"de Camp, L Sprague - Employment UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

"Well?"
"We'd like to buy up your patent applications and all rights pertaining thereto."
"What do you want them for?"
"You see, our business requires considerable capital and involves a lot of risk. You load six giraffes on at Jibouti, and by the time you get to New York one of 'em is alive-if you're lucky. With your proc. ess we could put the animals in cold storage at the point of shipment, as it were, and-what's the word you use?-reify them in this country."
"That sounds interesting. Would you be interested in a nonexclusive license?"
"No, we want complete control. To . . . ah. . . keep up the ethical standards of the business."
"Sorry, but I'm not selling."
"Oh, come now, Dr. Platt-"
They argued some more, but Nively left without getting anywhere. A week later, just after the rock containing the mammoth had been hoisted into its tank, he was back.
"Dr. Platt," he began, "we're businessmen, and we're willing to pay a fair price-" So they went at it again-again without result.
After Nively had gone, Platt said to Staples: "He must think I'm pretty obtuse! The reason they're after my process is that they're afraid it'll break their monopoly. There isn't a circus or zoo in the country that wouldn't like one or two prehistoric animals."
The taciturn Staples opined: "I have an idea they'll get really riled when we get a couple of the same species and breed 'em."
"By Jove, I never thought of that! Nobody buys wild lions nowadays. It's too easy to raise your own. That gives me another idea. Suppose we start a race of, say, elotheres, like our big piggy friend over there. And suppose civilization collapses, so that the record of our work here is lost. Won't the paleontologists of a few thousand years hence have a time figuring how the elotheres disappeared completely in the Miocene, and then reappeared again twenty million years later, warts and all?"
"That's easy," retorted Staples. "They'll invent a sunken continent in the Pacific Ocean, where the Elotherid~ hung out during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. And then a land bridge was formed, enabling them to spread over North-Hey, don't throw that! I'll be good!"
Nively's third visit was sometime later, when the mammoth was almost ready to be hoisted out of his tank. The sunburned man came to the point right away.
"Dr. Platt," he said, "we have a big business, built up with a great deal of effort, and we shan't sit around and watch it destroyed just because some scientist gets a bright idea. We'll make you a perfectly fair offer: We buy your patent application, under an agreement whereby you can practice your process, provided you name us exclusive agent for the sale of your animals. In that way you can continue
your scientific work; we retain control of the commercial field; everyone's happy. What do you say, old chap?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Nively, but I'm not in the market for such an arrangement. If you want to talk nonexciusive licenses, I might be willing to listen."
"Now look here, Dr. Platt, you'd better think twice before you turn us down. We're a powerful organization, you know, and we can make things very unpleasant for you."
"I'll take a chance on that."
"A wild-animal collection's a vulnerable piece of property, you know. Accidents-"
"Mr. Nively"-here Platt's color wandered down the spectrum toward the red end-"will you please get to hell out of here?"
Nively got.
Platt, looking after him, mused: "There goes my temper again. Perhaps I should have stalled."
"Maybe," agreed Staples. "He wasn't actually muttering threats when he went out, but he looked as if he were thinking them."
"It's probably bluff," said Platt. "But I think I'll take on another man. We need somebody up and around all the time."
In due season they hoisted the mammoth out of his bath and started his heart. They were nervous, as he was by far the largest animal they had tried the process on. Platt whooped and threw his hat in the air when Parelaphas showed signs of life. Staples whooped, too, but he didn't throw his hat in the air.
They named the mammoth Tecumtha, after the famous Shawnee chief. He stood eleven feet six inches, which is about as big as the biggest modern African elephant. He had helically twisted tusks that almost crossed at the tips. When he became fully conscious he made some rumpus, but after a while calmed down like a modern elephant. During his recovery period he grew a thick coat of short, coarse brown hair.
Platt had, as he had said he would, taken on another man to help Elias. Early one morning Tecumtha had a slight stomach ache. This new man, Jake, went out to see what he was squealing about. Jake dissolved his medicine in an elephant highball-one bucketful, equal parts of gin and ginger extract-and took it in to him. Tecumtha was sucking it up his trunk and gurgling happily, and Jake had stepped out of sight, when Nively materialized. He walked up to the enclo
sure and shot Tecumtha through the upper part of his bead with a Birmingham .303.
That was a mistake. The Birmingham .303 is much too light a rifle for shooting elephants. And the upper part of an elephant's head is merely a cellular bone structure to anchor its huge neck muscles. Its brain is much lower down. Nively had done all his field work in South America and didn't know that about an elephant's construction. The bullet went through Tecumtha's head, but it merely made him very, very angry. He trumpeted. That is a most startling sound the first time you hear it, like twenty men blowing bugles full of spit.
Jake heard the commotion and ran out. He took one look at Tecumtha and made for the gate. In his hurry he left it open. Nively took one more shot, which went wild. Then he ran, too, with Tecumtha after him. He had no chance to reach his car. The mammoth would have caught him right there if he hadn't spotted Elias' bicycle leaning against a tree.
The noise brought Kenneth Staples out of bed. He got to the window in time to see Nively and the bicycle whirl down the driveway with Tecumtha close behind, and disappear on the highway headed for Carriesville.
Staples did not wait to dress, but ran downstairs and out to the garage. He did pause long enough to snatch a hat from the rack in the hall. He took the truck Platt had bought for moving laige animals, and started after Nively and Tecumtha.
He had not gone a mile when he was stopped by Popenoe, the local state highway cop.
"Oh," said Popenoe, "it's you, Mr. Staples. Well, what the hell do you mean by-"
"I'm looking for my mammoth," Staples told him.
"Your what?"
"My mammoth-you know, a big elephant with hair."
"Well, I've sure heard funny excuses in my time, but this beats anything. And in your pajamas, too. I give up. Go ahead and chase your elephant. But I'll follow you, and he better turn out to be real. You sure he wasn't pink, with green spots?"
The geologist said he was sure, and drove on to Carriesville. He found a good part of the town turned out around the public square, although nobody seemed anxious to get close.
Towns like Carricsville almost always have a grassy spot in their
middle, and on the grassy spot either a statue or a gun and a pile of cannonballs. A typical combination is that of a Krupp 1 s-centimeter howitzer, Model 1916, and a pile of four-inch iron roundshot of the vintage of 184g. Carriesville had an equestrian statue of General Philip Sheridan on a tall granite pedestal in front of the courthouse. The sun was just rising, and its pink rays shone on Mr. Nively, who was perched on General Sheridan's hat. Tecumtha was shuffling around the base of the statue and trying to reach Nively with his trunk.
Staples learned later that one local citizen had emptied a pistol at Tecumtha, but the mammoth hadn't even noticed it. Then somebody shot him with a deer rifle, which annoyed him. He took after the shooter, who went away. Nobody tried any more shooting. While Tecumtha's attention was distracted, Nively started to climb down, but the mammoth returned before he had a chance to do so.
Staples drove the truck up near the courthouse and got out. Tecumtha took a few steps toward him. Staples prepared to retreat, but the mammoth recognized him and went back to Nively. He paid no attention to Staples' calls. He figured how to get his head against the pedestal without his tusks being in the way, and with one good heave, over went little Phil Sheridan. As the statue toppled, Nively caught a branch of a big oak nearby and dangled like an oriole's nest. Tecumtha waltzed around underneath and made hostile noises.
Staples drove the truck up alongside the mammoth. He let down the tailboard and called to Nively to swing over so he'd land on the roof of the cab, and stay there. Nively did so. Tecumtha tried to reach him there, but couldn't quite make it. He strolled around the truck. Seeing the tailboard, he ran up it into the body to get closer to Nively. Staples hoisted the tail into place and barred it. Then he went around to the front end and climbed up on the hood.
Nively was sitting on the roof of the cab, looking remarkably pale for such a sunburned man. Staples foresaw difficulties in getting back to Platt's, and he couldn't go around as he was. He thought, it's a shame to take advantage of a man who's so all in, but he has it coming to him. Aloud he said: "Lend me your pants and your money."
Nively protested. Staples was not given to lengthy arguments. He climbed up beside Nively and grabbed his arm. "Want to go over on top of your playmate?" he growled.
Nively was a hard man physically, but he winced under the geolo
gist's grip. "You . . . you extortioner!" he sputtered. "I could have you arrested!"