JК
Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 13 из 199My debts were all paid, not that that would matter where I was going. I would leave with not a minicredit to my name, with nothing but the ship …
All told, I was well out of a sticky situation. I hoped I'd like being a rich exile.
I jumped when the newcomer sat down across from me. He was a foreigner, a middle-aged man wearing an expensive night-black business suit and a snow-white asymmetrical beard. I let my face freeze and started to get up.
«Sit down, Mr. Shaeffer.»
«Why?»
He told me by showing me a blue disk. An Earth government ident. I looked it over to show I was alert, not because I'd know an ersatz from the real thing.
«My name is Sigmund Ausfaller,» said the government man. «I wish to say a few words concerning your assignment on behalf of General Products.»
I nodded, not saying anything.
«A record of your verbal contract was sent to us as a matter of course. I noticed some peculiar things about it. Mr. Shaeffer, will you really take such a risk for only five hundred thousand stars?»
«I'm getting twice that.»
«But you only keep half of it. The rest goes to pay debts. Then there are taxes … But never mind. What occurred to me was that a spaceship is a spaceship, and yours is very well armed and has powerful legs. An admirable fighting ship, if you were moved to sell it.»
«But it isn't mine.»
«There are those who would not ask. On Canyon, for example, or the Isolationist party of Wunderland.»
I said nothing.
«Or you might be planning a career of piracy. A risky business, piracy, and I don't take the notion seriously.»
I hadn't even thought about piracy. But I'd have to give up on Wunderland.
«What I would like to say is this, Mr. Shaeffer. A single entrepreneur, if he were sufficiently dishonest, could do terrible damage to the reputation of all human beings everywhere. Most species find it necessary to police the ethics of their own members, and we are no exception. It occurred to me that you might not take your ship to the neutron star at all, that you would take it elsewhere and sell it. The puppeteers do not make invulnerable war vessels. They are pacifists. Your Skydiver is unique.
«Hence, I have asked General Products to allow me to install a remote-control bomb in the Skydiver. Since it is inside the hull, the hull cannot protect you. I had it installed this afternoon.
«Now, notice! If you have not reported within a week, I will set off the bomb. There are several worlds within a week's hyperspace flight of here, but all recognize the dominion of Earth.
All told, I was well out of a sticky situation. I hoped I'd like being a rich exile.
I jumped when the newcomer sat down across from me. He was a foreigner, a middle-aged man wearing an expensive night-black business suit and a snow-white asymmetrical beard. I let my face freeze and started to get up.
«Sit down, Mr. Shaeffer.»
«Why?»
He told me by showing me a blue disk. An Earth government ident. I looked it over to show I was alert, not because I'd know an ersatz from the real thing.
«My name is Sigmund Ausfaller,» said the government man. «I wish to say a few words concerning your assignment on behalf of General Products.»
I nodded, not saying anything.
«A record of your verbal contract was sent to us as a matter of course. I noticed some peculiar things about it. Mr. Shaeffer, will you really take such a risk for only five hundred thousand stars?»
«I'm getting twice that.»
«But you only keep half of it. The rest goes to pay debts. Then there are taxes … But never mind. What occurred to me was that a spaceship is a spaceship, and yours is very well armed and has powerful legs. An admirable fighting ship, if you were moved to sell it.»
«But it isn't mine.»
«There are those who would not ask. On Canyon, for example, or the Isolationist party of Wunderland.»
I said nothing.
«Or you might be planning a career of piracy. A risky business, piracy, and I don't take the notion seriously.»
I hadn't even thought about piracy. But I'd have to give up on Wunderland.
«What I would like to say is this, Mr. Shaeffer. A single entrepreneur, if he were sufficiently dishonest, could do terrible damage to the reputation of all human beings everywhere. Most species find it necessary to police the ethics of their own members, and we are no exception. It occurred to me that you might not take your ship to the neutron star at all, that you would take it elsewhere and sell it. The puppeteers do not make invulnerable war vessels. They are pacifists. Your Skydiver is unique.
«Hence, I have asked General Products to allow me to install a remote-control bomb in the Skydiver. Since it is inside the hull, the hull cannot protect you. I had it installed this afternoon.
«Now, notice! If you have not reported within a week, I will set off the bomb. There are several worlds within a week's hyperspace flight of here, but all recognize the dominion of Earth.