Iain Banks - The Business

'Some think otherwise.' I was thinking of a few — mostly US-based — execs I'd met who had nothing but contempt for anybody who gave any money to any cause, with the possible exception of the National Rifle Association.

'Perhaps they have their own…indulgences.'

'Perhaps. Mr Cholongai?'

'Please, call me Tommy.'

'All right, Tommy.'

'If I may call you Kathryn.'

'I'd be honoured. But I'd like to know, Tommy, what all this has to do with anything.'

He shifted in his seat. He took his sunglasses off briefly, rubbing one knuckle into the corner of one eye. 'Can we talk in confidence, Kathryn?'

'I assumed we already were. But, yes. Of course.'

'It has to do with Thulahn.'

'Thulahn?' That threw me.

'Yes. We would like to ask you to change tracks.'

What? Maybe he'd meant change tack, but it worked either way. 'How do you mean?'

'In your career.'

I felt a coldness sweep over me, as though I'd drenched myself in iced coffee. I thought, What have I done? What can they do to me? I collected myself and said, 'I thought my career was going just fine.'

'It is. That is why it is difficult for us to ask this of you.'

My initial panic had subsided, but I was still not at all sure I liked the sound of this. My heart was racing. It suddenly struck me that a light silk blouse and unlined jacket were bad things to wear when your heart was thudding: people could probably see the fabric quivering. Maybe women and fat men suffered more this way; some sort of resonant frequency set-up magnifying the effect in your breasts. Breeze, I thought. There's a breeze. Should cover any signs. Calm down, girl. I cleared my throat. 'What exactly are you asking me to do, Tommy?'

'To become, in a sense, our ambassador to Thulahn.'

'Ambassador?'

'It is more than that.' (More than that? How could it be more than that?) 'At first we would ask you to go there to report. To look at the place and try to work out where it might be heading, to spot trends, in other words — social trends, if you like — in the same sort of way that you seem to be able to spot trends in technology at the moment. Do you see the connection?'

'I think so. But why ?'

'Because we are entering a unique situation in Thulahn. By adopting it as our base we will be exposing ourselves in a way we have not done before. We will be making ourselves vulnerable in a manner we have not been since the fifteenth century.'

This was a Switzerland reference, of course: the late fourteen hundreds was when the place became effectively independent and the Business — always attracted to havens of stability, no matter how relative — had started to put down roots there. Cholongai's chronology ignored a dodgy moment in 1798 when the armies of revolutionary France invaded, but never mind.

'Don't we have people to do that sort of thing?' I asked. Surely either we did or we could employ the best. This was the sort of thing you could just throw money, university professors and battalions of post-grads at. Sociologists loved places like Thulahn.

'Not at the appropriate level, Kathryn. We need someone whom we can trust. That, of course, means someone in the Business whom we know to be profoundly committed to it. There are probably hundreds of people at the right level using that criterion alone. But we also need someone who can see things from a perspective outside the company, someone who will feel sympathetic towards the people of Thulahn. Someone who will be able to empathise with them, and advise us how best to incorporate their needs and wishes with those of the company itself.' Cholongai sat forward, clasping his hands on the surface of the white plastic table. Beneath our feet the deck buzzed and around us the plates and glass of the superstructure vibrated as the ship powered onwards, heading for the shore.

'Thulahn is not Fenua Ua,' Cholongai said. 'There are nearly a million Thulahnese. We cannot evacuate them all, or provide all of them with apartments in Miami. They seem a docile people, and devoted to their royal family, but if we are to make the sort of commitment to their country that we are anticipating making, then we need to be able to predict how they will feel in the future, and move to accommodate those feelings.'

'Such as, what if they decide they would like democracy?'

'That sort of thing.'

'So I'd be spying on them?'

'No, no.' Cholongai laughed lightly. 'No more than you already spy on those companies we consider investing in. What you would do would benefit the people of Thulahn as much as ourselves, perhaps more.'

'And only I can do this?' I tried to sound sceptical. It wasn't difficult.

'We think you would be the best person to do so.'

'What would it involve?'

'It would mean that you would have to relocate to Thulahn. It might be possible also to continue performing your present function for a while, but I would think that before too long it would become impossible to carry out both tasks satisfactorily.'

'You mean I'd have to live in Thulahn?'

Cholongai nodded. 'Indeed.'

Thulahn. Memories of my few days there came tumbling back. Thulahn (or at least Thuhn, the capital, because I hadn't really been anywhere else): mountains. Lots of mountains. And rain. Mountains that — when you could see them through the clouds — made you crane your neck to see their snowy summits, even when you were already a mile or two high. Almost nothing level. That fucking football pitch that doubled as a landing strip. Lots of smoke — the smell of burning dung — tiny bright-eyed children plumped out by thick clothes, small men bent under huge bundles of firewood, old women squatting fanning stoves, shyly hiding their faces, goats and sheep and yaks, a surprisingly modest royal palace, the few dirt roads and the single stretch of tarmac they were so proud of, bizarre tales about the dowager Queen I'd never met, huge monasteries barnacled across cliff faces, waking up in the middle of the night feeling breathless, the creak of prayer windmills, the bitter taste of warm milk beer. Not to mention my fan, the Prince.

I took a deep breath. 'I don't know about that.'

'It would seem to be the only way .'

'What if I say no?'

'Then we would hope that you would continue to do your present job, Kathryn. We would have to find somebody else — perhaps a group of people rather than an individual — to take on Thulahn in the way I have outlined.'

'I like my life, Tommy.' Now I was trying to sound regretful. 'I enjoy feeling part of the buzz in the Valley . I like staying in London and travelling in Europe. I like travelling. I like the view over cities at night, and room service and long wine lists and twenty-four-hour supermarkets. You're asking me to settle down in a place where they're still struggling to come to terms with the flush toilet.'

'That is understood. If you took up this offer you would have complete freedom to work out the proportion of time you would spend in Thulahn and the proportion you spent elsewhere. We would trust you to resign if you found that the amount of time you felt able to spend in Thulahn was inadequate to fulfil the role you had taken up.' He paused. 'You would be made very comfortable. We could re-create your house in California, if that was what you wanted. You would have a company plane at your disposal. And a choice of staff, of course.'

'Those sound like the sort of privileges a Level Two could expect.'

'Level Two status would be assured.'

Good grief. 'Assured?'

'The importance of our association with Thulahn will surely be obvious to our colleagues at every level, once the deal has been struck and we are able to let everyone know. I cannot imagine that they would fail to promote you to a level your position in the country and importance to the company would befit.'