Chapter 13: Zau buys a necessary technology
Zau sat at the table on the deck of his chûn, matting pulled across the framework above to keep off the rain. It was anchored at its private spot on the industrial wharf, the Pearl River in spate pulling the bowline tight, his sedan gleaming wet on the wharf nearby. It was the evening of a public holiday, one of the new ones established in the past 30 or 40 years to celebrate some ephemeral event of politics. Still, a dredger rumbled by. No rest in the busiest harbor in the world.
Soon it would be eleven, and the person he awaited would present himself. And then the negotiations would begin. He sipped his tea, thought back.
He’d first encountered the self-styled Lucifer centuries ago, toying with real Musketeers, an actual Athos among them. Rakes and swordsmen, but just as subject to Cupid’s arrows, even if the arrows were actually set in motion by a being of a rather different nature. He’d paraded a gorgeous woman past them on a litter, flora artfully draped across her, then while they were distracted, replaced their swords with willow switches. Remarkably, they still prevailed, talent, speed and theft of their enemies’ swords proving an effective combination.
As far as Zau could tell, Lucifer was simply a European trickster spirit with an inflated ego, perhaps the one the Reynard tales were based upon. But that didn’t stop him from being useful then, and it wasn’t stopping him from being useful, in fact indispensable, now.
He’d turned into something of a dealer in powerful technologies. Zau had purchased a boat-load of Colt revolvers from him for use in the Boxer Rebellion, bullets being more effective than martial arts when push came to shove. He’d successfully protected his holdings and extended them quite nicely with the extra firepower.
But now Lucifer had something rather more important and rather less tangible to offer. It would be expensive, but money would soon be much devalued, or even valueless entirely. Spend coins while they are still currency, a maxim that had served him well through the centuries, something many of his kind seemed to not understand.
His boat servant coughed. Zau looked up. Lucifer was standing on the dock at the end of the gangplank, slim briefcase in hand, no car in sight. Typical. Unnecessary.
Zau stood, gestured to Lucifer that he could board, walked across the deck to meet him, shook hands with him in the European style but with just a hint of talon.
“Nice boat. I seem to remember meeting you on a river barge in the Seine a few times.”
“I prefer being near the water. And the acoustics are bad for eavesdropping.”
“Personally, I prefer my feet on solid ground, or under it.”
“But yet you came.”
“Yet I came. I’ve brought something you hinted you might like, although it’s unclear to me why.”
“My reasons are immaterial. If you have what I want, we’ll be able to come to terms that please you, I’m sure.
“As always.”
“Please sit. Would you like anything to eat or drink?”
“I have a taste for the blood of a wolf tonight. Would you be able to satisfy it?”
“I could send out. Perhaps you’d be satisfied with crisped pork belly instead?”
“Nothing then. Let’s stop featherbedding this.”
He opened his briefcase, slipped an iPad from it, turned it on, tapped an icon. A complex schematic rotated into view. He passed the tablet to Zau, who wandered through the information for a while.
“This appears legitimate. I’ll have to have it confirmed. Do you mind if my expert looks at it?”
“No, of course not.”
Zau gestured, and his driver escorted a burly woman from the deck cabin to the table. She sat, gathered the tablet to her and ignored the two others as she poured through the data, schematics and documents. They sat in silence as she worked, looking out over the harbor.
After 30 minutes, she looked up, nodded once to Zau, slid the tablet back to him and returned to the deck cabin with the driver.
“It looks as if we have the basis of a deal. You have real product. What are you asking?”
“10 million.”
“Hong Kong dollars?”
“Euros.”
“That’s wide of the mark. You’ll sell more copies. 5 million.”
“Do you know what was required to get that? 8.”
“So we agree on seven?”
“That appears to be all I’ll get from you tonight. The account number and institute I prefer is in the address book of the tablet.”
“Expect the money within two days.”
“I will. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment.”
“Certainly. Until next time.”
Zau was speaking to empty air. Typical. Unnecessary.
But still. He now had the full engineering schematics for the ITER tokamok nuclear fusion reactor, an unparalleled source of electricity if reports were accurate. By any metric, the evening was a success and his plans could carry on.
He would cremate the causes of his daughter’s death and poisoning of the oceans, and soon.