“Not fast enough,” Phule said, shaking his head. “We’ve got to have things fixed before the grand opening, and that’s in a week. Charter a ship if you have to, but-“
“Impossible,” Albert interrupted, shaking his head. “We might be able to get there in a week, but to diagnose any program problems, much less fix them, simply can’t be done in that time frame.”
“Double your fee,” the commander said flatly.
“But then again,” the analyst said, without blinking an eye, “if you can download the programs to us so we can be going over them in flight, all we’ll have to do on-site is load the revisions. It’ll be tight, but I guess we can manage.”
“Right.” Phule nodded. “A pleasure doing business with you Albert.”
He broke the connection with a sigh.
“Well, at least that’s taken care of.”
“If you say so, sir.”
The commander cocked an eyebrow at his butler.
“I know that tone of voice, Beek,” he said. “What’s the problem?”
“If I might ask a question, sir?”
“You mean why don’t I just loan Rafael the money to pay off Maxine?” The commander shook his head. “Aside from the ethical question involved with buying our way out of a problem this big, there’s the matter of sheer logistics. The kind of money we’d need I don’t have in ready cash. It would mean having to liquidate some of my long-term assets, which I don’t want to do, and even if I did, it would take more time than we have. Max wants the casino, and she’s not about to let Rafael off the hook for anything less than cash on the barrelhead.”
“I understand, sir,” Beeker said. “However, if I may, that wasn’t my question.”