Maneuvers in the Dark

[Groshyr]

Charles Moreau, a middle-aged blonde man with light blue, almost grey eyes and short tidy bristle stood up from his chair. He was dressed in a white shirt, dark-blue pants and gleaming shoes of the same colour. He shortly glanced over the other members of the meeting: director of research, Vardan Raza was looking at him with a slight interest while the others were looking mostly bored.

Five people in general, except for Baron. Quentin himself, meanwhile, was occupied by the meeting between Daumann's general director and one of the Enclave representatives aboard of his liner Madame de Pompadour.

"Mesdames..." Charles charmful smiled to two women sitting one near another and then glanced over the male part of the meeting, "...et messieurs."

"I am glad we all could make this meeting happen so soon and Baron's meeting gave us an opportunity losing of which would be a greater sin for us." Moreaus' voice was deep and pleasant enough as for baritone. He could be a good singer but never had any talent or neither wish to become a person of art. "We all invested cash in the corporation believed to Baron Fabian and his plans for making Languedoc ours. An absolute monopoly in one of the reachest regions of Gallia, an important point in transit between the Taus and Gallic core worlds. If we would succeed - we would be multibillionaires."

"However, we failed." Charles was not looking mad but the disappointment was obvious and spread from every word he told.

"A newly founded Parisian Assambley disliked our attempt to establish the so-called Barony of Languedoc. Monarchy at words but corporatocracy by methods of administration. We were threatened with a huge fine and further nationalization and so the only what we could to do was left of our motherland to the Taus, full of hostile peasants and their supporters. However, the remains of the Royal Armada found shelter in the so-called Gallic Hebrides and so we dragged remains of our corporation to the planet Bordeaux and established a new headquarters there..."