[capnq]

As CEO Davdi had expected, convincing the Board of Directors to authorize the R&D portion of the fiscal 2405 budget was turning out to be a hard sell. Leading the opposition was Davdi's most bitter rival, Porxi Malwi. Malwi had been the leading candidate to be the next CEO until Farki had convinced the board to accept Davdi's bid instead, and even after a nonade of strong profits under Davdi's leadership, Malwi hadn't forgiven either of them. He had been accumulating as much preferred stock as he could since then, and was now the Conglomerate's third largest shareholder.

Malwi was particularly livid at Davdi's handling of the new military research program. Davdi had been able to reallocate enough discretionary funds to cover much of the basic research, but now the Board needed to approve the money to start building test models and training pilots. When Doctor Timho had explained the proposed space combat force to Retla Gurse, they'd quickly realized that the small craft would need some kind of transport to be used effectively; they had to be optimized for speed and maneuverability, and wouldn't be capable of carrying enough fuel for extended-duration flights. Starting from the designs in Node-25's database, Gurse had come up with a "carrier" that could launch and retrieve the "fighters", as well as ferrying them between star systems. The fighters were ludicrously small, barely half the size of Node-25's hardware, which meant that they couldn't be automated like the _Personnel_ or the proposed carrier.

Doctor Dorsi had found her expert on pre-Unification history in a small subsidiary of the Entertainment Division that served the niche market for virtual reality hovercraft simulators. There were a few VR games that simmed the conflicts between the old skycity-states, which mostly sold in the 9-12 age bracket. It was looking more and more like they'd have to recruit adolescents to learn to fly the space fighters. Davdi had deliberately avoided mentioning that prospect in the budget proposal, but Malwi had raised the issue during the third day of discussions. The idea of sending children into battle had rallied Malwi's supporters, and the budget negotiations had been deadlocked for nearly a week now, but Davdi was hopeful that the latest discoveries from the _Investment_ would break the impasse.

The rest of the board had already gathered around the meeting table for the afternoon session when Davdi entered the room. Davdi took his place next to Chairman Farki and greeted them all.

"I have a special announcement to make before we continue," Davdi began. "It's going to be huge when we release it to the Media Division. Doctor Timho personally delivered the latest report from the _Investment_ to me during the lunch break."

"More observations from that newly-forming star they found inside the Jidop Nebula?" Farki asked.

"No, this is much bigger. Their next transit lead them to Mamor, where they encountered an alien spacecraft!"

"How...convenient." All heads turned to look at Malwi, whose loud sneer had cut through the surprised babble that Davdi's Last statement had provoked. "First you circulate these sensational tales of the Masters' so-called 'war', then you propose a budget full of expenditures with no profit potential, for the sake of 'defending' ourselves against unknown threats, and only ten days later you announce that we've found an alien race. I am amazed that you think this board so gullible."

"Gullible?!?" Farki interrupted. "Did you even read Doctor Timho's executive summary of Node-25's records? No Eifralo could fabricate such horrors. Perhaps you should read the full report."

"Better yet," Davdi added, "we could ask Soctu to allow you to interview Node-25 personally. Talking to it is a fascinating experience. If seeing the actual displays won't convince you, nothing will."

"I'm not going to go chasing off to Jalwu to talk to a mere machine," Malwi scoffed. "You're not going to get me away from this debate that easily."

"If you had read the summary," Farki snapped, "you'd know that Node-25 was moved to the main research complex here on Eifra nearly two years ago. I cannot comprehend how you can even imagine that this is all some ploy to get the R&D budget approved."

"You also haven't heard all the news from the _Investment_," Davdi continued. "The aliens had already colonized one of the lesser planets orbiting Mamor. They call themselves the 'Tyrean Federation', and all indications are that they are not hostile. In fact, they've already submitted a request to open trade negotiations."

Malwi gave Davdi a suspicious look. "They seem to have learned to communicate with us remarkably quickly," he commented.

"That surprised me as well," Davdi admitted, "but apparently their archaeologists learned the language of the Masters from ruins in their part of the cluster, long before the _Investment_ entered Mamor. The Tyreans can read and write an ancient form of our script, but had no idea what spoken Eifral sounded like.

There's another opportunity to quash your skepticism, Porxi. How would you like first rights to lead our trade delegation to the Tyreans?"

"If these 'Tyreans' actually exist, that's a very tempting offer. I assume I could resell the commission to someone else whom I trust?"

"Of course," Davdi grinned and added, "assuming you can find someone else that you do trust."

Farki and several other board members laughed at Davdi's comment, but Malwi didn't even smile.

"That shouldn't be a problem," he replied. "All right, I accept your offer. If she'll take the commission, I think my first choice for that assignment will be quite acceptable to the entire board."

[ December 01, 2002, 20:35: Message edited by: capnq ]