Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [184]
"See the third man from the left, Darnell?" Polyon spoke into the vidcom while the images unreeled. "He used to be High Families. Now he's a Shemali assembly worker. How are the mighty fallen, eh?"
He cut the connection on that—an implied threat was ever so much more effective than a specific one. Actually, Polyon had no idea who the masked workers on the line might be. They were the scum of the prison system, the expendables who had neither tech training nor business sense to justify keeping them in the safer areas of design and preprocessing. And while there was indeed a High Families convict on Shemali, the man had been sent there for a particularly revolting series of crimes involving the torture of small children. Polyon didn't really think he could frame Darnell for something like that and make it stick; anybody would see the rich boy didn't have the guts to torture anybody.
But I won't need to, will I? The threat will be enough to keep old Darnell in line.
The last call was to Fassa. He was lucky enough to catch her in person. Polyon enjoyed the sight of Fassa's eyes widening while he explained in detail just how unhappy he felt about the collapse of his new metachip assembly building, how personally hurt he was to discover that Polo Construction had supplied the substandard materials used in the building, and exactly what he might do to assuage his sense of loss and betrayal. The only trouble with the live connection, Polyon thought, was that he didn't get to finish outlining the list of things he could do to Polo Construction as a company and to Fassa personally. Before he was half through, she was stammering apologies and practically begging to be allowed to rebuild the assembly facility. Free of charge, naturally.
Polyon graciously accepted the offer.
Just one more item of business to clear up. "Send in 4987832," he commanded.
A few minutes later, a pale-faced man in the prison uniform of green coveralls came into the office. He gave Polyon a confident smile. "Thought it over, have you?"
"I most certainly have," Polyon agreed. He smiled and shrugged with palms outspread. "Can't say I'm altogether happy about the idea—but I see you leave me no choice. You're a clever fellow, 4987832. Who were you, before?"
"James Masson," the prisoner said. "Head of research for Zectronics—you've heard of them? No? Well, it's a large galaxy. But it so happens I personally directed the metachip design effort there. That's how I happened to recognize the changes you've introduced in the chips."
"My hyperchips will be faster and more powerful than the old metachips by at least two orders of magnitude," Polyon said. "They'll revolutionize the industry. It didn't take any genius to recognize that. The genius was in figuring out how to do it."
"And that's not all the hyperchips will do, is it, de Gras-Waldheim? Industry isn't the only thing about to suffer a . . . revolution."
Polyon inclined his head slightly. "You'll have a glass of Stemerald with me, to celebrate our arrangement?"
Masson's eyes widened and he licked his lips. "Why, I haven't tasted Stemerald in—in—well, it must be ten years! Not since I came here! I must say, de Gras-Waldheim, I didn't think you'd take our little arrangement so well."
Polyon's back was to Masson as he poured out the Stemerald