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

There are millions of VoidCorp Employees scattered across space who've never heard of us, won't have
a clue who we are, and even if they're told, they may not care."
Enda frowned. "I would not be too sure. We only liberated about a thousand sesheyans that the
Corporation is sure should be Employees. That the Concord declared them not to have been so is
fortunate, but it will not count for much with VoidCorp."
"I.I. Aegis is just a licensee," Gabriel said, "local people running the business with VC equipment and
contracts. It's a common enough arrangement, and licensees don't necessarily agree with the Company's
overall policies."
Enda nodded. "It is too easy, I suppose, to become paranoid, and see Corpses hiding behind every
asteroid, plotting our downfall. Have you done initial price-estimates as well? We would have to make
alterations to the hold. The armoring we installed for mining work would need to be removed, and the
new data storage facilities would not come cheap."
"Depends where you get them," Gabriel said and reached out to touch the part of the wall that hid the
display for Sunshine's Grid access. It came alive with imagery from the ship's internal Grid handling
computersтАФa vast green plain rippling with some kind of long grass, a favorite image of Enda's.
"Data trading," Gabriel said, and the display flickered into an image of many rows of text and columns of
figures.
"Oh, brother," Helm said, reaching down under his chair. "Half a moment while I get something to
strengthen me."
"Why, Helm," Enda said, "surely so acute a businessman cannot look on a sight such as this unmoved."
"Yes I can," Helm said. "Wake me when we get to the weapons allocations."
Gabriel threw a sidewise glance at the bottle Helm now held. "How can you drink that stuff?" Gabriel
asked, for the bottle was one of those squat square ones that Bols Luculliana came in.
Helm poured out two fingers of the thick clear stuff and shrugged. "It clears the mind. Want some?"
Gabriel shuddered at the thought and looked at the screen again. For a few minutes he went over the
figures with Enda. She looked cautiously at the ones for the installation of the data tanks, which Gabriel
suggested should be done by a small independent firm at Diamond Point on Grith.
"It is close by," Enda said, "and would be convenient for maintenance on return runs, but the firm has not
been in business for long "
"It comes with good recommendations," Gabriel said. "Ondway told me about it."
Enda blinked at that and smiled. "Indeed. He would have some interest in seeing that our money is well
spent, and in distributing business to the local community."
Gabriel nodded. They had met Ondway in Iphus Collective. The meeting had been an unusual one. In
these spaces where VoidCorp's influence was strong, it was almost unheard-of to run into a sesheyan
who did interplanetary work and was not an Employee. Ondway had put Gabriel and Enda in the way of
some unusual business opportunities and also had given them hints about conditions on one of the
supposedly uninhabited planets in the Thalaassa systemтАФhints that had led Gabriel to investigate farther
and get them into trouble. After the dust settled, Gabriel and Enda had been awarded a small public
bounty from the Concord civil liberties fund. What had amused Gabriel immensely was the notion that,
while one arm of the Concord government wanted him imprisoned, another was giving him grants for
catching VoidCorp with its Corporate pants down. However, there had also been a less public award,
not so much a bounty as a thank you from a sesheyan interest group of which Ondway was a prominent
memberтАФa group of native activists profoundly moved at Gabriel's single-handed rescue of more than a
thousand of their kind from the Thalaassan world where VoidCorp was attempting to quietly exterminate
them. Gabriel had insisted that there had been nothing single-handed about it. Enda had been in the thick
of things with him, and he had merely been well positioned to intimidate some people whom he loathed.
The sesheyans were not interested in his excuses, and they insisted on crediting Sunshine's expense
accounts with a considerable sum. Between these two awards, Gabriel and Enda were in a position to
live less marginally than they had when they first went into business together.
Then had come the question of what to do with the money. Their first indulgence had been a shower for