Playing God Read Online Free PDF Page B

the genderless room voice from the tabletop. “Iola Trace and Shane R.J. wish to put through a call.”
    Lynn swore and met David's gaze.
    He shrugged. “I'm surprised we've had as much peace as we've had.”
    “Me, too.” She took a swig of orange juice. “Room voice, I'll accept the call.”
    The right-hand wall lit up to show small, dark, tidy Trace in her spartan office with its soothing aqua walls and gleaming work surfaces. She had probably been up and in the station's “working” section for the past two hours. The back wall showed gangly, perpetually bemused R.J., still in his cabin in the dormitory module. He had his walls set to show an African savannah with lions stalking through the tall grass. Lynn still had not quite gotten a handle on how R.J.’s aesthetic sense tied in to his sense of humor, or how stuffy Trace's sense of propriety really was. However, they worked extremely well together and had guided her deftly through Bioverse's corporate maze. Lynn's staff numbered in the dozens, and under them were hundreds of direct-report personnel, but these two were her personal assistants. Lately, their job seemed to consist of keeping her schedule from getting totally overwhelmed by requests for conferences, advice, or talks. Brador had said Lynn had a reputation as a Dedelphi expert. The entire staff of Bioverse seemed bent on proving him right.
    “Good morning.” Lynn saluted them both with a forkful of eggs.
    “Good morning, Lynn. Good morning, David,” said Trace. David lifted his beaker of coffee to the projections, then turned his attention back to his faux-omelette, politely pretending to ignore the proceedings.
    “What's going on?” asked Lynn.
    “You mean aside from your three meetings, the advisory panel you're facilitating, and the t'Therian culture lecture you're giving?” asked R.J. brightly. He looked across at Trace and gave her a tight smile. “You lost, Trace. You go first.”
    “Thank you,” Trace replied with a primness Lynn was almost certain was an act. “First the personnel-registration hardware is going to be delayed by at least a week.”
    Lynn dropped her fork and groaned. David shot her a sympathetic glance.
    “How'd that happen?” Lynn asked, wearily.
    Trace looked down at her table screen. “Apparently when the project outline and payment scheme were rereviewed, somebody balked.”
    “They're holding out for direct credit rather than a down payment and percentage,” chipped in R.J. “Seems our PR on this project is not as clean as some would like it.”
    “How clean do they want it?” Lynn threw up her hands. “It's a big project. We're evacuating—”
    “Ah-ah.” R.J. held up one finger. “Relocating, remember?”
    “We're relocating,” Lynn started again sourly, “an entire population and cleaning up a planet that's five percent bigger than Earth. It's going to generate controversy.” Corporate enclaves ran on the goodwill of their contractors and subcontractors, and those, in turn, ran on the goodwill of their home enclaves, both the ones scattered up and down the Human Chain and the ones on Earth itself. The threads and knots of the info-web connected all the enclaves tightly together. If opinion on the web was bad, and the enclaves got nervous, the best contractors and subcontractors would turn the job down in favor of safer work, or would drive their prices up into the stratosphere. For a project like this, with ever-expanding needs across decades, too much of that could be disastrous.
    “Well, I'm afraid Haberbuild is the main support of a small enclave, and they don't like controversy,” said Trace. “So, we're renegotiating.”
    “Can you get me the downloads on that?” Lynn poked thoughtfully at her food. “Maybe I can help somewhere. I know some people in the enclave.” She paused and took a fortifying swallow of coffee. “You said that was first?”
    “Second”—R.J. watched his stalking lions for a moment—“Commander Keale has