Should you have the dubious distinction of surviving an industry-related attempted murder plot out here on the frontier of human contact, you will be able to find out who it was that knew about it in your industry because they will look at you like they have seen the Clathorbian Sweeper.
My wife always cracks up when she overhears me on communications saying this, because there are so many layers of things lost in translation … the end of that expected phrase among humans and many humanoids would have been “like they have seen a ghost,” because that attempt on my life would have worked had I been anybody other than who I am, with my particular set of colleagues, friends, and experiences.
The Grim Reaper comes next to mind in human mythos, and there we are getting warmer, because for a little while, the Clathorbian Sweeper was conflated with something like that by less advanced civilizations near the Clathorb System.
The story went, for a little while just outside the Clathorbian sphere of influence, that a captain of great strength and compassion had given his life for his crew, and in the afterlife had been rewarded with the task of finding all souls that perished in space and making sure that they made it to where they should be … for the Clathorbian Sweeper had been observed meticulously working near the sites of old lost ships and carefully sifting the space dust they had become.
However, this idea had slammed into the iMaru of the Uppaaimar, the Looking Wise Men of their civilization who had read both what humans referred to as Christmas and Easter among the stars. They had put the matter to bed so firmly that tremors went through all similar myth holders who heard.
“If your gods are good, they are pathetic, because souls they have found should never be lost in space, nor should it be necessary for them to deny a good captain his rest to do their job finding their souls. If your gods are bad, they are inept because a captain born a mere mortal is beating them to souls they ought to be able to claim.”
All worshipers wish to believe their gods are good … so at last the Clathorbians were asked what the Clathorbian Sweeper actually was.
The Clathorbians were shocked and chagrined.
“It's a spaceship that sifts large matter from space to be salvaged or upcycled instead of falling into our planet's atmospheres! What is this foolishness you all are talking?”
Science prevailed, the religions of whole star systems were preserved by dropping that particular myth, and people learned to check their facts before bothering the iMaru of the Uppaaimar, who did not suffer foolishness gladly.
And yet this is why my wife really laughs about this time period in our lives now, because I was being accurate.
I am one Capt. Marcus Aurelius Kirk, and had with the help of my engineer saved all my crews on all my ships that would have been caught up in that murder attempt on me. There were only about 30 seconds between me filling the full mythical bill for the Clathorbian Sweeper and surviving the event – it was just that close.
But more to the point: the Clathorbian Sweeper thoroughly sifts and cleans up a mess, and I did the exact some thing after observing who knew in the industry that my industry rival was going to try to kill me, and said nothing to me about it. The common line was that the whole thing was a freak accident of bad technological handling; those who believed that and did not know otherwise behaved very differently than those who knew better.
When people know that you know that they know … certain of my competitors were terrified of me, and I pushed that to the hilt, taking whatever market share they had that interested me … a small price for them to pay as opposed to me even opening an investigation about them being accessories to murder. I didn't have sufficient proof, but they could not afford, given my fleet and consortium connections, for me to go looking for it.
So instead, I swept them, Clathorbian style, and they sat there in the mess they had made for themselves, and let me do it because they had no choice – and this also put a hard stop, iMaru of the Uppaaimar style, to the myth that Capt. Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr. was less dangerous to mess with than his famous cousin.
Mrs. V.T. Kirk bought me a mini Clathorbian Sweeper mobile to hang in my office this year, and I still smile every time my eye falls on it.