F Paul Wilson - LaNague 02 Read Free Page B

was
slow in coming. The efficacy of an IBA program was never immediately apparent.
The final proof was, as ever, in the marketplace, and that took time. But Joe
and Pete chose their clients carefully, weeding out the fantasists and
quick-credit artists from the serious entrepreneurs. After six or seven standard
years, word got around the trade lanes that those two fellows in that little
office on Ragna really knew what they were doing.
                The fitful
trickle of inquiries soon swelled to a steady stream and IBA began renting more
space and hiring ancillary personnel. Each of the partners had found himself a
mate by then. Joe became the father of Joseph Finch, Jr., and life was good.
                The company
continued to expand, and after two standard decades it held advisory accounts
with a large number of the mainstay firms in interstellar trade, many of which
would not make a move into a new market without first checking with Joe and
Pete. But the accounts the partners liked most were the small, marginal ones
that involved innovative products and processes, the speculation jobs that
taxed their ingenuity to the limit. The big, prestigious accounts kept them
solvent, the speculative ones kept them interested. They charged a flat fee for
service to the former and arranged a percentage of the adjusted gross over a
variable period of time for the latter.
                Time
passed.

            They grew
rich. And as news of the Earthside exploits that drove Joe from the mother
planet filtered through to the outworlds, he became a celebrity of sorts on
Ragna. A psychological malady known as “the horrors” was sweeping across the
planets and a few IBA staff members were struck down. Pete’s childless marriage
broke up. A man calling himself The Healer appeared out of Tolive saying he
could cure the horrors, and apparently he could. IBA contracted the construction
of its own office building and began renting space to other businesses.
                They had
bizarre experiences, like the time Joe and Pete were almost swindled out of a
fortune by an accelerated clone of Occupied Space’s most famous financier. The
clone had to be destroyed, of course – the Clone Laws on almost all planets
dictated that – which was a shame because they had found him charming.
                They had
near tragedy when Joe, Jr., was almost killed by a radiation leak at a
construction site shortly after he joined the firm. He was only eighteen at the
time and managed to pull through.
                And they
had joy with the arrival of Josephine Finch, augmenting Junior and his wife
after five years of marriage – a little late by outworld standards, but worth
the wait to all concerned.
                Then
tragedy struck full force. Joe’s flitter had a power failure while he, his
wife, and daughter-in-law were two kilometers in the air.
                Things were
thrown into disarray for a while. Joe had been talking of retiring in the next
few months when his seventy-fifth year coincided with IBA’s thirty-fifth, but
no one had taken that too seriously. Everyone fully expected to see him in his
office every morning long after he had officially retired. Now he was gone and
IBA would never be the same.
                Everyone,
including Pete, looked to Joe’s son to fill the void, but Junior balked. For
reasons apparent only to himself, he left Ragna with no particular destination
in mind and was never seen or heard from again until his body was found a year
later in an alley in a backwater town on Jebinose with a Vanek ceremonial knife
in his heart.
                Junior had
placed control of his stock with Pete and his death left Pete in complete
control of IBA. But Old Pete – it was at about that time that the “Old” became
an integral part of his name – wanted no part of it. He appointed a board of
directors with