Moon Flower by James P. Hogan

Callen said.
    “Thank you. Goodnight, Mr. Callen.” The frame on the screen vanished.
    Callen tidied up the loose ends of what he had been doing, saved the encrypted updates, then cleared the screen and got up from the desk. He picked up a sealed envelope that he had prepared, left the study with its functional lines and decor of chrome and black leather echoing the theme of his office at Milicorp, and went through to the central living area. Its mood was equally a hymn to masculine opulence, with upholstery of brushed gray suede, shag rugs, and a preponderance of metal in the ornaments and fittings, making no concessions to softness or warmth. The centerpiece above the mantel was by a renowned military artist and showed an aircraft approaching for a night landing on an early-twenty-first-century nuclear carrier. Female visitors told Callen that the place mirrored his soul. The comparison pleased him. He had tried marriage once, primarily as a social maneuver when it seemed required to complete the executive image, but found it to be incompatible with a first loyalty toward the corporation. And besides, monogamy was never a realistic expectation, and he had been surprised to find that was taken seriously. His psyche needed the gratification of repeated conquest as much as Milicorp’s business health needed a world of perpetual conflict.
    The simview window set in the outside wall was showing a live morning cityscape looking out over the center of Tokyo. Callen voiced the house system again to change it to a subdued artificial composition of moonlight over mountains, and cleared away some sensitive papers that he had been working with earlier. The door tone sounded from the room system just as he was finishing. A reflex glance at the monitor that flashed to life in a corner confirmed that it was Krieg. “Admit,” Callen directed. It would have been too condescending of rank to go out into the hallway to greet Krieg; but he remained standing.
    Krieg appeared moments later, square-built and solid, clad in a brown leather hip coat and black, crew-neck sweater. He was from Milicorp’s dirty work department — on the payroll but not listed officially in the organizational chart. He was, and accepted being, a “deniable,” who dealt only through Callen. Thus, the exalted levels that included Rath Borland could legitimately claim no knowledge of his existence or his activities. Precisely how, or in conjunction with whom, he carried out his assignments, even Callen preferred not to know. They had both been in the business long enough to understand what needed to be done without leaving trails of records.
    Krieg rubbed his palms together as if he had come in from the cold, even though it was warm outside, and looked pointedly in the direction of the cabinet opposite the fireplace. It was an unconscious way that Callen had observed before of signaling that he had news that was worth something. Callen walked over to the cabinet, opened it, revealing a selection of bottles and glasses, and gestured for Krieg to help himself. Declining anything on his own part, he sat down in one of the armchairs, laid the envelope that he had brought from the study casually on a side table, and waited. Krieg mixed a concoction, added a couple of cubes of ice, and spread himself in the chair opposite. He took a sip and swilled it around in his mouth approvingly.
    “Amaranth,” Callen guessed.
    Krieg nodded. It was the name of a planet that Interworld had “acquired” for development somewhere around two years before, and from which Krieg had only recently returned. This would be a short stopover for him; he would be coming on the Cyrene mission too. “It’s all in place. Zannibe’s gotten to the head of the roost and told him his knotheads don’t have a clue. It’s all over the city that Zannibe says he’s seen hard times coming and they haven’t, and when it happens he’ll be the one who’ll know what to do. The whole country’s