“So what have you come up with?” Al asked as they sat in the chairs which gave them a splendid view out across the bay.

Leroy put a slim black case down on the coffee table in front of him, resting a proud hand on it. “I took a look at the basics of what money is all about, Al, and tried to see how it could apply to our situation.”

“Money is just something you screw out of other people, right, Silvano?” Al laughed.

Leroy gave an indulgent smile. “That’s about it, Al. Money is principally a fancy method of accounting, it shows you how much other people owe you. The beauty of it is you can use it to collect that debt in a thousand different ways, that’s how come money always grows out of a barter economy. Individual currencies are just a measure of the most universal commodity. It use to be gold, or land, something which never changed. The Confederation uses energy, which is why the fuseodollar is the base currency, because it’s linked to He3 production, and those costs are fixed and universal.”

Al sat back, materialized a Havana, and took a deep drag. “Thanks for the history lesson, Leroy. Get to the point.”

“The method of accounting isn’t so important, whether you use old-fashioned notes and coins or a Jovian Bank disk, it doesn’t matter. What you must establish is the nature of the debt itself, the measure of what you owe. In this case it’s so simple I could kick myself for not thinking of it straight off.”

“Someone’s gonna kick you, Leroy, for sure. And pretty quick. What debt?”

“An energistic one. An act of magic, you promise to pay someone whatever they want.”

“For Christ’s sake, that’s crazy,” Al said. “What’s the sense in someone owing me a chunk of magic when I can work my own? The original New California economy went ass backwards in the first place because we got this ability.”

Leroy’s grin became annoyingly wide. Al let him get away with it because he could see how tight and excited the fat manager’s thoughts were. He’d certainly convinced himself he was right.

“You can, Al,” Leroy said. “But I can’t. This is a not-so-rhetorical question, but how are you going to pay me for all this work I’ve been doing for you? Sure you’ve got the threat of possession to hold me with, but you need my talent, have me possessed and you don’t get that. But put me on a salary and I’m yours for life. For a day’s work you promise to do five minutes of magic for me; manifest a good suit or a copy of the Mona Lisa, whatever I ask for. But it doesn’t have to be you who owes me for the day; I can take the token, or promise, or whatever, and go to any possessed for my magic to be performed.”

Al chewed around his cigar. “Let me get this straight, here, Leroy. Any schmuck with one of your chocolate dime tokens can come along and ask me to make them a set of gold-plated cutlery anytime they want?”

“Not anytime, no, Al. But it’s the simplest principle of all: you do something for me, I do something for you. Like I said, it’s exchanging and redeeming debt. Don’t think of it on such a personal level. We’ve been wondering how to keep the non-possessed working for the possessed, this is the answer: You’ll pay them, but you pay them in whatever they want.”

Al glanced over at Jezzibella, who shrugged. “I can’t see a flaw in the idea,” she said. “How are you going to measure it, Leroy? Surely the possessed will be able to counterfeit any currency?”

“Yes. So we don’t use one.” He opened his bag and took out a small processor block, matt-black with a gold Thompson sub-machine gun embossed on one side. “Like I said, money is all accounting. We use a computer memory to keep track of what’s owed to whom. You want your magic doing for you, then the computer shows how much you’re entitled to. Same for the reverse; if you’re a possessed it shows how much work the non-possessed have been doing for you. We just set up a planetary bank, Al, keep a ledger on everyone.”

“I must be crazy even listening to this. Me? You want me to run a bank? The First National Al Capone Bank? Jesus H Christ, Leroy!”

Leroy held up the black processor block to stress the argument. “That’s the real beauty of it, Al. It makes the Organization utterly indispensable. The soldiers are the ones who are going to enforce and regulate payment on the ground. They make it fair, they make the whole economy slide along smoothly. We don’t have to force or threaten anyone anymore, at least not on the scale we have been doing with the SD network. We don’t put taxes on the economy, like other governments; we become the economy. And there’s nothing to stop the possessed using the system themselves. There are a lot of jobs too big for one individual. It can work, Al. Really it can.”

“I scratch your back, you scratch mine,” Al said. He eyed the black processor block suspiciously. Leroy handed it over. “Did Emmet help with this accounting machine?” Al asked curiously. Apart from the gold emblem it could have been carved from a lump of coal for all he knew.

“Yes, Al, he designed it, and the ledger program. He says that the only way a possessed guy can tamper with it is if he gets into the computer chamber, which is why he wants to base it on Monterey. We’re already making it the Organization headquarters; this will cement the deal.”

Al scaled the electric gadget back on the table. “Okay, Leroy. I see you’ve busted your balls to do good work for me here. So I’ll tell you what we’ll do; I’ll grab all my senior lieutenants for a meeting in Monterey in two days time, see what they make of it. If they buy it, I’m behind you all the way. How does that sound?”

“Achievable.”

“I like you, Leroy. You setting up any more tours for me?”

Leroy flicked a fleeting glance at Jezzibella, who gave him a tiny shake of her head. “No, Al; Merced is the last for a while. It’s more important you’re up at Monterey for a while now, what with the next stage just about ready.”

“Goddamn, am I glad to hear that.”

Leroy smiled contentedly, and put the accountancy block back in his slim case. “Thanks for listening, Al.” He stood.

“No problem. I’ll just have a word with Silvano, here, then the pair of you can get back into space.”

“Sure, Al.”

“So?” Al asked when Leroy had left.

“It ain’t my concern, Al,” Silvano said. “If that’s the way you wanna do it, then fine by me. I admit, we gotta have some kinda dough around here, else things are gonna start falling apart pretty damn fast. We can only keep people in line with the SD platforms for so long.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Al waved a discontented hand. Money for magic, Je-zus, even the numbers racket was more honest than that. He stared at his lieutenant; if it hadn’t been for the ability to sense emotions there would have been no way for him to work out what was going on behind that Latino poker face. But Silvano was eager about something. “So what do you want? And it better be good fucking news.”

“I think it may be. Somebody came back from beyond who had some interesting information for us. He’s an African type, name of Ambar.” Silvan smiled at the memory. “He wound up in a blond Ivy League body, man was he pissed about that; it’s taking up a lot of effort to turn himself into a true brother again.”

“Now there’s someone who could cash in a potload of Leroy’s tokens,” Jezzibella said innocently. She popped another Turkish delight in her mouth, and winked at Al as Silvano scowled.

“Right,” Al chuckled. “What did he want to trade?”

“He’s only been dead thirty years,” Silvano said. “Came from a planet called Garissa, said it got blown away, the whole damn world. Some kind of starship attack that used antimatter. Don’t know whether to believe him or not.”

“You know anything about that?” Al asked Jezzibella.

“Sure, baby, I nearly did a concept album on the Garissa Genocide once. Too depressing, though. It happened all right.”