Wheels Within Wheels by F. Paul Wilson

Author:F. Paul Wilson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, General
ISBN: 9780976654438
Publisher: Infrapress
Published: 2005-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

Jo nodded and made a few notes.

“What’s this all about?” he asked. Jo had decided to keep her counterplan to herself. She was debarking on a precarious course of action, the repercussions of which might well reverberate throughout the whole galactic economic structure; the fewer who knew about it the better.

“Just working out a theoretical problem,” she replied. “You’ve been a big help. May I call on you again if I need you?”

“Sure,” Grange replied, taking the hint and rising. He was too canny to be fooled by Jo’s lame explanation—you weren’t told to drop everything and get up to the head office because of a theoretical problem—but he was confident of being filled in on all the details if and when he came to be involved.

When he had gone, Jo ordered the complete files on Fairgood Drive and Opsal Pharmaceuticals; both were long-standing IBA accounts. She began poring over them as soon as they arrived.

With the Fairgood file was an envelope with new information: a natural deposit of Leason crystals had been found on the second planet of the Rako system—the Tarks, however, were also claiming the find since Rako occupies a place along the mutual expansion border. To further complicate matters, consent for export had to be obtained from the inhabitants—a group of senile savages.

Jo shook her head and put the file aside. That would take a very careful evaluation. Now to look at Opsal. Opsal and Teblinko were in a pitched battle for the galactic pharmaceutical trade. The two companies were about equal in product quality but Opsal had a slight advantage in distribution since it was slightly older. Teblinko, however, was closing the gap.

What was clearly needed was a new product and both companies were vying for the rights to a certain grain rust on the planet Lentem. Again, the only thing holding them up was the native intelligent race. For the Tarks wanted the same item and the natives were holding out, hoping to use their commodity as a bargaining point between the two interstellar races.

Jo frowned. The Tarks were popping up more and more lately. There would be a clash someday—a big one. The Tarcan Empire was ruthless and active and no doubt took the Federation’s laissez-faire attitude as a sign of weakness, or poor organization. One day they would overstep their boundaries to test the Federation’s mettle. That would be a fatal mistake for the Tarks.

She fed the Opsal data into the computer and asked for a few correlations and information on any existing variables which she might be able to manipulate. The machine gave her a number of items, among them was the fact that the Tarcan representative was due for another visit to Lentem in quest of the grain rust rights. Also, there emerged a short biography on a man named James Rondo, a terran and the only

“alien” allowed permanent residence on Lentem.

She immediately sent an urgent message to the president of Opsal telling him to send a man to Lentem

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