The Game Players of Meridien: Chronicles of the Second Empire (Chronicles of the Second Interstellar Empire of Mankind Book 1) by Robert I. Katz

Author:Robert I. Katz [Katz, Robert I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-12-15T22:00:00+00:00

I stewed for a week or so over my losses in Sindara, consoled only somewhat by my victory over Erik DeLaney, then tried to put it out of my mind. It was over. I had lost a battle and won another but the war was still ongoing and for the moment at least, it would go on without me. I tried to tell myself that this was just as well. It wasn’t my game, not any more, not yet. Sit back. Let events play out and tend to business. Having Jennifer around helped.

It wasn’t difficult to blend the assets of DeLaney, Incorporated into Oliver Enterprises. I left the main corporate structure intact, fired the CEO, a marginally competent cousin of DeLaney’s, promoted his aide into the position and assigned Benedict to go over the books, which thankfully were clean. I downsized the construction division, since it duplicated much of what I already owned and I wanted to pay off the debt that DeLaney had accumulated. DeLaney himself took his remaining funds and retired to the life of a dissolute playboy. He still had enough money to assume the role and frankly, he was probably happier. Certainly, he was a lousy executive.

A couple of weeks later, Jennifer and I walked into a club near the river called Meridien Blue. The place was very old with a format that hadn’t changed in nearly a century. A clean, well-appointed room with comfortable chairs, solid wooden tables and a long bar running the entire length of the wall opposite a low, wooden stage. The wait-staff was young and good looking. The food was excellent. They played jazz, with a little blues and some classic rock thrown into the mix.

Jazz, when it first came into being, all those thousands of years ago, was the music of the young and the hip, edgy and faintly disreputable. By the time rock and roll arrived, fifty years later, jazz had turned into the music of the past and the old. It never entirely faded away, though. It went underground, re-grew its roots as something cool and avant-garde and roared back onto the scene, and then it faded away again, over and over and over.

Seven thousand years offered a lot of music to choose from.

The lights were bright enough to read the menus but otherwise kept low. We were greeted at the front door and shown to our table while the first band set up on stage, a standard quintet; keyboard, drums, electric bass, saxophone and trumpet. “Your server will be right with you, sir,” the host said.

Jennifer looked around the room, curious. “I’ve heard of this place,” she said.

“Its popularity comes and goes,” I said. “Right now, it’s popular. I hope you like it.”

She smiled and waved at somebody behind us. I turned around. Jolene Sebastian sat at a table with two other women I didn’t recognize. They already had drinks and small appetizer plates spread out in front of them. Jolene held her drink up in a toast and smiled at me.

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