A ruling passion : a novel (28 page)

people set up to do the assembly and I'll set up the testing."

"I can set up the whole thing, that's what I'm paid for. But I gotta tell you I don't like it."

"Neither do I, but we don't have a choice. Don't worry about the testing; I'll talk to Ed about it."

The production manager started to say something, then shrugged. "It's your baby."

The words nagged at Nick. In the early days, when the company was just beginning to grow, and he and Ted had hired a few other engineers, they all felt every project belonged to all of them. It got harder to keep that feeling as Omega grew larger, and maybe, Nick thought, it was impossible now that they were more than two hundred and still growing. Still, he liked to think that at least the top people had that sense of sharing. Those words, Ifs your baby, bothered him, but he put them aside to think about another time, because right now he had too much to do. They were completing production on one set of contracts, working on the fifteen hundred units, an engineer quit in the middle of the day after a quarrel with the chief engineer, two technicians went home sick, an experimental circuit board failed, a mathematics program being written for high schools developed a bug that made every equation equal zero, and the air-conditioning went out.

With a threatening phone call, Nick had the repair service there in half an hour, and by late afternoon cool air was circulating through the tropical heat that had built up in the large production room. That night he and Ted helped the engineer fix the bug in his mathematics program; the substitute IC chips arrived the next morning; and they swung into the final stage of production on the fifteen hundred computers. For the next two frenetic weeks, Nick saw less of Chad and nothing of anyone outside work; he ate erratically and barely slept. Everyone worked overtime, buoyed up and driven by the sense of mission that was like a spell cast over the whole company. And then the computers were shipped, only three days behind schedule, and everyone went into slow motion in the luxurious relaxation of exhausted triumph.

They barely had time to enjoy it. "Nick, there's a call from Emerson School," said his secretary when he came in after a weekend at Lake Tahoe with Chad. "There's something wrong with their new computer." That was when their triumph evaporated.

"We keep getting garbage on the screen," said Darrel Browne, the

headmaster of Emerson School. "It does just fine, but as soon as we try to print, everything on the screen disappears and a lot of junk shows up. Letters, numbers, asterisks, periods, question marks... like aliens invaded the computer. Garbage."

"How many have you tried?" Nick asked.

"All five. They're all the same. Nick, we're supposed to demonstrate these things for our trustees in two weeks. I went out on a limb to get them—the expense, you know; we're always close to the line around here—and they don^t work!"

"Hold on, Darrell." Nick stared at an oversize circuit diagram on the wall. His heart began to pound. The print command was controlled in part by the substitute printer interface chip. And he'd forgotten to tell Ed to test it while the units were being assembled.

Tou stupid son of a bitch; you forgot to tell him. There'd been a lot going on, he remembered: the bug in the mathematics program and the engineer quitting, and some other things. And the air conditioner had gone out; he remembered calling the repair company. Tou do the secretaries' work, for Christ^s sake; Fve seen you make calls they ought to he making.

"Nick?" asked Barrel Browne. "What's going on? We paid a fortune for these things. You sold us on how good they are, and how rehable you are So what are you going to do about it?"

"We're going to fix them," said Nick shortly. "Our word is good, you know that. Barrel. Whatever it takes, we'll get you a working system. We'll send someone out to pick up the computers and we'll have them back to you within a week. I guarantee it."

"A week. Well, if you really do that..."

"We'll do it. We'll have someone out this afternoon. Have them ready for us, will you?"

He hung up and sat still, his body tense. He could hear telephones ringing in the other offices.

'^^Don^t worry about the testing; Fll talk to Ed about it."

"I can set up the whole thing, thafs what Fm paid for."

".. .you butt in and take over something thef re doing, including things you shouldn^t be bothering with."

"Ifsyour baby."

He felt sick. What have I done?

Ted was standing in the doorway, his face ashen. Behind him, the production room was in an uproar. The telephones kept ringing.

"How many have called?" Nick asked.

"Fifty-three; I can't believe all of them will, but..."

The production manager was behind Ted. "I just checked the ones we kept here. It's the printer IC."

Nick nodded. "I thought so." He fought to keep his churning stomach steady. "What have you told them.>" he asked Ted.

"That we'd pick them up and fix them."

"That's what I told Darrel. Emerson School. We need trucks. I'll call—" He stopped and met Ted's eyes. "Mary should line up trucks to go to the local customers. Everyone else who calls should be told to return the units collect."

"Right. And die ICs?"

"We'll find the right ones, have them shipped overnight. The likeliest places..." He scrawled a few names and handed the paper to Ted. 'Whatever it costs. I blew the chance to save money. Time, too. Can you call them?"

Ted gave a grin and a small salute and left. And while the noise level rose higher in the production room and all the telephones rang, with customers calling to report the failure of their systems, the chief engineer, the testing supervisor, the technical supervisor and the foremen crowded in. 'What the ftick's going on.>"

Nick told them, not sparing himself "Busy week ahead," said the chief engineer, and that was all he said; everyone knew that recriminations would have to wait until the crisis was past. Nick, almost numb, kept his voice level as they plotted a scenario of repairs and returns. And the telephones kept ringing.

Omega's major distributor called while they were still planning. "I heard you got a little problem, Nick. They don't work? We got a thousand units sitting in the warehouse and they don't work? Whaf m I supposed to do, Nick? Sell 'em to kids for Christmas?"

"We're working on it. I'll call you this afternoon or tomorrow. We're taking care of it."

"You better, Nick. This is a lot of space I got tied up here with your goodies; cost me money if I can't ship 'em to my customers, and I got no time to ship 'em back to you and get 'em back again and stack 'em up again and hope they work. You figure it out or I send 'em all back and cancel the order. Kapeesh?"

"Look, wait a minute." Nick paced behind his desk, dragging the telephone cord behind him. He put his hand over the receiver and told the technical supervisor to pick up the extension on his secretary's desk. "I've got our technical supervisor on the phone," he said to the distributor. "I want him to verify this. If this is a simple fix—I don't know if it is yet, but if it is—we'll send a crew to your warehouse and

fix them there." He shot a questioning look at the technical supervisor, who made a small circle with his thumb and third finger. "You wouldn't have to do anything but let us in and stay out of our way," he said to the distributor. "Would that do it for you.>"

"Fix 'em here.>"

"Right."

"You can do that.> We got no equipment."

"I don't know what we'll need. If we can do it with what we can carry, we will."

"Huh. Well. I don't see anything wrong with that. You'll know— when?"

"I hope this afternoon. I'll call you. You won't do anything until then, right?"

"Right. Okay. You call me."

As Nick hung up, Ted stuck his head in the door. "Two days on the chips, air-shipped from Boston. Don't ask the price; only one of us at a time should have a heart attack."

"I'll ask later. Can you talk to Wilt about setting up an extra testing station? And line up people to do it all night."

"Right." He left, then peered around the edge of the door again. "Nick, we'll get out of it. Worse could have happened. They could have self-destructed the first time somebody hit 'enter.' That would've been a problem."

A chuckle broke from Nick. "Thanks, Ted." He turned back to the group around his desk. "Where were we?"

"Deftising the distributor," said the technical supervisor. "You did good, boss."

"Thanks," Nick said, loving them all for their generosity. "What else do we have?"

"Who does what in assembly," said the foreman. "If ifs a simple exchange of parts, we could get them out of here the same day. Logis-tically it's a nightmare, but everything else ought to be a piece of cake."

The others laughed. They went around the room, each one assigning himself a task, then reviewed the schedule once again until they felt they were ready to move as soon as the chips arrived. When they left, Nick, taking a quiet moment, sat down and stared again at the wall. What did I do to this company?

Almost destroyed it.

I built it—Ted and I built it, worked our asses off"—and then I almost blew the best chance we've had.

He knew they would repair the damage, all of them, working to-

gether, knocking themselves out to do it; they'd fix fifteen hundred computers and get them back to the customers, and no one outside the company would know how damaging it had been. But Nick knew it would cost a fortune to make all those smooth, swift repairs and get out of the mess he'd made with their reputation intact. That meant money wouldn't be available to develop the 2000 as early as he'd hoped, and that could hurt them in the ftiture, perhaps more than anything else.

Even more painftal, at least to himself, he was learning things about Nick Fielding he didn't much like. For all his talk of the spirit they'd shared in building the company, he hadn't fully trusted anyone. You're stepping on people's toes. That was putting it mildly. He'd always tried to be in control.

Afraid of failure, he thought. Afraid of losing, the way I lost Valerie. The way I might lose Chad. So damned afraid that I went haywire and put the whole company in jeopardy. And did damage in other ways too. I let Pari slip away in this crazy summer; I haven't talked to my other friends in months; I haven't spent as much time with Chad as I should. As I want to.

We'll get out of this bind, he promised himself, and then I'm taking off. Chad and I are going to take a vacation for at least a month. Well, maybe two weeks. He laughed at himself, still afraid to let go. He'd have to work at that. Anyway, he could be working on the 2000 on his vacation, after Chad went to bed.

"Nick," his secretary said. "Sybille is on the phone. I told her you were busy, but she insisted."

He picked it up, alarm flicking through him. "Hi," he said casually.

"I'm going to have a show, Nick; I'm going to be on camera."

He tried to make sense of what she was saying. It seemed to have nothing to do with anything, especially in the midst of all that had happened that morning. "That's what you called to tell me?"

"What do you mean? This is important to me, Nick; I called because I want you here when I have my first show."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I want you to watch me! Why are you being so insensitive? I've wanted this all my life, you know that. And I thought Chad would be excited to see his mother on television."

Nick threw down his pencil. "Fine. We'll try to be there. When will it be?"

"I'm not sure. I'll let you know. A couple of months, probably."

"A couple of—"

"I just heard about it today." Sybille heard her voice grow defensive and she became angry; why should she defend herself to him? "I wanted you to know about it. I'll call you as soon as I know the date. How have you been.>"

"Fine. I have to go, Sybille; I'll talk to you—"

'Tou know I hate to bother you at work, Nick; I was just so excited... Are you very busy?"

'We're always busy. And we've got a small crisis this morning."

"Oh. I'm sorry. A serious one?"

"No worse than disastrous. I'll talk to you soon."

"Nick—!" But he was gone. Sybille stared at the receiver, then slammed it down, disgusted with herself. She shouldn't have called him. But she and Quentin had been at Valerie and Kenfs apartment the night before for one of their big parties, and then today Quentin had told her she could be the host of "Financial Watch," the latest program she had created, and she couldn't wait to tell someone and of course it had to be Nick. She had no other friends, except for Valerie, and she didn't confide in her. Anyway, she had to tell Nick. She had to make sure he knew how happy and successful she was; that all it took was getting away from him for her to get exacdy what she wanted. He had to understand how wonderful her life was in New York, and how small and dreary his was in San Jose.

Well, he knew. So, once again, she could forget him in the busy hours of her days. She was producing 'World Watch," working on two new programs she had created, and going every day to her voice coach and body coach, to prepare for her debut on camera. In August she and Quentin had gone to Maine, and when he insisted on staying for the whole month to play golf, she came back alone to continue with her coaching. She had scheduled "Financial Watch" for mid-September, when all the new shows were premiering, but when Quentin came back from Maine at the end of August he said they weren't ready.

"Why not?" she demanded. They were in her gold and silver bedroom, redecorated from a guest room connected by a dressing room widi Quentin's bedroom, and Sybille was fastening bracelets on her arm. "I've been working on this show since June; ifs ready, and you know it."

"It may be; you're not," he said.

"How do you know? You have no idea what I can do."

"I watched your tape yesterday; your coach sent it over after you finished. You don't think I'd put you on the air without knowing what you look like, do you?" He gazed blandly at the anger and alarm in her

eyes. "There's no rush with that show; our surveys say it'll be a hit and it'll be a hit whenever it gets on. But not if you can't carry it. And you've got a ways to go yet."