Father smiled. “Noloa Benyawe. How is she?”
“Fine. She was playing second fiddle to my chief engineer, Dr. Dublin, the ditherer, until I put her in charge of testing the gravity laser. At first I thought it was one of your life tests for me.”
Father frowned. “Life tests?”
“Come now, Father. All the games you’ve played with me ever since I was a child, all the obstacles heaped in my path in some ridiculous effort to impart some of your wisdom to me.”
“You flatter yourself, Lem. I have far more important things to do than constructing elaborate scenarios that might teach you a moral or two. You’re not a child anymore.”
“No, I’m not. Which is why I was somewhat disappointed when I learned that you had told Dublin not to do anything that might endanger me. And don’t deny it. He told me so himself.”
“Why would I deny it?” said Ukko. “You were testing an unproven, potentially volatile device, Lem. I asked Dublin to use caution, if not because of the sheer value of the prototype then at least for the welfare of my only son. Pardon me for such an offense. Next time I’ll give little regard for your life and have my engineers be reckless and irresponsible, if that’s more to your liking.”
“You made Dublin doubt his every move. He was paralyzed with fear. That’s why our first round of tests took so long. Dublin wouldn’t take any risks. He had the fear of harming me and therefore displeasing you hovering over his head.”
Ukko laughed. “So I’m responsible for another man’s fear now? What else am I guilty of, a child’s nightmares? Really, Lem, you’re blaming me for your inability to conduct the initial tests? Dublin is a grown man. He makes his own decisions and accepts full responsibility for them. So should you.”
“You gave Chubs, my second in command, the same instructions: Do nothing that will endanger Lem. You essentially told him to supersede my authority. You made me look weak in front of my crew.”
“You seem to forget, Lem, that when you’re piloting one of my ships, you’re acting as an employee of this company. You don’t get special privileges because you’re my son. You have responsibilities as a captain, and your first priority shouldn’t be how elevated you remain in the minds of your crew. Your first priority is your crew, twenty-five of whom died under your watch and as a direct result of your reckless orders. Do you have any idea how damaging that is to the company? Now there will be lawsuits. And regardless of how we respond, regardless of how fairly we treat the grieving families, regardless of how generous we are in the settlement, the press will skewer us. They will label us insensitive and careless. You can’t win those battles, Lem. Sooner or later, the press will stop caring why we did it. It won’t matter that we were trying to stop the Formics. We’ll look negligent. We’ll look like the bad guy. And when that happens, our stock will dip. Do you have any idea how much money is lost when we go down one one-hundredth of a percentage point?”
Lem didn’t answer.
“Well do you?” Father insisted.
“Of course I do, Father. I own shares in this company, and I’m the primary shareholder in quite a few others. I know how the market works.”
“Well good. I’m glad to see that your expensive education is affording you some awareness of the world. When you told me you had bumped those free miners off the asteroid, I thought you might have lost control of all your mental faculties.”
“Your precious prototype wasn’t damaged, Father.”
“You’re right about that, Lem. It is precious. Several billion credits worth. The Makarhu is rather valuable as well. It’s one of our fastest, most luxurious ships. Which is why I can’t for the life of me understand why you would be irresponsible enough to risk damaging all that. This is piloting 101, Lem. These are fundamental principles that every captain knows. Rule number one: Don’t destroy the ship. Rule number two: Don’t kill the crew. Surely someone reviewed this with you before you set out.”
Lem turned away from Father and gazed out the window. They had left the terminal now and were flying over the lunar landscape back toward the city. To their right were the massive Juke production facilities where most of the ships in Father’s mining fleet were built and tested prior to their departure for the Belt. A massive Juke logo was prominently displayed on the largest and tallest of the buildings.
“Yes, I gave Chubs special instructions,” said Father. “I told him not to follow any order of yours that might put you in danger. I did so to protect my property and to protect you.”
“Protect me from what, Father? My own poor judgment? My own stupidity? Don’t you realize that by giving that order, you not only stripped me of true command, you also demonstrated your complete lack of confidence in me?”