“It is,” Arihnda said, wondering darkly who had let the news slip. Doonium was one of the hardest metals known, making it a key component in the manufacture of warship hulls, and under the Imperial Navy’s recently accelerated shipbuilding program the price of the metal had skyrocketed. Even a hint that a fresh line had been found would be enough to initiate a feeding frenzy among refiners and ore buyers alike. “May I ask how you heard of it?”
“That’s not important,” Uvis said. “What’s important is that we guard the find so that we can take full advantage of it.”
“I’m sure my mother’s already on it,” Arihnda assured him. “We have several contacts among brokers capable of handling something like this.”
Uvis snorted. “I’m sure you do,” he said in a vaguely condescending tone. “Small, local people, no doubt, who work on a promise and a handshake?”
“Not all of them are small,” Arihnda said, trying hard not to let her irritation show. Uvis was an outsider from the Core who’d been more or less forced on them by Governor Azadi’s office six standard months ago. She could probably count his trips outside the Capital City area during that time on one hand. Not only did he know virtually nothing about Lothal, but he clearly didn’t care to learn. “But so what if they are? If any one of them can’t handle the full contract, we’ll just make deals with two or three or four. Everything’s interconnected here.”
“And I have no doubt that system works fine for the average backwoods Outer Rim world,” Uvis said with strained patience. “But some of us have higher ambitions for Lothal.”
Arihnda snorted under her breath. Ambitions for a backwater dirtball like Lothal. Right. “Good luck with that one.”
“I’m serious,” Uvis insisted. “Now that we have a doonium vein—”
“We have a doonium vein,” Arihnda cut him off. “Pryce Mining. Not you, and not Lothal. We have it.”
“Fine,” Uvis said. “Just remember the governor’s office and I are included in that we. We’re your partners, remember?”
“Not for long,” Arihnda said. “As soon as the profits from the doonium start rolling in, we’re buying out of your loan. We can do that—the contract says so.”
“The contract didn’t anticipate something like this.” Uvis took a deep breath. “Look, Arihnda. Here’s the reality. Yes, you’ve got wealth now, more than you ever dreamed of. That means it’s your big chance. Not just Pryce Mining’s, but yours—personally—as well.”
“Really,” Arihnda said, trying to make the word sarcastic. But she couldn’t quite pull it off.
Because he was right. This kind of sudden wealth might finally make it possible for her to get out of here. Not just out of the family business, but off Lothal completely.
“But it’s also going to attract attention, and not necessarily the good kind,” Uvis continued. “You need—”
He broke off as a hammerheaded Ithorian appeared around the corner and hurried past them, a stack of data cards in her hand. Someone’s niece, Arihnda vaguely remembered, working a two-week internship. The Ithorian grunted a Good morning, then disappeared around a different corner. “You need support,” Uvis said. “More than that, you need protection. Governor Azadi can give you that.”
The nebulous thought of finally getting off Lothal vanished in a sudden cloud of suspicion. “Protection?” she countered. “Or do you mean takeover?”
“No, of course not,” Uvis protested.
“Really,” Arihnda said. “Because we’ve heard this before. Other people have come to Lothal, lots of them, looking for ways to lift us up out of the dust and coincidentally make themselves rich. Sooner or later, they all find out that the people here are stubborn, set in their ways, and not interested in having fancy-hats from the Core tell them what to do.”
“I’m glad Lothal has come to terms with mediocrity,” Uvis ground out. “But that pattern is over. The fancy-hats will be coming back, this time to stay. And they’ll eat small fish like Pryce Mining for breakfast.”
“Don’t threaten me, Uvis,” she warned.
“I’m not threatening you,” he said. “I’m trying to tell you that everything’s about to change. There are a dozen ways a big mining corporation can move in on a small operation like yours and either take it over or bleed it dry. I don’t want that, you don’t want that, and Governor Azadi most definitely doesn’t want that.”
With an effort, Arihnda got a fresh grip on her temper. So Uvis had already told Azadi about the doonium?
Damn. In a tight-knit community like Capital City, that meant half the citizens knew by now. And if half the citizens knew, a good quarter of the outsiders in the area probably knew, too. “I assume you have a solution to offer?”
“We do,” Uvis assured her. “We start with you selling the governor another twenty-one percent of Pryce Mining. That would—”
“What?” Arihnda demanded, feeling her jaw drop. “Absolutely not. You’re not getting a controlling interest.”
“It’s the only way to keep some predatory megacorporation off your back,” Uvis said. “With the power and office of the governor protecting you, we can make deals with real refineries, the kind with money and influence—”
“No,” Arihnda said flatly.
Uvis took a deep breath. “I know this is a big step,” he said, his tone soothing now. “But it’s the only way—”
“I said no,” Arihnda repeated.
“You need to at least tell your parents about the governor’s offer,” Uvis persisted. “At least your mother. As the general manager, she needs to know—”
“Which part of no is confusing you?”
Uvis’s face darkened. “If you don’t, I will.”
“No, what you’ll do is get out of my sight,” Arihnda told him. “Actually, what you can do is get off our property.”
He snorted. “Please. I own thirty percent of Pryce Mining. You can’t just throw me out.”
“The Pryce family owns seventy percent,” Arihnda countered, “and the guard droids answer to us.”
For a long moment they stared at each other. Then Uvis inclined his head. “Very well, Ms. Pryce,” he said. “But hear this. You can sit on your dirty little world, a big frog in a small dust puddle, and think you can stand alone against the galaxy. But you can’t. The sooner you realize that, the less it’ll cost you.” He raised his eyebrows. “And your parents.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Uvis,” Arihnda said.
“Goodbye, Ms. Pryce,” he said. “Call me when you’re ready to see reason.”
—
Uvis himself was gone. But the cloud he’d left over Arihnda persisted.
A dozen times that day she thought about going to her mother and letting her know about Uvis’s warning and offer. But each time she decided not to. The mine had been in her family almost all the way back to the first planetary settlements, and she knew that both her parents would go down fighting rather than give it up.
They had full legal rights to the mine, the land, and the business. Moreover, the Lothal legal system, where any challenges would be heard, was loaded with acquaintances, suppliers, clients, friends, and friends of friends. The one advantage of living on a sleepy frontier world. Whatever corporations or slicksters or sleazy grubbers from the governor’s office tried to throw at them, they would weather the storm.
She worked late, finishing up the day’s data sorting and drafting a data release for whenever her parents decided to announce the news. Just because half of Lothal probably knew by now didn’t mean they wouldn’t eventually have to say something official.
It was nearly sundown when she finally left the office. She headed for home, driving slower than usual, watching the colors in the western sky and the fading light as it bounced sparkles off the shrubs and intricate rock formations lining the roadway. On the horizon, the lights of Capital City’s buildings were coming on, a softer and whiter glow than the reds and pinks of the setting sun. From somewhere in the distance came the happy shrieking of children at play. Off on the horizon she could see a pair of airspeeders, probably with teenagers at the controls, showboating over the rolling, grass-covered hills as they chased the setting sun. It was the kind of primitive beauty that travel advisers raved about.