The Silent War

EARTH: CHOTA MONASTERY, NEPAL

The first thing Nobuhiko Yamagata did once he returned to Earth following Humphries’s party was to visit his revered father, which meant an overnight flight in a corporate jet to Patna, on the Ganges, and then an arduous haul by tilt-rotor halfway up the snowy slopes of the Himalayas.

Saito Yamagata had founded the corporation in the earliest years of the space age and made it into one of the most powerful industrial giants in the world. It had been Saito’s vision that built the first solar power satellites and established factories in Earth orbit. It had been Saito who partnered with Dan Randolph’s Astro Corporation back in those primitive years when the frontier of human endeavor barely reached to the surface of the Moon.

When Nobuhiko was a young man, just starting to learn the intricacies of corporate politics and power, Saito was stricken with an inoperable brain tumor. Instead of stoically accepting his fate, the elder Yamagata had himself frozen, preserved cryonically in liquid nitrogen until medical science advanced enough to remove the tumor without destroying his brain.

Young Nobu, then, was in command of Yamagata Corporation when the greenhouse cliff plunged the world into global disaster. Japan was struck harder than most industrial nations by the sudden floods that inundated coastal cities and the mammoth storms that raged out of the ocean remorselessly. Earthquakes shattered whole cities, and tsunamis swept the Pacific. Many of the nations that sold food to Japan were also devastated by the greenhouse cliff. Croplands died in withering droughts or were carved away by roaring floods. Millions went hungry, and then tens of millions starved.

Still Saito waited in his sarcophagus of liquid nitrogen, legally dead yet waiting to be revived and returned to life.

Under Nobuhiko’s direction, Yamagata Corporation retreated from space and spent every bit of its financial and technical power on rebuilding Japan’s shattered cities. Meanwhile, he learned that he could use nanomachines to safely destroy the tumor in his father’s brain; the virus-sized devices could be programmed to take the tumor apart, molecule by molecule. Nanotechnology was banned on Earth; fearful mobs and acquiescent politicians had driven the world’s experts in nanotech off the Earth altogether. Nobu understood that he could bring his father’s preserved body to Selene and have the nanotherapy done there. But he decided against it.

He did not stay his hand because of the horrendous political pressures that would be brought to bear on Yamagata Corporation for using a technology that was illegal on Earth, nor even because of the moral and religious outcry against such a step—although Nobuhiko publicly blamed those forces for his decision. In truth, Nobu dreaded the thought of his father’s revival, fearing that his father would be displeased with the way he was running the corporation. Saito had never been an easy man to live with; his son was torn between family loyalty and his desire to keep the reins of power in his own hands.

In the end, family loyalty won. On the inevitable day when the corporation’s medical experts told Nobu that his father’s tumor could be safely removed without using nanomachines, Nobu felt he had no choice but to agree to the procedure.

The medical experts had also told him, with some reluctance, that although persons could be physically revived from cryonic suspension, their minds were usually as blank as a newborn baby’s. Long immersion at cryogenic temperature erodes the synaptic connections in the brain’s higher centers. No matter that the person was physically an adult, a cryonic reborn had to be toilet trained, taught to speak, to walk, to be an adult, all over again. And even then, the mind of the reborn would probably be different from the mind of the person who had gone into the cryonic suspension. Subtly different, perhaps, but Nobuhiko was warned not to expect his father to be exactly the same personality he’d been before he had died.

With some trepidation, Nobu had his father revived and personally supervised his father’s training and education, wondering if the adult that finally emerged from all this would be the same father he had known. Gradually, Saito’s mind returned. He was the same man. And yet not.

The first hint of Saito’s different personality came the morning that the psychologists finally pronounced their work was finished. Nobu brought his father to his office in New Kyoto. It had once been Saito’s office, the center of power for a world-spanning corporation.

Saito strode into the office alongside his son, beaming cheerfully until the door closed and they were alone.

He looked around curiously at the big curved desk, the plush chairs, the silk prints on the walls. “You haven’t changed it at all.”

Nobuhiko had carefully returned the office to the way it had been when his father was declared clinically dead.

Saito peered into his son’s eyes, studied his face for long, silent moments. “My god,” he said at last, “it’s like looking into a mirror.”

Indeed, they looked more like twin brothers than father and son. Both men were stocky, with round faces and deep-set almond eyes. Both wore western business suits of identical sky blue.

Saito threw back his head and laughed, a hearty, full-throated bellow of amusement. “You’re as old as I am!”

Automatically, Nobu replied, “But not as wise.”

Saito clapped his son on the shoulder. “They’ve told me about the problems you’ve faced. And dealt with. I doubt that I could have done better.”

Nobu stood in the middle of the office. His father looked just as he remembered him. It was something of a shock for Nobu to realize that he himself looked almost exactly the same.

Feeling nervous, uncertain, Nobu gestured toward the sweeping curve of the desk. “It’s been waiting for you, Father.”

Saito grew serious. “No. It’s your desk now. This is your office.”

“But—”

“I’m finished with it,” said Saito. “I’ve decided to retire. I have no intention of returning to work.”

Nobu blinked with surprise. “But all this is yours, Father. It’s—”

Shaking his head, Saito repeated, “I’m finished with it. The world I once lived in is gone. All the people I knew, all my friends, they’re all gone.”

“They’re not all dead.”

“No, but the years have changed them so much I would hardly recognize them. I don’t want to try to relive a life that once was. The world moves on. This corporation is your responsibility now, Nobu. I don’t want any part of it.”

Stunned, Nobuhiko asked, “But what will you do?”

The answer was that Saito retired to a monastery high in the Himalayas, to a life of study and contemplation. Nobu could not have been more shocked if his father had become a serial killer or a child molester.

But even though he filled his days by writing his memoirs (or perhaps because he began to write his memoirs) Saito Yamagata could not entirely divorce himself from the corporation on which he had spent his first life. Whenever his son called him, Saito listened greedily to the events of the hour, then offered Nobuhiko the gift of his advice. At first Nobu was wary of his father’s simmering interest in the corporation. Gradually, however, he came to cherish his father’s wisdom, and even to rely upon it.

So now Nobuhiko flew to Nepal in a corporate tilt-rotor. Videophone calls were all well and good, but still nothing could replace a personal visit, face to face, where no one could possibly eavesdrop.

It was bitingly cold in the mountains. Swirls of snow swept around the plane when it touched down lightly on the crushed gravel pad outside the monastery’s gray stone walls. Despite his hooded parka, Nobu was thoroughly chilled by the time a saffron-robed lama conducted him through the thick wooden door and into a hallway paneled with polished oak.

Saito was waiting for him in a small room with a single window that looked out on the snow-clad mountains. A low lacquered table and two kneeling mats were the only furniture, but there was a warm fire crackling in the soot-blackened fireplace. Nobu folded his parka neatly on the floor and stood before the fireplace, gratefully absorbing its warmth.

Wearing a kimono of deep blue, decorated with the flying crane emblem of the Yamagata family, his father waited in patient silence until Nobu grew uneasy and turned from the fireplace. Then Saito greeted his son with a full-bodied embrace that delighted Nobu even though it squeezed the breath out of him. Altitude and bear hugs did not mix well.

“You’ve lost a kilo or two,” said the elder Yamagata, holding his son at arm’s length. “That’s good.”

Nobuhiko dipped his chin in acknowledgment.

Saito slapped his bulging belly. “I’ve found them! And more!” He laughed heartily.

Wondering how his father could gain weight in a monastery, Nobu said, “I spoke with Martin Humphries. He apparently does not know that we are backing the Africans.”

“And Astro?”

“Pancho Lane launched an investigation of Nairobi Industries. It has found nothing to tie us to them.”

“Good,” said Saito as he knelt slowly, carefully on one of the mats. It rustled slightly beneath his weight. “It’s better if no one realizes we are returning to space operations.”

“I still don’t understand why we must keep our interest in Nairobi Industries a secret.” Nobu knelt on the other mat, close enough to his father to smell the older man’s aftershave lotion.

Saito patted his son’s knee. “Humphries Space Systems and Astro Corporation are fighting for control of the Belt, aren’t they? If they knew Yamagata will soon be competing against them, they might combine their forces against us.” Nobu shook his head. “Pancho Lane despises Humphries. And he feels the same about her.”

With a knowing grin, Saito countered, “They might hate each other, but their personal feelings wouldn’t stop them from uniting to prevent us from establishing ourselves in the Belt. Personal emotions take a back seat to business, son.”

“Perhaps,” Nobu conceded.

“Work through the Africans,” Saito counseled. “Let Nairobi Industries establish a base on the Moon. That will be our foothold. The prospecting ships and ore carriers they send to the Asteroid Belt will return profits to Yamagata.”

“One-third of our profits go to Humphries,” Nobu reminded his father.

The hardest thing that Nobuhiko had been forced to tell his father was that Humphries had bought into Yamagata Corporation back in the days when the greenhouse cliff had struck so hard that the corporation was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Humphries owned a third of Yamagata Corporation, and was constantly scheming to gain more. It had taken every gram of Nobu’s courage to tell his father that. He feared it would break the old man’s heart.

Instead, Saito had accepted the news stoically, saying only, “Humphries took advantage of the situation.”

With some heat, Nobu growled, “He took advantage of the catastrophes that struck Japan.”

“Yes,” Saito said, his voice a low rumble. “We’ll have to do something about that, eventually.”

Nobu had never felt so relieved, so grateful.

Now, Saito sat back on his heels and gazed out at the snowy mountains.

“Our first objective is to make certain that neither Humphries nor Astro Corporation learns that we aim to establish ourselves in the Belt.”

Nobu nodded his acknowledgment.

“The best way to accomplish that,” Saito went on, “is to keep them both busy fighting each other.”

“We’ve already destroyed a few automated freighters of both corporations, as you suggested. Pancho Lane blames Humphries, of course, and he blames her.”

“Good,” Saito grunted.

“But they’re not actually fighting. There’s a bit of piracy in the Belt, mainly by the man Fuchs, but he is one lone madman, without support from anyone except a few of the rock rats.”

“He may be the key to the situation, then.”

“I don’t understand how,” said Nobu.

“Let me think about it,” Saito replied. “Our objective remains to keep HSS and Astro focused on each other. Fuchs could be an important element in this. Properly exploited, he could help us to stir this simmering enmity between Pancho Lane and Martin Humphries into a major conflict.”

“A major conflict?” Nobu asked, alarmed. “You mean actual fighting? War?”

“Business is a form of warfare, son. If Astro and Humphries fight each other out there in the Belt, it can only be to our benefit.”

Nobuhiko left his father with his mind whirling. Set Humphries and Astro against each other. Yes, he decided, it would be in Yamagata Corporation’s best interest to do so. And this exile Fuchs could be the pivot that moves the stone.

By the time he landed in the family’s estate near New Kyoto, Nobuhiko was lost in admiration for the depth of his father’s thought. A war between HSS and Astro. Nobu smiled. Living in a monastery hasn’t softened the old man’s heart. Or his brain.