Thirty
THIRTY
They went into Uchi’s office and closed the door. The director dropped into a comfortable chair and loosened his necktie, but Martim remained standing, grimacing with chagrin. “Was I really that obvious, sir?” He thought he’d come off as calm and collected throughout the entire meeting.
“Not obvious at all,” Uchi said lightly, lacing his hands behind his head, his sharp elbows jutting to either side.
“But I can tell when you’re upset. You get a tight little frown on your face for a second, like you took a bite of something that tastes like shit but you’re too polite to spit it out.
It’s a small thing, but it’s noticeable. ”
Martim was mortified. “I didn’t realize that.”
Uchi shrugged. “Most people have unconscious habits that reveal what they’d rather not share. I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, so I’ve had more practice noticing them.”
“I’ll fix it,” Martim promised.
The director chuckled. “You know, you remind me so much of myself when I was younger. I was such an anal-retentive striver. I’ve mellowed out a lot over the years, if you can believe it.”
“Honestly, I can’t, sir,” Martim said. The director’s meticulous attention to detail, his obsession with incremental gains, and the workaholism he’d instilled throughout SoCon GasPro were legendary.
On a personal level, he subjected himself to the same unforgiving discipline that he expected of his division—he adhered to a strict nutrition and exercise regime, kept his office pristinely organized, was always well groomed and impeccably well dressed.
Today, he was wearing a classic single-breasted, peak-lapel navy tweed jacket over a white twill shirt and gray angora wool sweater-vest that probably, Martim thought enviously, cost more than two months of his rent.
“That’s a great coat, by the way,” Uchi said. “It is Gianno biowool?”
“Thank you, sir,” Martim said stiffly. “It’s nuwool, but it’s still Gianno.”
“Merciful Mother, you are pissed,” Uchi said. “You don’t think I should’ve fired that blowhard Anders?”
“Of course you should’ve fired him, but not today, and definitely not like that .
” Martim’s face warmed with righteous indignation, but he had to quell the twitchy, nervous feeling he got every time he stood in front of the director to disagree with him.
It was Martim’s job, as atier, to counsel his client—including pointing out times when Uchi’s actions or words were unwise and ran counter to his aims and interests—but it still felt dangerous.
He was well aware that he was a twenty-eight-year-old pardo deckhand kid speaking to a powerful Company leader with decades more experience.
There didn’t seem to be any reason at all for Uchi to take Martim’s opinions seriously.
Except that he did . Uchi respected his longtime colleagues like Fox Wilson who weren’t afraid to be blunt and honest with him, but he also seemed to want and value the opinions of an untested young atier.
At first, it had seemed inexplicable, to Martim as well as everyone else, but by now, Martim understood why his position was unique.
“You should’ve had me fire Anders quietly after the meeting,” Martim pointed out.
“It’s my job as your atier to handle those sorts of risky situations.
With everything else going on, no one would’ve noticed for days, not until Ivy Lim started showing up in meetings instead of her boss.
Instead, you made a giant spectacle of getting rid of him during the emergency meeting that occurred right after the Field 93 disaster, which means there will be rampant speculation from outside the division that his ouster is somehow connected to the accident instead of his own incompetence.
” Martim paused, expecting his client to say something, but Uchi kept looking at him silently.
Martim took a deep breath and plowed on.
“You heard Anders loud and clear—he’s threatening to retaliate.
He’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that you either knew there was a large risk the airshield would come down but that you ignored the warnings, or that you outright ordered our field managers to cut life support and kill the strikers. ”
“Who would believe that?” Uchi scoffed.
“It doesn’t matter how unbelievable it is, there are people who will try to make it stick.” The director’s success and political prominence made him an undeniable target. Even Uchi didn’t appreciate how much the spaceheads hated him.
“What about you, Martim?” Uchi’s gaze was sharp. “What do you believe?”
“I believe there was a complicated combination of factors.”
“Spoken like a savvy atier,” Uchi said, “but don’t you want to know exactly how the airshield came down?”
“Good Lord, no ,” Martim answered quickly. “For your own protection, if things get really ugly and I’m ever interrogated by your enemies or Company investigators or even by the Agency, it’s better if I don’t.”
Part of Martim was curious. How far would his client go, when backed against the wall?
With his most productive gas field lying idle, threatened by intransigent enemies who opposed the terraformist cause as fiercely as he believed in it—would he take drastic action?
Yes. But would he sacrifice over a hundred lives, including those of his own loyalists?
The amorality of the Code is its morality. The voice of Martim’s mentor, Isthmus Isako, spoke up in his head. A good atier serves without moral judgment and without their own bias getting in the way of duty.
Martim said, “What I want, sir, is to make sure that this tragic accident in Field 93 doesn’t jeopardize your leadership of SoCon GasPro or your chances of being nominated to the Board of Directors. Firing Anders just made that harder, because he could turn into a problem. Also, it was mean .”
That last part wasn’t really relevant. Martim wasn’t sure why it slipped out, except that it was true , and it bothered him, because until half a year ago, Elm Anders had been dependable and hardworking, good enough to be brought onto Uchi’s leadership team.
But the director had no patience or compassion for people when their performance was plummeting; they were as useless to him as broken tools.
It made Martim queasy to think that, just like Anders, and like the other contractors Uchi had dismissed in the past, he, too, could end up being disposable, if he wasn’t able to live up to his client’s expectations.
That was the reality of being an atier, but what bothered him the most was that Uchi could be so quick and cold about it, that he could turn his back so easily.
That wasn’t going to happen, Martim reminded himself. Because he wasn’t going to fail.
Uchi sighed loudly and sagged into his chair, tilting his face up to the ceiling in a moment of uncharacteristic weariness.
“Maybe it wasn’t the best way to handle the situation,” he admitted with the grudging reluctance of an uncouth relative called out for making a tasteless joke at the dinner table.
“If it wasn’t for 93 going to shit… Look, I just can’t stand it when someone who’s supposed to be committed shows they can’t be relied upon when it really counts.
You’re right, though, I should’ve been more diplomatic. You’re much better at that.”
Martim said nothing. Diplomacy had been a simple matter of survival in his youth, growing up a middle child in a crowded house, sharing a room with three quarrelsome kithsiblings who wouldn’t hesitate to steal one another’s share of the food or use up the water allowance before the others got to the bathroom.
It still took Martim aback, the way Uchi, the eldest scion of an old kith, could barrel through the world with so little concern for causing offense or drawing ire.
“You’ve made your point, Martim. Sit down,” the director suggested.
Martim sat, relieved that Uchi had never expected him to sit zanshin, the way his mentor had forced him to during training. “We need to make sure Elm Anders doesn’t become a liability,” he insisted.
There was no one more dangerous than a former wageman with a grudge—Martim had been taught that in the Agency.
It was why trained longknivesmen served dismissal notices.
People who’d lost their place in the Company might do anything.
“Maybe we could admit you acted hastily in firing him. Like you said, it was a stressful time, so everyone will understand. Have him demoted to a lower role under a performance improvement plan for the next three months.”
Uchi banged a fist on the armrest of his chair. “We’re not giving him another role. I have absolutely no use for underperformers anywhere in my division. Let him waste oxygen somewhere else, if anyone will have him.”
“Okay, you’re right, we’re not doing that,” Martim said, quickly reconsidering.
It was too risky to give Anders any access to SoCon GasPro facilities or information.
After the man’s public humiliation and mistreatment, the potential for sabotage was too great.
Martim berated himself silently for making the foolish suggestion in a moment of sympathetic weakness, without really thinking.
Maybe the sleep deprivation really was getting to him.
“But we do need to keep him quiet, somehow,” Martim insisted.
“Anders finding a new position and taking his knowledge of SoCon GasPro to one of your enemies is the least of our concerns. He could easily make himself out to be a defector, someone who was fired for objecting to your handling of the Field 93 situation. There are people who would pay him to talk to the press or testify in a Company hearing and otherwise make himself into an instrument of your downfall.”