Custodian

CUSTODIAN

Les Broad

Published by Les Broad at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Les Broad

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CUSTODIAN

1.

It is my pleasure and privilege to present this, the one hundredth, indeed the centenary, report of The Deep Space Minerals Supply Company, known since its formation in 1919, as a very different company to today’s, affectionately and simply as Misco.

The speaker was a woman in her thirties, perhaps late thirties, calm, self-assured and confident in both her intelligence and appearance. She was speaking into a camera, knowing that her words and her face were being transmitted around the world and into space. Any living human being could, if he so chose, watch her. The possibility of being listened to by billions of people didn't faze her in the slightest.

"For those who might not know, my name is Agnetta Lingstrom and I am head of public relations for Misco. I was appointed after the untimely death of my predecessor, Paul Buleko, just a few months ago. Paul will be badly missed by all of us at Misco and his death has cast a shadow over what has been another record year for the company.

"Our continuing programme of investment in technology has proved yet again that it is the only way we can keep up with demand. Our carrier ships are faster, our extraction techniques are more efficient and our customers are, as a result, still more than happy with our service. We have always supplied Earth, of course, and the settlements on Mars. Our regular services to the more recent settlements on the moons of Jupiter are appreciated by those working there because they are totally reliable.

"More than that, we have in the last few years begun serving the colonists in what has become known as the E- Beta system. Although over five light years away, our faster than light speed ships take only a few weeks to make the return journey, something which even five years ago would have been impossible.

So what does this mean for Misco investors? We are proud of our record of never having reduced our profit distribution and this year we have been able to increase the distribution, in monetary terms, by over 7% even after reserving sufficient to cover our investment plans.

Sitting in his London office Frederick Stimpson, the Chairman of Misco, turned off his television and grunted. Also in the room were the operations director, Walt Wright, and the finance director Jennie Randall. Stimpson was over sixty, tall, and strongly built. He enjoyed massive power and influence with Government because of his huge company's importance to the development of new settlements away from Earth. Walt Wright was a little younger, a little smaller, but conveyed a sense of ruthless menace under his easy going exterior.

Jennie Randall seemed out of place with the other two. A slight, dark haired woman appearing still to be in her twenties, she dressed sharply while her colleagues seemed uninterested in appearance. She was an accountant but her real value to Misco was in her ability to keep the company in a permanent state of transition, moving operations and assets between subsidiaries with bewildering speed and, as a consequence, making it impossible for outsiders to assess the true extent of Misco's activities and its profits. She had built a web of over a thousand interconnected companies with ever-changing ownership, which included hundreds of trusts and several charitable companies. It had been Randall who had argued, successfully, that companies operating entirely away from Earth should not be subject to taxes imposed by Earth Governments but should instead be taxed by the jurisdictions in which they operated, even if they operated under no effective jurisdiction at all. Her reasoned arguments had been accepted, nobody realising that the fiscal sleight of hand behind those arguments actually reduced the overall tax take from Misco's apparent profits from over 30% to less than 5%. She hadn't reacted at all to the face on TV, nor its pronouncements. The same was certainly not true of her male companions.

She's good. An improvement on Buleko. Wright's observation seemed casual.

She has to be, his Chairman responded, she knows what's at stake.

Didn't Buleko?

He did. But he displayed a tendency to think for himself. It was, um, unfortunate.

But we can carry on, I suppose?

We can, Walt. You keep digging it up and the rest follows. Jennie's got all the bases covered. It would take anyone from the Revenue Service five years to find out how this company operates and even then they'd be out of date. Right, Jennie? She just nodded. Confidently.

OK, so you can deal with the numbers well enough. Any point me hanging on here? I've got crews out in the asteroid belt getting hell beaten out of them and I need to see for myself what's going on.

I think you should stay a couple of days. Let's see what reaction we get to our good time gal's upbeat message.

OK, if I must. Why good time gal?

Come on, Walt. Why d'you think our press has been better since Buleko was replaced? Agnetta says all the right things, like 'be gentle with my company' every time she slides under a journalist. Pays dividends.

And we need all the good PR we can get. We've all got to remember that and be like Frederick, always smiling when we're on public view. Remember that, Walt.

If I'd wanted to be with a nagging woman I'd have stayed at home. Wright's tone was grumpy, but he smiled at Jennie as he spoke.

Look, it's just a blip, Stimpson said coldly, a temporary setback that won't even be remembered a couple of months from now.

A long, long way from London a rather different view was being taken. Steve Abrahams lolled in a low armchair in the editor's office of the Interplanetary News Network in Sydney, reacting more than a little cynically to the saccharine sweetness oozing from the image of Agnetta Lingstrom on the huge TV his editor insisted on having. Jack Farmer, the editor and effective head of the network, sat impassively, giving nothing of his thoughts away. Abrahams was his best investigative reporter and Farmer was feeling smug. He knew the bait was being taken. The room's only other occupant was Hazel Pollecoff, who worked exclusively with Abrahams to bring out a lot of stories other people would prefer not to see told.

Abrahams was forty, greying a little, but tall and fit. Pollecoff was shorter, dark haired and stern looking, although when she chose to smile her face changed completely to convey relaxed, guileless innocence. She could turn it on at will. Nobody spoke while Misco's new head of PR talked on.

The silence in the room continued after she had finished, and after Farmer flicked the TV off. Hazel Pollecoff had decided to say nothing and was content to wait for someone else to start. Farmer had made up his mind that the ball was best left in Abrahams's court. He fiddled with his gold ball point, the slow series of clicks being the only sound.

So? Abrahams finally asked

So what?

Come on, Jack, you didn't drag me in here for no reason, or Hazel. We watched Misco's broadcast then you turn the TV off. Something bothering you?

Nothing bothers you about Misco?

I'm no fan of Stimpson, he thinks he can do anything he likes and get away with it. But the company? It does what it sets out to do.

OK, I'm getting tired of playing cat and mouse with you. I heard rumours. First I heard that Paul Buleko's death might not have been entirely accidental. Second I heard that one time three ships, all ore carriers, left for the asteroid belt and came back a week late. Thing is, one wasn't one of the ships that left.

What's it to do with us?

Paul Buleko was a good guy, always played straight with us. If there's something not right we owe it to him to find out. The story about the ships might have some truth in it too, happened about the same time.

There's a problem, Jack, Hazel interjected, causing both men to look at her as if they'd forgotten she was there, I'm here, Steve's here, so I guess you're angling for us to take Misco on. I'd be game except that we did that piece in Africa and our faces are pretty well known. We start digging into Misco we wouldn't last five minutes.

Depends on the angle we take, Abrahams said, sitting up. If we accept the news according to Misco at face value they come across as a sort of benevolent omnipotence. They couldn't object to us doing a piece to project that image if it shows INN supporting the company.

OK, do it, Farmer instructed without giving in to the fit of laughter he was trying to suppress, take a few days, get away somewhere, plan how you'll tackle it. I want to know what you intend to do before you do it, you don't want to tangle with Misco if they even suspect you're trying to undermine them.

His two visitors got up and left, finally allowing Farmer to sit and chuckle quietly to himself. Frederick, he thought, your comeuppance is on its way.

Abrahams and Pollecoff left the INN building, stopping only to collect a videotape of the Misco broadcast and for Abrahams to ask an INN administrative assistant to book the two of them into the Fifty Five Pines, a secluded little beachside hotel 200 kilometres south. He let Pollecoff drive, first to the city centre hotel he'd checked into and then to her apartment. With bags packed and in the car, Pollecoff drove them out of Sydney.

Abrahams was asleep before they'd shaken off the last of the suburbs, giving Pollecoff the chance to think. Misco was, she knew, the biggest corporation on Earth and Frederick Stimpson was probably the wealthiest man. Most of his history was well enough known but she realised she didn't know where he'd spent his life before joining Misco at, she thought, about 27. Now she actually thought about it she didn't know anything at all about Walt Wright or Jennie Randall, the only other executive directors of Misco. Whatever might be available could be accessed through INN's computers once they reached wherever they were going. She thought hard but could remember seeing nothing at all, ever, that showed Misco in a bad light. No company had ever been that good. Another person she knew nothing about was the new head of PR, Agnetta Lingstrom. So where had she come from? Had Paul Buleko had a deputy? She couldn't remember, Paul had seemed to be ever-present, always available wherever anybody wanted him. Come to think of it, he'd screened the three main players totally from any direct media exposure. If he hadn't died accidentally, and the details that had been released of the accident were pretty sketchy, what really had happened? Maybe there was something worth investigating after all.

She moved her mental processes on to the story of the ore ships. Three went out, three came back. But one was apparently a different ship. Several questions leapt out at her.

What happened to the original? Where did the replacement come from? Was the same crew on board? What about the crews on the other two ships, did they notice anything?

Did it really matter anyway? She thought she could answer that last question. If a crew left Earth on one ship and came back on another, maybe it didn't. But if that crew left and a different crew came back it might well matter. So, that produced a few more questions. Who were the crew? Did they have family, friends, on Earth? Who chose the crews for these trips? The more she thought the more questions cropped up. Of course it all hinged on whether Farmer's information was right and although he was usually reliable he'd been misled before. Just once, but it nearly killed his career.

The Fifty Five Pines turned out to be as appealing as Hazel Pollecoff had expected. Abrahams had roused himself as the car swung off the highway and seemed visibly more relaxed now that they were out of the city. Climbing out of the car Pollecoff noticed the silence. She could hear the odd bird but there was none of the constant drone of land and air traffic that made even small towns, to Pollecoff's mind, unbearable. She was happily drinking in the silence outside as Abrahams checked them in.

OK, she heard him say as he came back out, We've got a beachside bungalow all to ourselves.

Take that lascivious look off your face. It had better have two bedrooms. I can think of a million things I'd rather see on the pillow when I wake up than your ugly face.

Yeah, OK, I know. Just as well there's plenty who think differently.

They jibed away at each other, unmaliciously, until they reached the bungalow right on the beach. Settling in was an easy task and within ten minutes Abrahams was busying himself brewing coffee. As he did so he spotted his colleague wandering, bikini-clad, onto the beach. He watched her approvingly.

Pollecoff spread a large towel out on the expanse of flat, white sand and gazed up into the clear sky. She was still staring when Abrahams sat down next to her and handed her a mug of freshly ground coffee.

What do you think Misco really do up there that's worth so much money?

They dig up minerals, process them and sell them, Abrahams replied, and they manage to do it well enough to make huge amounts of money.

OK, that's the official line. But I've got more questions than I've got answers.

Like?

Like, how come Misco were first, before even the military, to fly faster than light speed ships? Like, where did this Agnetta Lingstrom come from? Like, if there really was a different ship in that set of three where did it come from and where's the original?

Good questions. About the ships, I don't know. My contacts in the military don't know anything about Misco’s research facilities either but insist there was no leak of military technology. As for Miss Lingstrom, well, I intend to find out. Maybe she'll appreciate the finely honed features of an experienced journalist - you know, the ones that leave you cold.

"It's one way of finding out,