Before Anson’s stubborn-faced image could reply, Joanna clicked off the connection. I’ll give her a wedding gift, she said to herself grimly. And then I’ll send her to our African division and let her play with the tse-tse flies for the rest of her career.
She didn’t have to call up the list of waiting messages to know that Greg was impatient to talk with her. He had flown in from Kiribati, fully expecting his mother to name him the new director of Moonbase. Greg has his own sources inside the board of directors, Joanna realized. He knows I’ve been planting the seeds for him.
Over the years, the space operations division had become the tail that wagged the corporate dog. Sales of new Clippership models were the mainstay of the corporation’s profits. When Clippership sales were strong, the stockholders received dividends. When Clippership sales sagged, workers were laid off. But the orbital manufacturing end of the space division had never broken clearly into the black. Even with raw materials supplied by Moonbase, the metal alloys and Pharmaceuticals produced in the space stations were still too expensive to compete in the marketplace, except for the Windowalls, and even their profits were declining as the market for them saturated.
Joanna and the board of directors had looked into several reorganization plans that would separate the Clippership production from the orbital manufacturing work. A dozen bright young executives wanted to be named head of the Clippership program; nobody wanted to be stuck with orbital manufacturing.
Well, Joanna told herself, if Greg can actually find the strength to shut down Moonbase, all our orbital manufacturing will go down the drain with it, except for the Windowalls, and their costs will jump. Paul’s dream will be dead. But maybe it will be for the best. I’ve given it nearly twenty years; how long can I keep on hoping for a miracle?
And there was even more trouble with the nanotechnology division, which was also tottering on the brink of collapse. Nanomachines were used on the Moon to produce water and build solar cells, but their uses on Earth had been slowed to a crawl by government regulations and a massive public relations campaign of demonstrations and protests, based on ignorance and hysterical fear, in Joanna’s view. Medical applications of nanomachines had been brought to a standstill by so-called safety regulations, although those who were rich enough went to nations such as Switzerland; the Swiss government’s regulations did not apply to foreigners, especially very rich foreigners, who quietly bought their nanotherapies there.
Joanna herself had been toying with the idea of accepting nanomachines to keep her arteries clear of plaque. And there was always the temptation to use the bugs to tighten up sagging muscles, renew wrinkled skin, even break up fatty deposits and harmlessly flush them out of the body.
Kris Cardenas had gotten herself into legal hot water by using nanobugs on herself to restore her failing eyesight. No glasses, no contact lenses, no surgery. The bugs restored her natural lenses to their youthful flexibility and strengthened the muscles that controlled them. Twenty-twenty vision, from only a few injections over a three-week period. Followed by three years of hounding by government lawyers and endless hearings in courts and the Canadian parliament. And Cardenas had all the prestige and authority of a Nobel Prize backing her.
Joanna shook all that out of her thoughts as she phoned the chief of the Space Operations division and asked him to come to her office.
“Why not use the virtual reality system?” Ibriham Rashid asked playfully.
Joanna was not amused. “Omar, you’re no more than fifty yards down the hall from me. Get your butt over here. In person.”
“Now?” he teased.
“At your earliest convenience,” Joanna answered, with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
“Harkening and obedience,” said Rashid.
Ibriham Muhammed al-Rashid had been born in Baltimore, third son of second-generation Palestinian-Americans. For all of his forty-two years he had balanced a firm belief in Islam with a firm belief that science and technology were gifts of Allah to help men in their struggle for existence. From his earliest childhood it was apparent that he was extremely intelligent and even more extremely motivated to rise high in the world. Johns Hopkins and MIT honed his intelligence. And his diplomatic skills. At school he was quickly dubbed ’Omar the Tentmaker.” Instead of becoming angry at the derogatory nickname, Rashid turned it into a badge of honor.
His career with Masterson Aerospace had been little short of meteoric. As head of the space operations division, he knew that the corporate knives were being sharpened behind his back. Space operations was the corporation’s largest division, thanks to the Clipperships, a profitable cash cow that various reorganization plans sought to carve up into smaller sections and remove from Rashid’s control. He resisted those attempts with a mixture of deft corporate maneuvering and unfailing loyalty from his division staff. He also used his urbane charm wherever it would do the most good — especially with the chairwoman of the board.
Joanna enjoyed his attentions, as she did those of Carlos Quintana and several others. It amused her to watch the male ego at work, and to manipulate their testosterone-driven ambitions toward goals of her own choosing.
Rashid stepped into Joanna’s office and looked around appreciatively. He was short and compact in build, rather like Paul, thought Joanna, although slimmer. A trim black beard framing his oval face, Rashid had movie-star looks: huge soulful dark brown eyes and a smile to die for. He was smiling now as he sat in the delicate little loveseat, facing Joanna’s personal chair.
“Desert golds and tans,” he said, noticing the decor. “And a scent of jasmine. Are you trying to make me homesick?”
Joanna laughed, “for Baltimore?”
“Racial memory,” Rashid bantered. “Jung claimed that we all have primitive memories stored in our subconscious minds.”
“Maybe my ancestry goes back to the desert,” Joanna said. “I like this color scheme. And I love the Southwest.”
“Arabs prefer cities. My people are great architects.”
Joanna decided they had chatted enough. Time to get down to business. “Omar, how would you feel if I suggested that my son Greg be the next director of Moonbase?”
Rashid did not seem surprised. He eased one arm across the back of the loveseat and crossed his legs. “O’Rourke is slated for that position.”
“I know, but…’ She let the sentence dangle.
“O’Rourke is very competent. Unimaginative, true, but very competent.”
“I asked Jinny if she’d stay on until the polar expedition came back and she refused,” Joanna said.
The slightest of tics twitched at the comer of Rashid’s mouth. “You should have spoken to me first. I would have told you she’d refuse. She’s going to be married.” His voice was soft, yet Joanna heard his disapproval. She had gone over his head to speak directly to Anson.
“My other son’s out there at the south pole with Brennart.”
“Yes, I am aware of that.”
“I don’t like the idea of changing base directors while the expedition’s out there.”
Rashid shrugged elaborately. “It really makes almost no difference whatsoever. The base director is in no position to help or harm the expedition.”
“Really?”
“The expedition is rather self-sufficient. Brennart knows what he’s doing.”
“Even with one of the cargo ships crashed?”
Again the shrug. “They’ll resupply earlier than scheduled. It’s not a major problem.”
“So you don’t think Anson’s leaving will be a problem?”
“Of course not. If I did, she wouldn’t be leaving, believe me.”
Joanna studied his handsome face. Rashid seemed completely at ease, totally confident.