< Cli- thump tack, cli- thump tack, cli- thump ta-tack, cli- thump tack, cli- thump ta-tack, cli- thump ta-- >

The sound of lone footsteps down the hall preceded his arrival--the steps themselves were not very loud, but every other step was interrupted by something heavy and blunt striking the ground, its dull report echoing down the open hallway. Eventually, there came a pause, and then the door opened.

It was the first time Stevick actually saw Matalik Varlot.

"I'm here to do business."

Varlot popped a white mint, small and round, into his beak, his single glittering eye rolling to fix on the Haska in front of him.

The black pupil, set in a bed of dark blue, seemed dilated and large.

Varlot himself was a reasonably tall being, his posture straight, the strange canvas of his feathered face weathered but not yet pale. He had only the one eye, on the left side--his right eye was covered by a crisp black patch, which covered any bruising or scarring that there might have been around the socket. Was he even missing an eye? Stevick wondered. He'd heard stories, none of them particularly detailed. Varlot's plumage was sleek enough, however, and he dressed in a sharp black suit to match, accented with silver trim. He wasn't exactly young-looking--somewhere between sixty and seventy at best estimate, though frankly Stevick knew next to nothing about the Chemno or their aging--but he seemed fairly healthy, age and eye patch aside. 'Fairly' being the operative word, of course. He carried a short, round-topped cane--the source of the loud thumping earlier--to support himself as he stood upright. And yet, far from being bent, Varlot's erect posture was long and natural, and he rested his weight on the cane comfortably, as though perhaps it were only for accessory.

The stiffened cast of his left leg suggested otherwise.

"Mr. Varlot."

"Just Varlot, please." Varlot waved for him to sit back down; when he didn't, Varlot cocked his head slightly, as though sizing him up. It was a strangely birdlike gesture. "Mr. Stevick."

Stevick stood his ground, towering over the lean Chemna; the tension was not visible in his squared face but instead was hidden, concealed in his black-furred back and shoulders. Extending his broad, thumbless paw, he waited while Varlot moved in kind--and narrowed his eyes in consternation when the Chemna extended his left hand to meet Stevick's right. He stared at it for a moment before full comprehension dawned, belatedly: Varlot leaned on the cane on his right side. If he let go to shake hands, he would likely injure himself--or just fall. Of course. Wordlessly, Stevick swapped paws and they shook sharply before retracting, mutually; despite the gaffe, Varlot made no comment, if it even affected him--given the lack of reaction, Stevick assumed implicitly that it didn't. But for anyone keeping score--as they both surely were--it could be a distinct strike against him.

"Will you sit?"

"I prefer to stand." A calm, measured voice, serene but firm.

They eyed each other with equal stoicism, and a long, heavy series of seconds passed between them. There was no give in either man. Finally, Stevick pushed his seat back and sat down in a single brusque motion, leaving the older businessman to remain on his feet at the other end of the table. He didn't care. He was not a Haska who was easily intimidated--or easily defrayed, and obstinacy on the part of his business partners was not going to stall him at this point of the game.

He cleared his throat to begin the meeting.

"The concern, as I am sure you are aware, is that the trade allowances given to Torzo will allow it to dominate sector production--and possibly take over distribution entirely."

"So I've heard." Varlot leaned on his cane at the other end of the table. His tone was brisk, almost simple, but not rude. Far from it. They had conversed at length via letter, e-mail, and phone over the preceding months; the details had therefore been investigated over and over, dissected to the point of exhaustion. Tedious but necessary--Stevick knew Varlot disdained them. Stevick did not. He relished the chance to re-exhume detals, to bring them to bear and work them over--he had little love for formality, but the procedure could be a powerful thing. And its processes could teach you a lot about its players; it was an advantage that was not to be discounted. Varlot had a number of eccentricities, none of which directly affected the nature of business proceedings, but which were nonetheless pronounced enough to note. His preference for brevity was one of them. Stevick was correspondingly unfazed by the meagre response.

"Even if you were to scale back production, your own projections place you beyond the institutional parametres for production-based city-states within the next fifteen years." Stevick had no need to look up these estimations--he had memorised them early in these negotiations, updating his records with each new exchange.

"Our projections are accurate, I assure you." Varlot smiled thinly.

Stevick didn't doubt it. Torzo, for an economic city-state, was astoundingly, almost unsettlingly prolific--based on a mining-based resource economy, its wealth of metal, ore, and associated commodities had allowed it to import raw chemical ingredients and proceed in an ambitious pharmaceutical venture. It was not, by any stretch, a controlled growth, nor a safe one--there were horror stories, of course, associated with production processes--and though Stevick doubted most of them were anything but stories, it left him, in his position of control over Plicity, in a precipitous position. One that allowed him, by means of his own manufacture, to potentially keep this in check.

It also left him in prime position to make a profit at Varlot's expense. However, there were certain necessities that needed to be taken care of first. Certain establishments.

"Then you are aware of the necessity of the arrangement. The intention is that anyone looking in will leave with the understanding that everything is clean--no dealing under the books."

"It was never my intention to deal under the table." Varlot's response came shortly, and he levelled Stevick with a look, singular blue eye pinning the Haska where he sat. Stevick's eyes narrowed once again.

"Come again?"

"Oh, I'm sure you heard me the first time."

"And I'm not sure I follow." Stevick response was short, with a heavy edge that bore out his strengths. "Are you telling me you're backing out already? Because if so..."

"...that really is too bad." Varlot murmured, his weight shifting slightly starboard so that he was balancing almost completely against his cane. That right hand was missing two fingers, Stevick noticed, a faint note of revulsion accompanying the realisation. Varlot's smallest finger was missing the top joint; the ring finger was little more than a stump, its top two joints gone. It looked like a tube of bone covered in a thin layer of meat. "Anyone in the public eye is bound to become unpopular if they wait long enough, Mr. Stevick. Seventeen years seems to have done the trick." The Chemna paused, continuing in a strangely conversational tone. "I was left a present, you know, deposited inside a desk at a factory I was visiting." Varlot seemed calm, even benign, but there was a strange air to him now, eerily composed. Stevick felt, sharply, that the room was incredibly small--Varlot incredibly close--but nothing had yet changed. What was he trying to accomplish? The Haska's eyes narrowed. "Fortunately for me, they failed."

Varlot reached up with his right arm and slipped a long claw into the underside of the eye patch, pulling it up to reveal a brilliant, faceted diamond, placed directly into the place where his eye had been. With the patch removed, Stevick could see where the orbital had been broken, and there was no eyelid--just that single cut diamond, gleaming out of the socket. He was torn between fascination and revulsion, the ragged edge of oily scar tissue contrasting starkly with the sharp, clean facets of the flawless shining stone.

Then Varlot flipped the patch back down, reaching out for his cane and taking his weight off of the table, where he had bent to lean, propping himself up on it to support his weight. "That was several years ago, however, and I haven't been left any further surprises since."

Stevick met his eyes, a thin sense of disgust trickling black bile into the back of his thoughts. And he experienced a dark, venomous surge of anger, so potent that it left him with a brief desire to see Varlot put in his place--or at least taken down a peg. He had a sense, invisible but exacting, that he was being played in some way--played upon, or else that he was just a token in an elaborate game. Who put a diamond in their eye socket--and why? As a badge of honour, perhaps? Or a mockery? But who then covered it up with an eye patch? Varlot had a game--and Stevick wouldn't play it. No, this would not be a game.

It would be a war.

And Stevick was ready.

Varlot, however, sighed tiredly, and he took a chair at last; planting his left hand on the table to steady himself as he sat, he lowered himself into his seat with visible effort. Once there, he folded his hands together, the outside edges of his arms resting against the table. In the conference room's light, his square silver cuff links winked brightly.

"So, by all means. Let us do business."

Stevick could have sworn he saw him smile.

He smiled back, tusks glinting in the stark lighting.

"Let's."