Free Man Who Used the Universe by Alan Dean Foster

perhaps twenty years younger and not quite so self-assured.
    "Hello, Prax." The man on the bench turned to look at his visitor. He adjusted the sun shield covering his eyes, put his hands behind his head.
    "Counselor," said the other man deferentially. "I heard you wanted to talk to me."
    "Yes, Prax. It concerns some reports I've been getting from Evenwaith about six months running, now. You know of the place?"
    "Naturally." The other man began toweling his legs, using a drink dispenser for a footrest. "Second-class industrial world: heavy machinery, machine tools, raw minerals, agricultural production highly on the negative side, a number of productive smaller industries. I could go on.
    "Not a nice place to visit, from what I recall. Unrestricted effluency regulations resulting in poisoning of the atmosphere. I wouldn't want to live there, either, but if I was a midstatus worker looking for a place to make some money, it would be one of my first choices as a place to settle."
    The older man nodded slightly, turned on his side. "Someone's certainly been making a lot of money there." He paused briefly to smile and wave toward a friend.
    The counselor had many friends. He was a third-class legal, one of the men who actually oversaw the programming of the master computer that ran the planetary government of Terra.
    Admittance to the exclusive station health club with its spherool pool and other services was restricted to members holding class-ten status and above. To members and their friends. Prax belonged to the latter group.
    "Something unusual about that?" he asked the counselor.
    "A fellow, name of Loo-Macklin, has been running one of the syndicate operations there for a number of years now. From the reports I've seen, he's an unusual fellow, not your average syndicate boss. In one fashion or another he controls all but one of the four syndicates on the planet."
    "Four? I thought there were seven," said the man called Prax. He was a thirty-third status legal and second-status illegal. It was quite possible to hold dual stateship in the society of the United Technologic Worlds.
    "There used to be," said Counselor Momblent, "just as ten years ago there used to be twelve. I can remember sixteen in existence prior to that. It took forty years for the sixteen to reduce themselves to twelve, but only ten to shrink twelve to four, of which Loo-Macklin controls nearly all. Two of the four aren't even aware that he's infiltrated their organizations so thoroughly with his own people that he knows what they're going to do before their respective bosses do."
    Prax finished drying himself. He chose a small chair and slid it under a sun lamp, switched on subtropical. There was a sun shield in the chair's arm and he slipped this over his face. The two men stared at each other from behind dark masks of plastic.
    "Are you sure this one person is responsible for all that, Counselor?"
    "Quite sure, Prax. You see, we've been keeping an eye on his activities for a couple of years now. Not interfering in any way, of course. Just marking his progress. A very bright fellow, as I said. Exactly how bright we don't know. His background is hazy to the point of being impenetrable. For one thing, he's never taken the standard adolescent intelligence/aptitude tests. No formal schooling other than rented courses and tapes.
    "Despite this he's gained control of almost the entire underworld on Evenwaith. That by itself would not be worthy of notice. But he's also gained at least fifty percent of the illegal commerce on Helhedrin, Vlox and Matrix, and has wiggled into small syndicates on at least three other worlds. He's building himself a little underworld empire, Prax."
    The other man leaned to his right and dialed a cool drink. The machine set into the wall/floor/ceiling produced it instantly, along with crushed ice. Because of the extra energy requirements, ice was a great luxury on the station. Within the health club, such luxury was accepted as