Kennon murmured an acknowledgment, took the card and his I.D., and entered the grav-shaft. There was the usual moment of heaviness as the shaft whisked him upward and deposited him in front of a thickly carpeted corridor.
Executive level, Kennon thought as he followed the receptionist’s directions. No wonder she had looked respectful. But what was he doing here? The employment of a veterinarian wasn’t important enough to demand the attention of a senior executive. The personnel section could handle the details of his application as well as not. He shrugged. Perhaps veterinarians were more important on Kardon. He didn’t know a thing about this world’s customs.
He opened the unmarked door at the end of the corridor, entered a small reception room, smiled uncertainly at the woman behind the desk, and received an answering smile in return.
Come right in, Dr. Kennon. Mr. Alexander is waiting for you.
Alexander! The entrepreneur himself! Why? Numb with surprise Kennon watched the woman open the intercom on her desk.
“Sir, Dr. Kennon is here,” she said.
“Bring him in,” a smooth voice replied from the speaker. Alexander X. M. Alexander, President of Outworld Enterprises—a lean, dark, wolfish man in his early sixties—eyed Kennon with a flat predatory intentness that was oddly disquieting. His stare combined the analytical inspection of the pathologist, the probing curiosity of the psychiatrist, and the weighing appraisal of the butcher. Kennon’s thoughts about Alexander’s youth vanished that instant. Those eyes belonged to a leader on the battlefield of galactic business.
Kennon felt the conditioned respect for authority surge through him in a smothering wave. Grimly he fought it down, knowing it was a sign of weakness that would do him no good in the interview which lay ahead.
“So you’re Kennon,” Alexander said. His lingua franca was clean and accentless. “I expected someone older.”
“Frankly, sir, so did I,” Kennon replied.