Illustration by Paul Campbell © 2006
RESOURCES
by Robert Laughlin © 2006
It looks like a Persian tapestry, Peter Driessen thought. Ornate line patterns following a logic that was inscrutable, or at least it was to him.
“Depth and composition of strata don't affect the readings. You could keep going to the core of the earth if you think there's money to be made pumping up molten iron.”
Peter moved his gaze from the readout screen to the source of the voice, a superior resting place for any man's eye, in Peter's opinion. “Alright, Mudi, you've shown me it's ready for deployment, not a set of theories written in chalk. I haven't heard anything about a price—now's the time to tell me.”
Mudi Sudhairi smiled. She had full, flexible lips that gave her smile an unintended come-hither quality. “I definitely invented the al-Kindi for money, but you can't put down a wad of cash and walk out with it. There are so many of your competitors who want it too, Mr. Driessen. I've decided to grant first dibs by conducting an auction.”
That was news Peter Driessen had dreaded. Yesterday Dr. Hatta, the company's head geophysicist, had brought Peter published reports about a radically innovative exploratory device. Peter didn't fully grasp Hatta's explanation of the concept involved, but it got results that differed from existing methods, seismic, magnetic or gravimetric, the same way a high-resolution photograph differs from a mosaic assembled out of concrete blocks. Useful for finding subsurface water and gauging the seismic integrity of development sites, the al-Kindi had its greatest commercial value in mineral prospecting, especially for petroleum and natural gas. The Saudi inventor had already patented her breakthrough, so Peter took the first available flight to Riyadh, hustling his thick-waisted, bandy-legged frame from taxi to terminal to taxi, afraid he might lose first place in the queue.
Mudi turned a knob on the al-Kindi's instrument panel and the Persian tapestry disappeared into an obsidian void. As much of the al-Kindi as Peter needed to see fit on Mudi's desk with plentiful room to spare. Peter supposed she had kept the device a secret before its patenting by having the components manufactured by different vendors, none of whom knew what they were helping to build. “There isn't a lot more we can accomplish here. I prefer to transact serious business at home. It's the custom. May I expect you for lunch at twelve, Mr. Driessen?”
Mudi Sudhairi's high-rise office suite had nothing about it to suggest laboratory work was done there and Peter had wrongly assumed it was the place she used for negotiation and contract signing. “Yes, I'll be there. Me and who else?”
“Just you. Six other firms expressed interest in the al-Kindi, but their representatives won't get here till tomorrow.” Peter's flat-out haste was rewarded, or so he thought. Surely he could talk up some kind of advantage during this business lunch.
Mudi got out of her chair and stepped gracefully around the desk to shake Peter's hand. Peter wondered, as he rose from his chair, if she realized how becoming she looked. Mudi's attire was a very loose approximation of the old-fashioned unicolored sack-garment that covered everything but an Arab woman's hands and face. Mudi wore a pale blue head scarf that failed to cover most of her waist-length hair. A trousered long-sleeve tunic of the same blue shade left little to speculate about her figure.
“My secretary can give you the address, Mr. Driessen. Twelve o'clock. We'll be having lamb's tongue.”
Peter had twenty spare minutes at his hotel before leaving for Mudi's house and wasn't altogether aware he was filling the time by shaving again after only three hours, putting on cologne, looking through luggage for his most flattering shirts and ties. His dominant train of thought concerned the auction and the likely amount of a winning bid. The atmosphere of amiable collusion long present among his fellow oilmen had proved its fragility; Peter wasn't sure his company was adequately capitalized for the impending battle over the al-Kindi.
The look of Riyadh was accurately described in Peter's guide book: a central core of commercial and government buildings erected in the sixties, encircled by mixed commercial and residential dating mainly from the eighties and later. Mudi's house was in one of the newest developments, all stuccoed cubes with wickerwork shutters to admit late-night air. The only people outside at this time of day were small children playing among the rock gardens and drought-resistant lawns. As Peter's taxi pulled to a stop, he heard distant scraping that could have been someone arranging furniture on an enclosed rooftop patio.
“You want me to wait for you?” The female driver's Dutch wasn't as good as Mudi's, her consonants taking on the liquid sounds of Saudi Arabic.
“No, just leave me. I'll call for another taxi when I need it.”
“Could be a long wait.”
“That's fine with me.”
Peter was shown into the house by an elderly woman in traditional garb, who responded to the name he gave her without saying a word herself. Peter thought she could be Mudi's mother or an unattached aunt, in line with his expectation of extended Arab families living under one roof. The old woman stopped and stood to one side while Peter crossed a threshold into a central great room with a cathedral ceiling, containing mostly Western furniture. Still in the same blue scarf and tunic, Mudi Sudhairi was half-reclined on a sofa, apparently relaxing after a hard drive home.
“Come in, Mr. Driessen.” Mudi spoke a few Arabic words to the old woman, who then walked off into another room. Peter understood: the woman was a hired servant and the three of them were the only people in the house. “Business or pleasure first isn't a choice, I'm afraid. Nozhanin got our lunch ready a bit early.”
Mudi showed Peter to a dining room with a low Arabian-style table. Recorded music in meters unfamiliar to Peter accompanied the courses: eggplant salad, flatbread, chick-pea dip and the anticipated lamb's tongue. The old woman served and removed plates with the silent efficiency of an English butler, and Peter irked Mudi somewhat by eating his lunch with both hands. He also got Mudi to call him by his first name before lunch was over, a semblance of friendship prior to negotiations. It was significant that Mudi didn't touch the arak served with lunch—she wants to keep a thoroughly clear head, Peter thought, and he drank only half a glass himself.
After the last dishes were cleared away, Mudi led Peter back into the great room. “You can see I don't discuss business at the dinner table. I prefer to give it my fullest attention.” Mudi returned to her favorite sofa and sat upright on one of the end cushions. Having no concept of personal space, she didn't object when Peter sat down on the middle cushion.
“The high bidder,” Mudi said, “will have exclusive use of the al-Kindi for one year. I'll take an order for a fixed number of units and handle the manufacture myself; I won't contract it out. After the year is up, any interested parties can buy the al-Kindi at the unit price established by the high bidder. And the bids will be secret.”
“Secret?” Peter couldn't help raising his voice.
“My knowledge of mathematics includes some game theory and I think I understand the situation well enough to know what will maximize my profit. Whoever wins the bidding will have three hundred sixty-five days to scour the globe for unsuspected riches, oil and gas-bearing properties undervalued because the owners don't know what they're sitting on. That's too much of a windfall to surrender; because none of you will know what the others are bidding, I expect most of you to put up as much as you can beg or borrow. It would be possible for all of you to conspire and hold down the bidding prices, but you don't have enough mutual loyalty for that. At least one of you would break the agreement and top the other bids.”
Peter looked like a poker player on a losing streak. “If you're so sure of your advantage, why not just charge us for the use of the al-Kindi, say, a percentage of gross profits from every well we turn up?”
Again Mudi broke out in that mock-seductive smile. “I considered that, Peter, I truly did. It would be too great an outrage. You and the others would slink away and I'd be left with nothing. I can maximize my profit only so far.”
“At the bidding table, that is. You didn't say what you plan to do after you get paid.”
Mudi looked more serious now and more respectful of Peter. “While the high bidder is out looking for buried treasure, I'll have the money I need to undertake the same thing: a legion of people trained with the al-Kindi, discreetly prospecting on every continent for deposits of oil, or anything else worth the purchase of land. It's all worked out. In the end, I think I can parlay the high bid—no small sum itself—into one of the great personal fortunes.”
Mudi went silent and looked down at the floor for a few seconds. Having at last admitted her grand scheme of self-betterment, she was slightly embarrassed...and greatly enhanced in Peter's eyes. For Peter Driessen, avarice was a human urge as vital to satisfy as hunger or thirst. He was thunderstruck that this woman, who had already displayed a rare combination of beauty and intellect, also had a previously underutilized genius for business. At that moment, Peter felt more attracted to Mudi than to any other woman he had ever met. Mudi's self-absorption prevented her from seeing this.
“The al-Kindi was an incidental discovery,” Mudi said, talking rapidly and intently, as though trying to justify herself. “So many important discoveries are exactly that. I wanted to invent an improved magnetometer, hoping to make enough on royalties to keep up my house payments. Testing data gave me the inklings of a brand new theory, and filling it out was worth the time and money invested. My published research, the patent for the al-Kindi—neither has enough crucial detail to make it easy to reinvent the al-Kindi and pirate it. My secretary spends a lot of time batting away inquiries from people eager to know more than I'm telling. Eventually we will lose control over the al-Kindi, and in time, the whereabouts of the earth's mineral wealth will be pegged out like features on a road map. Long before then, the high bidder and I will be counting our billions, and the losing bidders may be almost as rich, even without the advantage of a year's lead time.
“Some of that money will be lavished on myself and some will pass out of my hands as the almsgiving expected from the very rich. Most of it will go for research, pure research, the kind that doesn't normally benefit the researcher to any great degree, except for the satisfaction of having Mother Nature yield her secrets. I've been stockpiling projects since graduate school and applying to a host of potential patrons here and abroad, almost always without success. Now I can bypass the application process. Given the chance, any scientist would rather be his or her own patron.”
Peter sat all this time without moving. He liked listening to Mudi talk, no matter what she was saying.
Mudi got up and so did Peter. “Let me show you something,” she said, walking to a large side window and throwing open both window and shutter. Peter stopped right behind her, looking over her gently sloping shoulder and forcing down an impulse to put his hand on it. “Five years ago, these houses and streets were nonexistent; there was nothing out here but desert. We could have gone back to being goatherds when the oil ran out in the seventies, but we didn't. We'd had a taste of affluence; we'd started to build a great city far from the ports and farms of the outer peninsula. There was a choice to make: regress, or start exercising our brains and showing initiative now that we couldn't pump wealth out of the ground.” Peter noticed the pride in Mudi's voice. “People like me made the difference.”
Mudi closed up the house again. “If you don't have to leave right away, may I show you something else, Peter?” Without waiting for him to say yes or no, Mudi led Peter into the back of the house. Peter knew what there before he saw it, apprised by a tang that wasn't incense or potpourri. Invisible from the street, the attached greenhouse was nearly as high and broad as the house and took up most of the backyard space on the lot. Mudi and Peter went through the back door of the house into a cool forest glade, too formal and proportioned in its beauty for the random jumble of nature. The faint whine of air conditioners didn't spoil the effect of two half-grown Japanese maples leaning over a pool with small fish and clusters of water lilies, the remaining space occupied by ferns, moss-covered rocks and flowering ground cover. Diffused sunlight shone through semi-frosted panels and overhead humidifiers released a cool mist. The smell of fertility was unsubtle, to say the least. Just behind Mudi on a stepping-stone path, Peter glanced back at two bedroom windows overlooking the glade and wondered how anyone could sleep with them open.
“You conduct research in botany too?”
“No, you silly man.” Mudi sat on a high rock surrounded by clumps of sweet violet and lily-of-the-valley. “You've no idea how lucky you are, Peter, living in a country with gentle sunshine and plenty of fresh water. I decided to bring some of that to the desert. This greenhouse of mine is a neighborhood institution now. Almost every day, people ask to see it, though they don't chip in for the water and electricity bills I run up—it's quite a luxury. I just removed the trunk supports from the maples, so you're the first person to see it as I intended.”
Mudi sat comfortably, even snugly, with her hands over one knee. Peter stood two stepping-stones away in the cool fragrant setting.
“When people come to this place, I suppose they're usually in groups.”
“Usually, yes.”
“Does it alarm your neighbors if you show it to one man, someone who isn't related to you?”
“Don't be afraid of what they think, Peter. You can see for yourself no one can tell we're in here. The glass is too opaque.” How Mudi meant that statement was not how Peter took it.
“I'm glad you brought me here.”
“Thank you.”
“Not for the sylvan scenery. That I can take or leave.”
Mudi Sudhairi had never learned much about cooking or housekeeping. It mattered to her that she preserve a domestic, feminine identity apart from her professional achievements and she felt gardening was her most effective venue. What Peter said had hurt her; there was even a suggestion of sacrilege inasmuch as Koranic descriptions of oases in the afterlife, familiar to Mudi from childhood, had influenced her design for the greenhouse more than she realized. “I thought the Dutch were very fond of horticulture. I'm sorry my forest didn't make a better impression.” Mudi said nothing more expressive than that, but her face was an exaggerated pout. Peter thought it looked every bit as inviting as her smile.
“Never mind that. You know why we're here, Mudi.”
Peter got closer and Mudi finally understood what was happening. “I have a husband; he's at the university right now.” That was absolutely true, though the way it came out, it couldn't have sounded more fictitious.
“You went to a lot of trouble to lure me to this place. I can't believe you didn't do it on purpose.” Peter nudged a honeysuckle flower with one foot. “A novel surface for lovemaking, I'll grant you.” His right hand only inches from Mudi's quivering arm, Peter heard a sound from clear across the house, muted but unmistakable: the slamming of the front door. Mudi heard it too and smiled with relief.
“For once, I'm grateful Nozhanin took it on herself to be my chaperon. A retired army colonel lives two doors down and I happen to know he still has his old service pistol. If you leave by the opposite door, you can be safely away before he gets here.” Peter bounded to the far wall of the greenhouse, straying from the curved stepping-stone path and nearly tripping over an exposed maple root. Just before he reached the door leading outside, Peter heard, “Don't send a bid, Driessen. I reserve the right to refuse service!”
Peter simmered with anger during his plane's descent and noticed none of the thousands of derricks pointing up, successors of windmills as the sigil of his country's industry. He wasn't sure he could retain his presidency after the stockholders learned they were out of the bidding for the al-Kindi, especially if they found out why. It wasn't like Peter Driessen to accept blame; as his taxi filed through Amsterdam's streets, repeatedly passing new construction of fifth and sixth-story additions, he kept thinking, if only I hadn't been alone with that little minx...
What Peter found at home did nothing to brighten his mood. Frans was playing with the Renaldi boy up in the attic floor, disobeying his order not to fraternize with the servants. Mirna should have been watching him—and just where was Mirna? Mrs. Renaldi gave Peter a story about Mirna's having left the house in a great hurry, and Mirna walked in the front door the very instant Peter was considering what to try next.
“Oh, thank God you're here, Peter. I called the hotel and they said you'd already gone to the airport.” Mirna wasn't even made up. Peter had told her before that someone with so little to do around the house could at least stay presentable for him.
“What's this all about? Why weren't you at home?”
“It's Willem again. He's been borrowing against his future aid checks. I was so sure I'd gotten him off his habit. Peter, you've got to help me, you've got to give him a talking to.”
The last thing Peter wanted to think about was the problems of his wife's relatives. “Mirna, the trip to Riyadh was a complete disaster. There's a meeting with the board tomorrow and I have to figure out what I'm going to say to them. Anything else can wait until later.”
Tears started to well in Mirna's eyes. “But, Peter...” A familiar glower settled over Peter's face and Mirna went no further. In obedience to the principle of self-preservation, she let the matter rest for the evening.
THE END
