Death is Forever

Her clothes were expensive and casual.
    But it was her eyes that had changed the most. There was a cool assessment in them that hadn’t been there before.
    “Please. Sit down,” Wing said.
    He smiled slightly and gestured for Erin and her father to sit at the long conference table. A closed carton sat in the center of the table.
    She eyed the carton, decided it contained computer paper, and concentrated on Chen Wing. In his own way, Wing was as striking as his sister. The same perfection of physical form. The same intelligence. The same shrewd black eyes.
    “How is your sister?” Windsor asked blandly as he sat down.
    “The psychiatrist offers great hope for her eventual recovery,” Wing said. “Until then, of course, she will have to remain medicated and under constant psychiatric observation.”
    “Why?” Erin asked bluntly. “Cole broke her wrist, not her skull.”
    “I’m afraid Lai’s mind was never very strong. We have had to, ah, oversee her daily life before.”
    “Really?” Erin said. “Be sure her overseers have stout chairs and steel-tipped whips.”
    Windsor looked at his watch. “We’re on a rather tight schedule, Wing.”
    “Of course.” Wing looked directly at Erin. “Cole insists that he owns only half of Black Dog Mines, the half you gave him as a finder’s fee.”
    “I gave him half of what I inherited,” Erin said in a cool voice. “Whether I inherited all or half of Black Dog Mines depends on how well you like the signature on the IOU Lai mentioned. Unless you really subscribe to the notion that your sister is crazy.”
    “Cole refuses to press recognition of Abelard Windsor’s gambling debt, although there is no doubt the debt exists,” Wing said carefully. “Cole also refuses to make a deal with DSD for more than the half of Black Dog’s output that BlackWing owns. The members of the diamond cartel are understandably…restless. Half a resource does not constitute a monopoly.”
    She shrugged. “So they’ll make a little less money. So what?”
    Wing looked at Windsor. “Haven’t you told her?”
    “My father doesn’t own one carat of Black Dog’s rough,” she said distinctly. “Talk to me, not him.”
    “If the cartel is broken,” Wing said, “industrial diamonds will be priced beyond the reach of emerging Third World countries such as China.”
    “That doesn’t make sense. If the diamond monopoly is broken, the price should fall.”
    “The price of gem diamonds, yes,” Wing said. “But not the price of bort.”
    “Why?”
    “The cost of cleaning out a diamond pipe is staggering,” Wing said simply. “Bort does not repay the cost of its own mining. For a diamond mine to make any profit, the gem diamonds must be sold at reliable, inflated prices.”
    “Then make industrial diamonds in your labs,” she suggested indifferently.
    Wing looked in silent appeal at Windsor, who sighed and began speaking.
    “It’s not that easy, baby,” Windsor said. “Lab synthesis is coming along, but it still isn’t nearly as cheap as the cartel’s bort. Besides, even if lab diamonds got the job done at a low price, Japan has the best process. No one wants the Japanese to have any more international economic clout than they already have.”
    For a moment she was silent, weighing what had been said. And what had not.
    “What you’re telling me,” she said finally, “is that it would be tough for Third World countries to industrialize without low-priced industrial diamonds.”
    A shuttered look came over Wing’s face. “It would be nearly impossible. Diamonds are far more important in manufacturing than most people realize, especially in the type of manufacturing that is within reasonable reach of emerging economies.” Wing spread his hands in silent appeal. “Isn’t it better to let the luxury diamond trade in First World countries subsidize the cost of mining industrial diamonds for the Second and Third Worlds?”
    “An industrialization the Chen family is in a position to control in China,” Erin pointed out evenly, “a country that has more than a fifth of the world population and a tradition of being central to all Asian power. Whoever controls China will soon control all the Pacific Rim economies except the U.S.A. and Japan. You could, of course, ally yourself with Japan. In that case the U.S. would be driven into even stronger economic alliances with Europe. Even with Japan’s help, you can’t expect to succeed. Correct?”
    Wing nodded