"Joe Haldeman - A Tangled Web" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

I laughed out loud. "Real name, I mean." I'd never heard of Stoner, and I do keep in touch.
"That's the name I know them by."
"No concern not listed in Standard, Poor and Tueme could come up with nine figures for
extraterrestrial real-estate speculation. No legitimate concern, I mean."
"There you go again," he said mildly. "I believe they're a coalition of smaller firms."
"I don't. Let's go."

Back in my luggage I had a nasal spray that deadened the sense of smell. Before we even
got inside, I knew I should have used it.
The air was gray with fish-oil smoke, and there were more than a hundred !tang sitting in
neat rows. I once was treated to a "fish kill" in Texas, where a sudden ecological disaster had
resulted in windrows of rotting fish piled up on the beach. This was like walking along that
beach using an old sock for a muffler. By Lafitte's expression, he was also unprepared. We
both walked forward with slightly greenish cheerfulness.
A !tang in the middle of the first row stood up and approached us. тАФUncle? I ventured,
and he waved his snout in affirmation.
тАФWe have come to an interim decision, he said.
тАФInterim? Lafitte said. тАФWere my terms unacceptable?
тАФI die. My footprints are cursed. I walk around the village not knowing that all who cross
where I have been will stay in estrous zero, and bear no young. Eventually, all die. O the
embarrassment. We want to hear the terms of Navarro's tribe. Then perhaps a final decision
may be made.
That was frighteningly direct. I'd tried for an hour to tell him our terms before, but he'd
kept changing the subject.
тАФMay I hear the terms of Lafitte's tribe? I asked.
тАФCertainly. Would Lafitte care to state them, or should I?
Proceed, Uncle, Lafitte said, and then, in Spanish, тАФRemember the possibility of a
partnership. If we get to haggling ...
I stopped listening to Rabbit as Uncle began a long litany of groans, creaks, pops, and
whistles. I kept a running total of wholesale prices and shipping costs. Bourbon, rum,
brandy, gin. Candy bars, raw sugar, honey, pastries. Nets, computers, garbage composters,
water-purifying plant, hunting weapons. When he stopped, I had a total of only H620.
тАФYour offer, Navarro? Could it include these things as a subset?
I had to be careful. Lafitte was probably lying about the 1500, but I didn't want to push
him so hard he'd be able to go over a thousand on the next round. And I didn't want to bring
out my big guns until the very end.
тАФI can offer these things and three times the specified quantity of rumтАФ(the largest rum
distillery on Earth was a subsidiary of Starlodge) тАФand furthermore free you from the rigors
of the winter harvest, with twenty-six fully programmed mechanical farm laborers. (The
winters here were not even cool by Earth standards, but something about the season made
the local animals restless enough occasionally to jump over the walls that normally protected
farmland.)
тАФThese mechanical workers would not be good to eat? For the animals?
тАФNo, and they would be very hard for the animals even to damage.
There was a lot of whispered conversation. Uncle conferred with the !tang at the front of
each row, then returned.
тАФI die. Before I die my body turns hair-side-in. People come from everywhere to see the
insides of themselves. But the sight makes them lose the will, and all die. O the
embarrassment. The rum is welcome, but we cannot accept the mechanical workers. When
the beast eats someone he sleeps, and can be killed, and eaten in turn. If he does not eat he