EIGHT

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Eight men, all prosperous-looking, sat around a long table. Four, including the chairman, were there in person, and the others were holo images, projected from various parts of the galaxy.

All of them were experienced in long-range communications, so the various delays from their distant fellows was allowed for reflexively.

They were the division heads of the enormous Cerberus Systems, plus the chairman and chairman emeritus.

Cerberus was headquartered on Alegria IV, one of Alegria 87's multiple worlds. Earth might have been the Alliance's ceremonial home, but Alegria was one of the half dozen planets where the working bureaucracy was located.

Alegria headquartered the Alliance military, plus Intelligence, which was why Cerberus had been sited there.

Cerberus's CEO was fairly young, in his forties. Since his hostile takeover, he had sent the sprawling security company into newer, more "activist"

directions. Never known for its high ethics, Cerberus was now famed—or rather, notorious—for being willing to accept any assignment, provided the fee was high enough and any broken laws could either be ignored, taken care of sub rosa, or blamed on erring employees.

Ral Tomkins prided himself on being self-made; a boast that was occasionally responded to, well out of Tomkins's hearing, as "damned correct, since no one else'll take credit for the little bugger."

His inheritance, close to a billion credits made in military scrap, was never alluded to.

"Success," Tomkins was fond of saying, "makes anything right."

Mostly, his fellow board members agreed with him. The company had a long tradition of skullduggery to support that belief.

The chairman emeritus had taken over the firm more than fifty years earlier, when he'd used his retirement funds and contacts within Alliance Intelligence to build a small private investigation company into an industrial giant.

He deliberately sat at the far end of the table from Tomkins. Eldad Yarb'ro's face held the residue of a thousand covert operations, and as many sins.

All of them, he was privately arrogant enough to boast, had been carefully concealed, as were those crimes he'd committed building Cerberus.

There were those who, well out of Yarb'ro's hearing, repeated the old quip that the company motto should be "Never been indicted," although that wasn't quite true. "Never been convicted of anything that couldn't be settled, appealed, or buried" might have been closer.

"I think," one of the men said, "we can regard the Nahroo matter as closed. Miss Angress has accepted our offer, and will plead guilty, and the presiding trial officer has agreed the investigation will not be pursued to any higher level.

"Our client is most pleased."

He picked up another fiche, touched its surface, read, and then frowned.

"Another matter that, unfortunately, should be closed is the Porcellis affair. All of our efforts—either on behalf of the estranged members of the Rosewater-Jones family or in our own interests, which of course were never revealed to the family—have failed, and the candidates we had planned to further our interests are now in the hands of the originally intended party. I recommend that we distance ourselves from any further dealings with anyone and everyone in this regrettable case.

"I so move it."

Tomkins said, "Seconded," looked around the table, got nods. Cerberus sometimes gave the air of being democratically run. It was not, of course.

All dissension was resolved before any meeting.

"Carried," he said. "Although I'm most displeased by the loss of valuable resources and personnel in the matter. Move on."

"No," Yarb'ro said. "I don't think the matter should be dismissed at all, although I certainly agree that we should have no dealings with either the family or the world."

"What, then, are you saying?" Tomkins said, voice chill. There was little fondness between the two men.

"I'm referring to this miniscule organization that calls itself Star Risk that was our opponent in this matter. No more than five principals, yet again they've managed to cleverly bollix up the works," Yarb'ro said. "We have allowed them to do this time and again. This is absurd. Our reputation as a firm to be dealt with most carefully is potentially at stake.

"We've always prided ourselves in dealing swiftly and finally with any competition, yet these beings have been allowed to continue in their financially and otherwise embarrassing ways. There is a complete fiche available on their activities on the agenda, and any of you are welcome to review it, although I think the summary at the top of the file is adequate.

"I wish never to see their names again."

"And you propose?" came from one of Tomkins's lackeys. "What? An End Certificate on them?"

That was Cerberus's code phrase for assassination.

"I do not," Yarb'ro said. "We have been, as I've said before, too quick to extend our responses to the limit, which is not only unnecessary, but expensive and potentially lays Cerberus open to legal action.

"That is not necessary. I think that we should put full pressure on this firm, in all areas, to remove them from the field. I have an executive ready to coordinate this attempt, one of our more capable operatives named Nowotny. He has already been placed on standby."

Several of the men, or their images, nodded familiarity with the name.

Tomkins touched sensors on his desk, scanned the screen that appeared.

He looked up.

"You are certainly right about this Star Risk, and we don't need to waste time discussing how they should be dealt with. They may be no more than a gadfly, but even mites can be annoying, especially considering a future contract that promises quite incredible profits.

"It is time, and past time, to deal with them conclusively.

"I so order, and see no reason to waste our time with a vote."