Tom Hyman by Jupiter's Daughter Page B

presence. Kirsten, his research assistant, sat on a stool in the far corner, peering into a microscope. She had not noticed his entrance, either. Stewart cleared his throat loudly.
    Goth glanced over his shoulder. He greeted Stewart bluntly: “What do you want?”
    “I want you to succeed, Doctor,” Stewart said, inflecting the words with all the warmth he could muster.
    Goth dismissed him with a short wave of his hand. “If you’re here to make me an offer, you’re too late.”
    Stewart’s genial grin vanished. “Too late?”
    “The Baroness von Hauser has already made a proposal.”
    Stewart felt his pulse quicken. “Surely you haven’t accepted it —have you?”
    Goth shrugged. “It’s adequate.”
    “But you haven’t heard my offer yet.”
    “I don’t want to.”

68
    “Don’t be hasty, Doctor. I have a plan I think you’ll find far more attractive.”
    Goth was clearly eager to get rid of him. “I really don’t need a lot of money,” he snapped.
    “I understand. But there are other considerations, aren’t there ? ”
    Goth’s eyebrows narrowed in a suspicious squint. “What do you mean?”
    “What are the baroness’s terms?”
    Goth hesitated for a moment. “She’s accepted sixty percent,” he said, finally.
    Stewart nodded. Obviously the doctor thought he had driven a hell of a bargain, getting her down from her pretended insistence on ninety percent. “How much capital is she prepared to advance to you?”
    “Exactly what I demanded. Ten million dollars.”
    “How will she pay it out?”
    “Spread over two years.”
    “And you’re happy with that?”
     
    “I can live with it.”
    “No other conditions?”
    “Some oversight,” Goth muttered. He wasn’t crazy about that part of the bargain.
    Stewart rested his hands on the counter top behind him and leaned back, calculating how he might best deliver the baroness a figurative kick right in her smart, round ass.
    “That could be trouble, couldn’t it?” he said. “I could be wrong, but oversight’s likely to mean Hauser lawyers and CPAs constantly hounding you to account for every dollar. It could even mean Hauser biologists sticking their noses in your laboratory work. I understand the baroness has a reputation for meddling.
    She likes to be personally involved in her projects. Ask anybody who’s dealt with her. They’ll tell you the same. It could slow you down.”
    Goth slid a thumb and forefinger up under his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. Bull’s-eye, Stewart thought.
    “I have to be a realist,” Goth replied. “I don’t expect anything better.”
    “Why shouldn’t you?”
    Goth chewed his lip. His skepticism was warring with his curiosity.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “A better offer. I’ll advance you all the money you require.
    Forget ten million—I’ll go to twenty. And you can have the money when and as you need it. And you won’t have to account for a nickel of it to anybody. How you spend it will be entirely up to you.”
    “And what percentage of Jupiter would you expect?”
    “At this stage, absolutely none. There’d be no conditions attached to the money—none whatsoever. Consider it a research grant. Period.
    When you’re ready to market Jupiter, we’ll discuss percentages then.
    If we can’t come to terms, you’ll be free to take the project elsewhere. If you fail to develop a workable program, then percentages won’t matter anyway.”
    Goth stared at Stewart disbelievingly; he was not a man accustomed to good news. “What’s the catch?”
    “There isn’t any. I said no strings—I mean it. I respect your work.
    And I believe you can do what you say you can do. If I can help you, then we’ll all be winners. To try to tie you down to an agreement now is neither necessary nor advisable, in my view. Look at it this way: if things go better for you than you expect, you might end up feeling I took advantage of you when you weren’t in a strong