The Lani People | Page 5

important enough to demand the attention of a senior executive. The personnel section could handle the details of his application as well as not. He shrugged. Perhaps veterinarians were more important on Kardon. He didn't know a thing about this world's customs.
He opened the unmarked door at the end of the corridor, entered a small reception room, smiled uncertainly at the woman behind the desk, and received an answering smile in return.
Come right in, Dr. Kennon. Mr. Alexander is waiting for you.
Alexander! The entrepreneur himself! Why? Numb with surprise Kennon watched the woman open the intercom on her desk.
"Sir, Dr. Kennon is here," she said.
"Bring him in," a smooth voice replied from the speaker. Alexander X. M. Alexander, President of Outsold Enterprises - a lean, dark, wolfish man in his early sixties - eyed Kennon with a flat predatory intentness that was oddly disquieting. His stare combined the analytical inspection of the pathologist, the probing curiosity of the psychiatrist, and the weighing appraisal of the butcher. Kennon's thoughts about Alexander's youth vanished that instant. Those eyes belonged to a leader on the battlefield of galactic business.
Kennon felt the conditioned respect for authority surge through him in a smothering wave. Grimly he fought it down, knowing it was a sign of weakness that would do him no good in the interview which lay ahead.
"So you're Kennon," Alexander said. His lingua franca was clean and accentless. "I expected someone older."
"Frankly, sir, so did I," Kennon replied.
Alexander smiled, an oddly pleasant smile that transformed the hard straight lines in his face into friendly curves. "Business, Dr. Kennon, is not the sole property of age."
"Nor is a veterinary degree," Kennon replied.
"True. But one thinks of a Betan as someone ancient and sedate."
"Ours is an old planet -- but we still have new generations."
"A fact most of us outsiders find hard to believe," Alexander said. "I picture your world as an ironclad society crystallized by age and custom into something rigid and in flexible."
"You would be wrong to do so," Kennon said. "Even though we are cultural introverts there is plenty of dynamism within our society."
"How is it that you happen to be out here on the edge of civilization?"
"I never said I was like my society," Kennon grinned. "Actually I suppose I'm one of the proverbial bad apples."
"There's more to it than that," Alexander said. "Your early years probably influenced you."
Kennon looked sharply at the entrepreneur. How much did the man really know about him? "I suppose so," he said indifferently."
Alexander looked pleased. "But even with your childhood experiences there must be an atavistic streak in you - a throwback to your adventurous Earth forebears who settled your world?"
Kennon shrugged. "Perhaps you're right. I really don't know. Actually, I've never thought about it. It merely seemed to me that an undeveloped world offered more opportunity."
"It does," Alexander said. "But it also offers more work. If you're figuring that you can get along on the minimum physical effort required on the Central Worlds, you have a shock coming."
"I'm not that innocent," Kennon said. "But I am not so stupid that I can't apply modifications of Betan techniques to worlds as new as this."
Alexander chuckled. "I like you," he said. suddenly. "Here read this and see if you'd care to work for me." He picked a contract form from one of the piles of paper on his desk and handed it to Kennon. "This is one of our standard work contracts. Take it back to your hotel and check it over. I'll expect to see you at this time tomorrow."
"Why waste time?" Kennon said. "The rapid-reading technique originated on Beta. I can tell you in fifteen minutes."
"Hmm. Certainly. Read it here if you wish. I like to get things settled - the sooner the better. Sit down, young man and read. You can rouse me when you're finished." He turned his attention to the papers on his desk and within seconds was completely oblivious of Kennon, his face set in the rapt trancelike expression of a trained rapid reader.
Kennon watched for a moment as sheets of paper passed through Alexander's hands to be added to the pile at the opposite end of the desk. The man would do better, he thought, if he would have his staff transcribe the papers to microfilm that could be read through an interval-timed scanner. He might suggest that later. As for now, he shrugged and seated himself in the chair beside the desk. The quiet was broken only by the rustle of paper as the two rapt-faced men turned page after page with mechanical regularity.
Finally Kennon turned the last page, paused, blinked, and performed the necessary mental gymnastics to orient his time sense. Alexander, he noticed, was still engrossed, sunk in his autohypnotic trance. Kennon waited until he had finished