Wheels Within Wheels

I

Peter J. Paxton marveled as he moved his old body through the brand-new offices of Interstellar Business Advisers. He had played no small part in the genesis of the organization, but in the old days he and Joe Finch had operated out of a small, rented office on the far side of the city. IBA now owned the building in which it was located and many others. The firm had come a long way.

He was on his way to the top office to see Josephine Finch. She had been a teen-ager the last time he had been on this side of Ragna; she’d be in her late twenties by now.

“May I help you, sir?” the receptionist asked politely from behind her pearly desk.

“Yes. Is Miss Finch busy at the moment?”

She answered his question with another. “Do you have an appointment?” Her day book was open and her pencil was poised to check off his name.

“No, I’m afraid not. You see-”

“I’m very sorry,” she said, closing the book with an air of finality. “Miss Finch can see no one without an appointment.”

Paxton rested a gnarled hand on the desk and leaned toward the girl. “Listen, dearie. You just tell her Old Pete is here. We’ll worry about appointments later.”

The receptionist hesitated a second or two, then shrugged and pressed a button. A simple click acknowledged her call.

“Someone named Old Pete demands to see you, Miss Finch,” she said.

“Is this a joke?” a tiny speaker replied.

“I really couldn’t say,” the girl answered nervously.

“Send him in.”

The receptionist rose to show him in, but Paxton waved her back to her seat and strode toward an ornate door of solid Maratak firewood that rippled with shifting waves of color; the name JosephineFinch was carved in the wood at eye-level and its color shifts were out of sync with the rest of the wood.

A young woman opened the door as he reached it. She wore an azure clingsuit that highlighted the blue of her eyes and the curves of her body. Short, raven hair framed a full-lipped, fine-featured face.

“Hello, Jo,” said Paxton, eying her up and down. “You’ve grown a bit since I saw you last.”

The girl examined him closely, then smiled with delight. “Old Pete! It’s really you!”

“It’s me all right,” he said as he stepped into the office and glanced around. “You’ve really taken over, haven’t you?”

“Why not? I own controlling interest and I happen to enjoy the work.” She moved behind her desk and sat down. “But how about you? You’ve been retired and tucked away on an island in the Kel Sea for the past eight years. What brings you to IBA?”

Old Pete smiled as he settled himself into a chair. “Beating around the bush never was a Finch trait.”

Jo shrugged. “As second largest stockholder you should know that IBA’s being plagued with a host of imitators. You can’t beat around the bush and stay on top.”

“True, true. So I’ll get to the point. Jo, what do you know about the Restructurist Movement?”

She paused before answering and regarded her visitor. Why would an aging man travel halfway, around a planet just to ask her what she knew about the Restructurists? A simple call would have accomplished the same purpose with much less difficulty. Something was up.

“It’s a political group that wants to change the Federation,” she replied. “Elson deBloise is their current leader, I believe. They want to broaden the powers of the Federation to include planetary affairs.”

Paxton nodded slowly. “To say, `change the Federation’ is to understate their purposes by a long shot-turn the Fed inside-out is more like it! The Federation was designed to keep the lid on interplanetary affairs, but that’s not enough for the Restructurists. They think the Fed should be some sort of equalizer between planets; they want to regulate trade and aid underdeveloped planets.”

Jo was unconcerned. “They’ll never get anywhere. The Federation Charter severely limits its activities.”

“But there’s an emergency clause in the Charter that allows for a temporary increase in powers should the Fed, or its planets, be threatened.”

“I’m aware of that,” Jo said. “But they’ve tried to invoke that clause many times and every time they’ve been voted down. And even if they did invoke it, so what? It’s only temporary.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Jo,” Paxton said gravely. “If you look at the history of old Earth, you’ll find that very seldom is any increase in governmental power temporary. The emergency clause is the key to Restructurist control; once they invoke it they’ll have their foot in the door and the Federation may never be the same again. I don’t want to see that happen, Jo. Your grandfather and I were able to make IBA a growing concern because the Federation’s policy toward a legally operating business has been strictly ‘hands off.’ We humans have got as far as we have as fast as we have because of that policy. I don’t want to see that changed. I don’t want the Federation turned into an empire, and I see the word

‘Empire’ looming in the future if the Restructurists get their way.”

“But they won’t.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that, my dear. Many of the Restructurists may be starry-eyed idealists but not a few of them are crafty plotters with power as their goal. I’ve made a study of the movement and Elson deBloise is by far its most dangerous member. He’s after empire, I’m sure of it. He’s a capable man-a mere planetary delegate ten years ago, he’s now a sector representative. And something is cooking in his circle. I don’t know exactly what it is, but a connection has been made between deBloise and a certain physicist named Denver Haas. If deBloise thinks Haas can further his aims, then both Haas and the Federation had better be on guard!”

“Well, why not go directly to the Federation?” Jo said.

“For the simple reason that deBloise’s affairs need looking into and to obtain the information we want we need secrecy. The Fed is a wonderful organization, but it’s too open and aboveboard in its maneuverings. A Fed investigation of deBloise would be pointless because he’d be ready when they came. But IBA has contacts as far flung as the Federation’s. I think we can move on our own to find out the connection between Haas and deBloise and then go to the Fed.”

Jo was silent a moment. “But it’s always been a policy of IBA to stay out of politics. It’s one of our bylaws, as a matter of fact.”

“I know,” Paxton replied, his face creasing into a smile. “I wrote it.”

“Then why the sudden change of heart?”

“Well, I could say it’s for the good of the company-and it is-but it goes deeper than that.” He hesitated. “You never really knew your grandfather, did you?”

Jo’s mouth twisted. “I hardly knew my own father. But when he was still around I remember you two talking a lot about Joe, Sr. He must have been quite a man.”

“Oh, he was!” Paxton enthusiastically agreed. “We both started out from Earth when the Federation was young and growing by leaps and bounds. The Earth government was very big, very bureaucratic then. Starting a new business was no easy matter on Earth in those days, that’s why Joe and I came to Ragna-that and, uh, other reasons. As I guess you know, your grandfather already had a successful book publishing company under his belt, though how he made it work I’ll never know. The sale of Finch House gave us enough capital to leave Earth and come to Ragna to start IBA. Yes, your grandfather was quite a man. Why …”

Jo tuned the old man out momentarily and considered the situation. Joe Finch, Sr. and Old Pete had been the shrewdest pair of businessmen in the galaxy in their day; their counsel had pulled countless businesses out of the red and had started just as many others on their way. But Joe was long dead and Old Pete had carried that moniker for as long as Jo could remember. Was the current structure of the Federation really in danger, thereby endangering IBA, or was Old Pete suffering from a touch of senile paranoia?

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” she said, interrupting Paxton’s reminiscent monologue. “I’ll have someone run a check on this Denver Haas character. If we can learn something about Haas, maybe we can get an idea of what deBloise has in mind and go from there.” Catching a nod of approval from Old Pete, she went on. “We have a suite of rooms upstairs for visiting clients, it’s empty now and you can use it for as long as you like. We’d be honored to have you as a guest.”

Jo pressed a button as she finished speaking and the receptionist came through the multi-hued door.

“Take Mr. Paxton to the guest suite,” she told her. “He’ll be with us for a while.”

“Let me know as soon as you hear anything,” Old Pete remarked, rising.

“You’ll know as soon as I do,” Jo assured him.

When she was alone, Jo sat behind her desk and stared at the two-dimensional painting of Joe Finch, Sr. that hung from the wall.

“I hope your old partner is wrong, Gran’pa,” she muttered.