"Diane Duane - Harbinger 2 - Storm At Eldala" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duane Diane)

load, if you pick somewhere just opening up. 'Course places like that are dangerous too."
"I had thought," Gabriel said, "about hiring some armed backup."
Helm grinned from ear to ear. His ship was full from core to shell with weaponry of all kinds. But then
Helm was a mutant, and unless you were a mutant who was also tired of life, armament out in these less
than perfectly policed spaces was a good idea. Too many humans considered being a mutant some kind
of treason against the human genotype to be punished in any way that wouldn't get you caught. Helm
clearly did not intend to be caught assisting anyone in this kind of rough justice by lacking the kind of
hardware that would dissuade them.
"Where were you thinking of going?" Helm said. "Got to consider fuel, victuallingтАФ"
"Terivine," said Gabriel.
Enda nodded sidewise. "It would make sense," she said. "Terivine has become a common enough
waystation for ships doing the runs between Corrivale and Aegis, and Lucullus as well, but the place is
not heavily populated . . ."
"That's not a huge problem," Gabriel said. "Besides the colonists, there's a considerable presence of
scientists studying the riglia, those avian sentients they found. They need to move their data back and
forth at something better than the crawl they'd get from using unscheduled infotraders. Tendril and Aegis
both have to move administrative information pertaining to their colonies there. It looks like a good small
market for a beginning infotrading business."
"You have obviously been doing your research," Enda said, "so you will know what kind of competition
is there."
"Not much," Gabriel said. "Two firms work the system at present. One's native, a one-ship company
called Alwhirn. Another is a licensee, Infotrade Interstellar Aegis."
Helm's eyebrows went up. "Isn't Infotrade Interstellar a subsidiary of VoidCorp?"
"These days, what isn't?" Gabriel said wearily.
"Us," said Enda. She pursed her lips in an expression that made her look unusually like a disapproving
grandmother.
"You think they don't know it?" said Helm. "But here you sit in the system, bold as brass plate, as if they
didn't dare touch you."
"They do not," Enda said, "for the moment. Not after we put so sharp a thorn in their side at Thalaassa
and Corrivale, and Gabriel became the hammer to drive it in. They would be eager enough to repay him
the trouble. The Concord would be quick to lay that at their doors if they tried that now. However, once
we move elsewhere ..."
That was always the problem. Since the vast expanse of the Verge began to reopen, the stellar nations
had been moving in with various degrees of eagerness, acquisitiveness, or plain old-fashioned greed.
Trade was opening out again, or for the first time. The wars that had cut off the Verge from the rest of
humanity for so long had kept major trade routes and infrastructure from being established. Now what
should have happened a quarter century earlier was beginning to happen again and in a rush. Every stellar
nation or multistellar-national with the funds to spare was expanding into this area, hunting markets to
master and resources to exploit. Systems that were backwaters ten years ago had become trading
crossroads of considerable wealth and power. Through such systems, like Corrivale, Terivine, and Aegis,
the huge cruisers of the stellar nations passed, both to trade and to find ways to extend their own
influence. Mutual-assistance treaties, joint-use agreements for planets or whole systems, "understandings"
and "gentlemen's agreements" could result in a world becoming the property of a stellar empire or
company based thousands of light-years away. VoidCorp was probably the least principled of these.
Once a software company, VoidCorp was now an interstellar power with many systems under its
domination and many more becoming increasingly entangled in its web of interlocking corporate
affiliations, treaties, and licensing agreements.
Gabriel sighed. "If we try to force ourselves into a position where we don't go anywhere that VoidCorp
goes, we won't have a lot of choices. I don't like them any better than either of you do, especially
considering that some part of VoidCorp Intelligence may have had something to do with setting me up.