CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A mob of reporters ambushed Ethan, Jax, and that lead publicist person whose name Ethan kept forgetting. They pointed videography gear at them, blinded each other with flashes, and shouted out questions.
“How proud are you to be making this a reality?”
“What do you say to detractors who claim space elevator technology shouldn’t be owned by a single company?”
Ethan’s project press rep pushed him toward the office door as the reporters yelled questions after them as if increasing the volume would make him more likely to answer.
“Sorry about that, boss,” Jax said. “I thought we’d cleared them all out but a new group slipped in after your car. I think they were following you.”
Ethan kept his face smiling. He snarled at a volume he hoped the microphones couldn’t pick up, “Don’t let it happen again.”
Pale, the press rep assured him it wouldn’t. Jax didn’t react. Ethan noted that, and the crease between his eyebrows deepened. His executive assistant was confident now? When had that happened? The doors closed on the mob of reporters.
Jax patted the press rep on the back. “Send me your statement before releasing anything. The boss might have a fifteen-minute block to review it tomorrow. Or leave them all in the dark. You should consider blacklisting the rudest ones. That might help.”
“Right.” The press rep visibly regained his composure at this suggestion of a way forward. “I can give our updates only to the ones who respond reasonably.”
Ethan growled an affirmative and found a lidded cup of coffee pressed into his hands. He sipped. It was heavily sweetened and topped with a dash of vanilla and cream just the way he liked it best. And with the lid, no one could see it wasn’t straight black the way he claimed to drink it.
He sipped again.
Jax gave him a faint smile. Only that in acknowledgement that he’d provided good coffee, and he knew he’d done it precisely right.
Ethan let the executive assistant keep his smile until he saw the page on his desk. An actual newspaper, printed in full color at a who knows what cost, lay across the desk surface, unfolded to show the full article with the worst headline in the history of newspapers blaring across the top. He meant to throw just the page, but his hands spasmed.
The coffee, the paper, and one of the random desk ornaments he’d chosen in hopes that it showed intellectual curiosity went flying. Jax jumped out of the way, pushed the publicist out the office door, and clicked the latch shut.
“Um, not what you were expecting, boss?”
“Man of the Year?” Ethan felt the pressure in his ears rising. Was it possible for a brain to explode in a gooey mess inside his head like happened in cartoons? Could he have a stress-induced aneurysm at least and never have to deal with disasters like this ever again? “Man of the Year.” He forced himself to project a calm he didn’t feel. “I take it you don’t see how horrible this is.”
It wasn’t a question but his executive assistant answered it anyway. “We’d hoped you’d be pleased, boss.”
“We?” Ethan dropped himself into the chair.
“For the profile, they did interview a lot of the staff. We signed nondisclosures,” he assured him, “and checked with Chummy of course to make sure it was all okay with corporate policies.”
“Chummy.” Ethan considered strangling that HR man. Chummy would have understood instantly just how bad this was.
“Uh. What’s the problem? They do print it as Woman of the Year when the recipient is female, so it shouldn’t be a gender rights thing, and…”
“Mr. Jeffy,” Ethan interrupted, “John-Philip Jeffy should be the one they choose. Anybody else, anyone at all, even the guy who invented the industrial-length carbon-nanotube fiber connector and named it after his sainted grandmother should rank no more than a sidebar mention.”
“A team developed the space elevator’s tether fiber production process,” Jax said. “It was cross-functional development and no one has named it after anyone, but some members of the team are grandmothers themselves.” His brow was furrowed deeper in confusion.
Ethan buried his head in his hands. “Just get me another coffee. I’ll deal with it.”
He started the letter three times with: “I’m so sorry…” And couldn’t find the right words. He changed it and changed it again. In the end he sent all of TCG’s leadership a single message with only two sentences. The first was: “I learned today about a planned article.” He appended the horrible newspaper clipping in a scanned electronic form. No need to let other vice presidents or senior executives know there had been a full color-printed version made. He concluded with: “Maybe the marketing people can do something with this.”
The wave of congratulatory responses crashed into his inbox with the loudest voice from Mr. Jeffy himself. Ethan read that one through carefully five times and couldn’t find any hints in the word choice or tone that might indicate a personal vendetta against him had been triggered by this slight. Mr. Jeffy’s public persona was one of never needing the credit for anything, as long as the job got done right.
Ethan wasn’t dumb enough to believe that could be the reality. Mr. Jeffy got a lot of awards. Could even someone like Chummy pretend that that had happened without John-Philip Jeffy quietly campaigning in the background to make sure his name was floated about as a candidate?
The West African Launcher continued to earn completion bonuses, Ethan noted. They’d expanded into night launches, and now news media in Eastern Africa time zones were enjoying seeing the results live on the morning news. Of course the best view of all was in the control room at TCG Kilimanjaro.
Jax and the managerial team he’d assembled watched the screens and oohed at the payloads smacking space debris in a choreographed dance. White cursor marks smacked into red hazard bits and spiraled them off into other orbits. The dots changed to light blue indicating successful course changes to match the range of new orbits reclamation companies had requested. Some few changed to yellow indicating the objects no one wanted to reuse were now in orbits safely collision free for the next several years. A few turned green for new orbits that wouldn’t threaten the elevator again ever.
Jax bent to whisper something to a technician and the display’s legend updated to label green objects as “next intercept >100 years” instead of “no intercept.” They weren’t being given enough force to break outwards from Earth orbit, and the lawyers had argued strongly against deorbiting anything that might not burn up in atmosphere. It was vaguely possible that some few of them would have other mutual chain reaction collisions and eventually be problematic.
Ethan watched Chummy. The man was walking around almost in a fog. Ethan was almost certain that Chummy was living in a continual state of surprise. The Sadou launcher had been contracted based on his recommendation, yet the man was amazed to see it working and working well. Why was that?
Ethan didn’t like people doing things he didn’t expect. He especially didn’t like that from Chummy.
“Jax.” Ethan’s executive assistant sprang away immediately. Diligent and attentive, he tore himself away from the screens with obvious regret, but patiently waited for Ethan to tell him what he wanted.
Ethan suppressed a desire to shake the man to wipe that expression of adoration off his face.
Jax blinked, still patient, and awaiting instructions.
Ethan twitched his head sidewise just a bit toward his office with its soundproof door.
His executive assistant entered immediately. Ethan followed and closed the door behind him.
Jax had a fresh cup of coffee waiting for him.
“Congratulations, boss!” The man’s smile was infectious. “Another great step.”
“Yeah. About that.” Ethan drummed his fingers on the surface of his desk without bothering to go around it and take a seat. “Did you notice anything odd about Chummy today? Anything going on with his staff I should know about?”
“With Chummy?” Jax blinked at the change in topic. “I did hear that he was trying to get his senior aide, Samson Young, to accept another position in the company, and he didn’t want to go.” He looked at Ethan with questions all over his face, but didn’t ask for an explanation.
When Ethan didn’t say anything more, his assistant moved directly on. “There are press releases about the successful orbit-clearing maneuvers ready for release. Did you want to review them?”
Ethan thought about that for a moment. “No, let’s hold off on that.” An insight occurred to him. “Or rather, forward them to Chummy. Ask him to sign off on them. Maybe even release them himself to the press. He has connections with the company we partnered with for ground-side launch. Check with his assistant, the junior one: DeeDee. We should support his efforts to get Samson to take that new job, don’t you think?”
Jax nodded and started making notes. The directions would go out exactly as Ethan had asked. Ethan made a few notes of his own and pulled up some records to check names and contract details.
“Get me some more details on the Sadou Corporation too. We need to make sure no one can do a corporate takeover or anything like that on them. They are critical for us now.”
“Sure, boss. But you don’t need to sweat that. It’s a family-owned company.”
“Is it?” Ethan said.
Jax hurried out at his normal, breath-stealing pace, but his head swiveled to admire the replay of the flawless orbital collisions as he passed the screens.
Ethan let himself be drawn in as well. A video feed with the latest on the West Africa Launcher arrived in his comm soon after.
Maurie, the Sadou Corporation subcontractor lead for the launcher, spoke with one of his TCG staff about plans for future launches. Seeing her face expanded on the screen and watching how she moved as she spoke, she reminded him of Chummy, but corporate’s racial-understanding training warned him not to ever say that aloud. One was not supposed to acknowledge how racial similarities could make oneself face-blind. He was going to need to have side-by-side photos of her and other dark-skinned subcontractors prepared for him to study before meetings. He’d really thought he was better at facial recognition than that. But Maurie’s nose and her ears really did look very much like Chummy’s. Delight shone in her face combined with a raw confidence he envied. Those expressions reminded him of the human resources executive too.
A ping informed him that Jax had delivered the details on their relationship with the launcher corporation.
He checked the contract terms and suppressed a growl. No wonder she was delighted. The Sadou Corporation was on track to make a small fortune supplying their space rock before the tether cable came down. And those payments would grow toward a large fortune in time, because TCG would keep them well funded for their support in clearing low Earth orbit of space junk from now until eternity. Of course, they’d help TCG make an even larger fortune.
He approved a bonus payment on top of the contracted amount.
And he sent a demand to the lawyers. Review the contract. Find out what we can do to protect this supplier. And, also do another search for what TCG could legally do to create some competitors that he could use if he had to. He considered the word supplier for a moment and deleted it. Service provider. Pressed send.
Message replies blinked into his inbox within minutes. It was good to be in charge.
The protections weren’t needed. And the competitor options were severely limited unless the Sadous breached the contract, which, one of the lawyers pointed out, TCG needed them not to do because it would seriously delay the elevator construction. That one suggested a check with logistical analysis if the company wanted to prepare alternative plans for debris clearance.
Ethan reviewed those alternative plans again, and this time he did let himself growl. Those other options were tiny specialty companies with limited capacity and slow response options to urgent issues. Or they were governments, which were worse. Ethan did not want to owe a government for the safety of the elevator. Governments were filled with people who wanted to control things, tax things, and transfer money from TCG to inefficient projects designed to please voters rather than customers and corporate shareholders.
He tuned back into the discussion between his staff and Maurie, sliding the chrono bar back to catch the discussion from the beginning and then hopping forward over pleasantries when each side wasted time expressing mutual respect and appreciation and so forth. Small talk in international business was annoying enough without the translators; he was glad to see the whole discussion conducted in English.
The team on his side was effusive. Far too effusive. He’d have to have a word with them. Yes, yes, the launcher team had done what they’d been contracted to do and come in ahead of schedule, but they were being paid for it. His staff didn’t have to act like it was a vital part of the work or like they were in any way part of the elevator construction team.
“About supplies,” his rep was saying, “do you think you could make those adjustments in the specs we sent over and increase supply deliveries to our tether-point station?”
“Ah, yes,” Maurie replied, “our techs have gone through your packet. Thank you for that and the technician-to-technician connections, by the way.”
“No problem at all. Whatever we need to do to make the project a success.”
“I understand,” Maurie acknowledged. “And I do think we can do it. I want us to start with some more stable supplies, not just water, but maybe special parts packed in additive manufacturing dust. It’ll be carbons, of course.”
“Right. A useful delivery with a proof-of-concept test built in to see if the forces are gentle enough for more fragile payloads.”
Maurie nodded. “Yes, exactly our thoughts. We’ve got the test set for the second launch if you can confirm the station side is ready to receive.”
“Absolutely. We’ll make that happen.”
Ethan stared at his display in horror. This was a recorded discussion. He keyed his screen over, and confirmed. Yes. That station supply launch was already in the air.
Cheers and thumping of feet resounded from down the hall. So much for soundproofing. And he’d take that to mean his carbon dust supplier and sole effective debris cleaner company had also just become a finished parts and edibles supplier as well.
Ethan didn’t want to like that. But…it was working, and the contract terms didn’t allow the supplier to spike up the prices they charged him. The Sadou Corporation, the lawyers noted, did have the strongest negotiating position now, when they’d proved they could deliver and while TCG needed them most. But they’d asked for no increases.
It was downright honorable. It was as if these people thought the world was actually like the rosy reality Chummy pretended existed all the time. And that thought triggered the cascade of deductions which let Ethan Schmidt-Li finally figure out how he’d been used.
“So, you gave your cousin’s family a sweetheart deal, Chummy?” Ethan said to himself. “What do you suppose Mr. Jeffy is going to think of that?”