He was trying to keep a straight face, but the words hurt, despite his very thick skin. No, you can’t just shake off my words, and even if I am a few zeroes from being a player at your level, I am deadly enough to kill you by looking at you. Squirm.

“Oddly enough, it is some of those clients who came to me and asked if you would be interested in managing some of their funds.” Director Bran’s smile was slightly forced.

“TransGalactic is acting as a broker.” I considered his position. “Well, I imagine you’ll be taking a fee and handling contractual obligations, so you’ll be getting something. Who exactly is desiring to make use of my financial acumen?”

“The Ducal families Hindemoor, Shang Chu, and Vitterband, along with the Corunsun Foundation.”

I did note that he said the families, not the Dukes...

I tilted my head just slightly. “I spoke to Gertrue Vitterband but three days ago. She evinced no interest in my services at that time, although I wasn’t exactly proposing anything with her husband leering at me like a fresh stein of beer. Forgive me for being less than excited by this. Hindemoor wants one of my continents on Irgyll IV, and the Shang Chus have major interests in the Sheaf Cartel, who just sold me nine of their ships and two of their trading routes to satisfy their debts. It’s all very minor stuff, so why would they be interested in my services?”

Well, it was minor on his scale. To the families involved, it was a big black eye.

“Well, if I may be blunt...” I kindly indicated for him to proceed. “The elements desiring to do business are branches of the family who might not be on excellent terms with the reigning Dukes.”

“Ah. So, this is about THAT kind of money.” He nodded, just a little. “Well, interesting, but I don’t take sides in successions, I just make money. If they think this is the beginning of Vassalage negotiations, well, I haven’t taken down a Ducal House, just a couple minor ones with heads too big for their necks.”

“No, no,” he hastily moved to assure me. “They simply want to make a point in their political plays; that working with certain people is far more profitable than working against them.”

“And that enough money trumps traditional contracts making you bleed.” I understood the point. “But... the Corunsun Foundation? Seriously? Do you want me to bring up their investment guidelines? I am rather certain I fall at least a standard deviation outside their accepted tolerance level.”

“You are making standard long-term investments on Argyll. The Corunsun Foundation is certainly capable of backing equitable kiloplex and megacity investments. There is nothing risky about such things, other than security for the system, which I understand more than meets Imperial guidelines for further development.”

He probably had copies of all the relevant contracts and the firms involved, too.

“The Corunsun Foundation does have a more stable reputation than the family does, of course. However, they are very tight-fisted with their capital, and prefer to invest, not loan... or loan in perpetuity, as it were. I am not ignorant of the reasons why, but I don’t want them interfering in my business. They take and they hold assets. Dealing with them is letting a shark into your pond. Unless they are willing to waive a considerable number of their standard contractual terms, dealing with them is a non-starter.

“Ambitious nobles putting up their money in a risky play for power and influence, I can deal with. Creaky old inbreds clutching their guaranteed interest payments even in their graves?” I rolled my eyes and dismissed the idea.

The Corunsun Foundation ran the Corunsun Inheritance, a stupefyingly large amount of assets held in trust by four different pan-galactic banking institutions, with TransGalactic having a slightly larger share due to its stodgier conservatism... and perhaps greater marketing expenditure on high-velocity ammo to keep the money here.

The Corunsun Inheritance could only by claimed by the Corunsun Duke, who was the individual bearing the Ducal Seal. The Corunsun had been extravagantly wealthy even before the Empire rose to power, and had owned entire worlds and fleets, one of the driving and active forces of humanity before the Fall.

The Corunsun Duke had vanished a long, long time ago, after commissioning a great exploratory vessel to go out and claim a new realm out on the borders of the Empire, and nothing had been heard of him, and his Seal, for millennia.

Without the Seal, there could be no Duke, and thus the foundation of the Corunsun House had no clear master. By arrangements, those foundational assets were held in trust and could not be sold off by any members of the house, who were allowed only interest payments and stipends from those holdings, if it did not endanger the holdings themselves.

This block of assets included solar systems, fleets, controlling shares of multi-planetary megacorps, and other minor holdings. No members of the family were permitted to control any of them, the Corunsun Foundation’s primary obligation was the continuation of the Inheritance. If and when the Duke Corunsun ever returned, the foundation of the House would be intact.

The Ducal family naturally squirmed under those limitations, lamenting that the dynastic wealth they were being fed was only a fraction of the power and assets they should be able to control.

This was where the Corunsun reputation for taking and holding assets stemmed from. The Corunsuns wanted more income, trying to develop their holdings outside the Foundation, and so any income they could squeeze out of the Foundation’s assets meant more money for them.

Foundation and Family were not on good terms at all, with continual skirmishes, bribery, dead money managers, poisoned nobles, and such interesting events happening with startling frequency. The power and the influence of the family was a fraction of what it would be with the dynastic wealth, and of course the Foundation had grown into an entitled ecosystem of its own.

The enmity between the two powers meant that if the Duke Corunsun came back, the Foundation would be in a terrible position, with all its authority instantly lost. The Corunsun Family would certainly want to dispose of whole swathes of them the first chance they had.

On top of that, the Ducal Family was obviously of the pure bloodline, and certainly wouldn’t accept some mongrel savage coming out from the Rim after millennia claiming to be the Duke. Such a person would certainly be disposed of at first opportunity, and then a proper scrum for the true Ducal Seat and Seal would begin thereafter.

However, this mutual hatred kept the legend of the Corunsun Duke alive and well. Without the threat of the Corunsun Duke’s return, the Family would lose all power over the Foundation, who would simply bury the means and methods of the Duke’s return by all means possible. In turn, without that belief of the Return backing them, the Foundation was not managing things for him and his Family, they were merely thieves, and so could not be seen to be shirking their duties in the eyes of the Empire.

As a result, the Corunsun Foundation grit their teeth and kept passing the Corunsun family proper their due, while refusing to let the Corunsuns manage any of the assets or holdings those funds came from.

Truly it was a wonderfully tense situation, replete with intrigue, mountains of lawsuits, explosions, and other merry ways of expressing dissatisfaction with one another.

Now I, with my proven ability to violently earn money and keep it, while other greedy people died about me, had piqued their interest.

Dealing with the Foundation meant dealing with both nobles and managers, as the former wouldn’t allow the latter to undertake any deals that would dilute their wealth or income. Their tenuous relationship was always fun to watch in action, and regularly made the society papers in the ‘Unexpected Retirements’ section.

“Dealing with all of them independently is probably not a good idea on their part,” I mused aloud, “but there’s no way I’m dealing with Corunsuns without a face to face. I presume you realized that, and I can only infer that the Family is putting up some of their own money, in addition to the Foundation?” I inquired.

“You are astute.” He had probably wanted to keep that a surprise.

“Was this meant to be some sort of joint investment group? If so, were you intending to propose some sort of venture, or leaving it to me to come up with something that would interest the funds being put on the table?”

“Perhaps a combination of both. I am only acting as a mediator with a modicum of discretion.”

And collecting a fat fee for saying nothing, letting them know they could do business with him at any time.

“Shall I arrange a meeting with the Foundation, or are you going to be obvious with your involvement?” I asked archly. Certain clients would not be happy he was doing business with their rivals... but being in the banking business, he was used to that.

“I will arrange for the Foundation and Family to invite you in to discuss matters. If you can come to terms... perhaps you might wish to have a business proposal ready for them to look over,” he suggested.

“Oh, I’ve literally dozens of things I could be pursuing at this moment. It’s not an issue to throw out some minor ideas.” His face was carefully plastic, but I could see the greed shining deep in his eyes. After all, my previous ideas had certainly been attention-getting.

Inviting me into the heart of the beast I was going to suck the blood out of for my sweet Fuzzy... sure, I had had no problem with that...

My kids were already infiltrating the places I owned, the ships I had claimed, and so forth. I was still hard at work opening up roads for them to turn into highways, and they were naturally eager to be about the job. The low-end work was being done energetically by motivated Hagbloods who would get full credit and rewards for doing so... this position was just one more I was going to move on from once I got what I wanted.

“In addition, Contessa, I was wondering if we might be able to talk about some of the minor accounts that have become a source of contention between certain of our operations.”

“There are currently two hundred and fourteen points of conflict between TransGalactic and Chalice Corp,” I told him languidly. “Which ones are you referring to, Director Bran?”

He paused for a moment. “There are nine that are noteworthy enough to have come to my attention, Contessa.” Read, you killed too many of my debt-collectors, and those law firms are suddenly undermanned. “Hymaerin Distributors?...” he asked, testing me.

“We are quite happy to let you seize the land assets. However, the motile assets and cargoes were forfeit to us, and you didn’t get there fast enough. You can take the loss, or our agents can continue to discuss the matter in more detail. I understand your representative premium has increased forty percent in the last quarter.”

His smile was mirthless. “The Olosti contracts?”

“Your rates came in a tenth higher than Nebulos. Perhaps you should have done more investigation of your competitor rather than assuming we’d continue using the same financier as the people we replaced, Director Bran.”

“Will the financing be coming up for bid in the future?” he inquired smoothly.

I just looked at him. “You know it’s locked for ten years to GalStandard. Please resubmit a bid at that time.”

His smile was very small and professional. “We shall.” Needing to find a place to invest a trillion credits of rolling financing suddenly had likely not been very good for his bottom line. “There are certain matters pertaining to the Kurigawi Acquisition that are in a grey area.” Meaning the debtors were dead, the bank couldn’t bill their descendants, and what assets I’d left behind for them didn’t satisfy the debts... yet were obviously useful, if only someone would come in, buy them, and start making things again.

Unfortunately, the clean-up costs were a mite high, given that the Kurigawa had started a Warp Event once things had turned upside-down for them.

“You seem to have ideas for that property?”

“We would be open to ceding title to it if you could put it to work... and if we might get the financing business out of it.”

“Do go on...”