky air freshener? That sugar plum is gross.”
“It’s lavender now.” Without missing a beat he continued. “Apparently, from external sources — though this is hard to verify — is that iordite is the only material the Greatest Scientist will think of using to build the seed-ships. This hasn’t been confirmed by her Global Governing Body. So it could be something you ask.”
“Really? What about titancrete? Ridgeite? Ironridge? Steelcrete? Magmite?” As a spaceship building company, Autobus-Mannschaft dealt with a lot of their downstream suppliers. They had built spaceships from dozens of materials.
Aunis shook his head. “During the request for proposal we detailed sixteen proven and tested materials. The Greatest Scientist and her Global Governing Body only wanted iordite.”
“I do remember. I was hoping things might’ve changed since then. I mean, they’re under this pressure. We have access to many other raw ingredients, but they only want this one raw ingredient, which is apparently extremely difficult to mine.”
Aunis shrugged his shoulders. “A question for the Greatest Scientist.”
“Aren’t we studying the iordite? Isn’t that part of the quality control?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, we have no time. We’ve had some test shipments, about a ton in all. We take it without engaging quality control to make things faster. It goes straight into production. The Global Governing Body wanted to build the prototype seed-ship five years ago.”
“Yes, I don’t need you to remind me of the time frame. I sleep with a countdown clock in my head.” Saradi frowned. She was an executive. She didn’t necessarily need to know the low level details of the manufacturing process.
“I wonder why she wants to see us?” Saradi mused. It was eight o’clock and the meeting was scheduled for ten. Already she felt the butterflies in her stomach. Even Saradi, who was in charge of thirty thousand employees, and who had to publicly speak all the time, found herself nervous.
She would’ve been less nervous had Alyona Pavlenko not played games with her.
“What about the forensics scans from our insiders at Alrosa Mirny?” she asked. She’d paid handsomely for those employees willing to do hands-on research.
“Some of them say that the mine has a lot more iordite than what Alyona Pavlenko is willing to admit,” he said.
“Why would she try to hide that? We’re paying her. She’s running a mine.”
Aunis shrugged his shoulders.
“Thanks Aunis,” she said, waving him away. She frowned as she realized she had finished all six glasses of the Spiced Hot Mary’s.
It turned out the Greatest Scientist was early for meetings. The meeting commenced fifteen minutes before schedule.
Saradi strode out of her office and met Albert Rene in the hallway. Sweat beaded on his brows. Her level ten upgrades meant neither her breath nor her perspiration smelled of alcohol. She just felt a trifle picked-up.
She wore her Armani Blues today and she knew she cut a striking figure with her bronze-brown skin, her jade-green eyes, and her mixed Thai and Indian features.
“Did you speak to Alyona again?” Albert asked her.
“It’s under control,” she said, feeling a tinge of irritation. He had asked her about a status update only yesterday.
He quirked spiky eyebrows that highlighted watery blue eyes. He paused outside the wide round doors that slowed so that it wouldn’t open right away. His gnarled spotted hands touched hers.
“This is very important, Sara. What we’re about to discuss. Just follow my lead. Please.” Then he gestured and the doors irised open and revealed the boardroom.
The boardroom was modelled after the A990’s first class cabins, Autobus-Mannschaft’s luxury mesosphere aero-jet. Each of the white-and-orange-trimmed leather recliners had a white, oval-shaped table dedicated to it. The mahogany panelling around the cornices of the boardroom had actually been taken from their first decommissioned luxury jet.
All eight executives sat in their individual seats fully upright and eyes looming forwards. Even Odette gave Saradi a smile. Matthias kept frowning and doodling on his holo-pad, Suzy pursed her lips, Pedro nodded his head thoughtfully, and Sangu had a smile on his face as he stared into the distance.
Normally they would be loudly talking to one another; this silence was disquieting.
Saradi, being one of three most senior executives in the company, moved forward and took her seat to Albert’s left. Odette sat on his right.
Then the wide doors that were not normally used — the ones at the head of the room — irised open and a large super-marine strode into the room. The super-marine, a he, Saradi assumed was followed by six other super-marines. They dwarfed them and their heads almost touched the ceiling. Their guns were huge and they were as wide as four people, over ten feet in height. Their armor was entirely painted blue and gold. Saradi knew what those colors represented: the Austra-Asian Empire.
Then the slender young girl walked into the boardroom. Octocopters circled outside. Saradi could see dozens of them through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Everyone around the boardroom, the executives of the most powerful company in the Britannic Europan Empire, rose to stand.
“Oh please, just stop. We don’t have time for this,” said Sanatani, the nine year old, the Greatest Scientist, and the person tasked with the Ultimate Answer. This was the person who would find a way to relocate humans to the stars.
Sanatani spread her hands expansively. “This warranted a personal visit and I do apologize in advance. It looks like they’ve closed half of High Paris so I could make this trip.”
Sanatani looked at them all, her eyes touching on Saradi’s briefly. For a moment an aura glowed around the girl. Body of a child, mind of a god, Saradi thought.
Sanatani gestured and a hologram of Rebirth, the first prototype seed-ship, flared to life in the air. She waved her hand and a newer and much larger version of Rebirth stood next to the previous model. The words new and old floated below them.
Sanatani said, “We’ve had to re-engineer these seed-ships. They have to last multiple worm jumps to our selected galaxies and then back to pick up more colonists. We made them stronger, with ten levels of redundancy. In essence, we designed our dream seed-ship. A worst case scenario would mean the colonists might have to live in the seed-ships if there are any issues with the selected destinations. We obviously hope not. The new design has blown out our original iordite requirements.”
Sanatani took a deep breath, and said, “I need one million tons of iordite. I want to start construction
on Rebirth in six months. When can you get the iordite to me?” Her voice rang out like the clearest note of a flute.
Albert Rene didn’t even blink. His round belly rubbed against the edge of his table as he turned his chair turned to look at Saradi.
“When can we get it?” he asked.
Saradi blinked. You only asked for one hundred thousand tons, she wanted to say. She wasn’t even sure if Alrosa Mirny had a million tons. Even if they did, extraction was a whole different ball game. Alyona was already balking at one hundred thousand tons.
“We can get you the one million tons of iordite, rest assured. We’ll get it to you in six months,” Saradi said. Not quite believing she’d actually said that several minutes later. None of the other executives balked at this; it seemed everyone knew Saradi could do the impossible, over promise and over deliver.
“Thank the Archer God,” Sanatani said, and her small hands clapped. She took a deep breath and then let it out. “You don’t know how much I’ve stressed over this. Thank you so much. We are trying to do things peacefully.”
What did she mean by do things peacefully? Saradi wondered. She watched the most powerful person in the planet leave their boardroom. Then her CEO turned and looked at her. “You can really get that much iordite?” Albert Rene asked, appearing puzzled.
Saradi stood and nodded. “Yes,” she said, then she walked out of the room. It felt like somebody had just struck her on the head with a hammer. Behind her the executives began to talk.
How the heck am I going to get it? she asked herself. I’ve just promised the world’s most powerful person. In front of her super-marines, too. Saradi suspected that the Greatest Scientist didn’t just raise loan percentages to deal with her problems. She probably had more direct ways.
Later that day as Saradi went through their own forensics data on the Alrosa Mirny mines desperately hunting and hoping to glean information on the maximum possible iordite that the Mir mine could yield. The exercise frustrated her and she closed the holo-display just as Albert Rene walked into her office and took a seat in front of her.
