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

I finally lapsed into unconsciousness while we were waiting for the elevator, the bellbot
lecturing me about temperance.
I woke up the next afternoon on the cold tile floor of my suite's bathroom. I felt like I had
been taken apart by an expert surgeon and reassembled by an amateur mechanic. I looked at
the tile for a long time. Then I sat for a while and studied the interesting blotches of color
floating between my eyes and my brain. When I thought I could survive it, I stood up and
took four Hangaways.
I sat and started counting. Hangaways hit you like a pile driver. At eighty the adrenaline
shock came. Tunnel vision and millions of tiny needles being pushed out through your skin.
Rivers of sweat. Cathedral bells tolling, your head the clapper. Then the dry heaves and it
was over.
I staggered to the phone and ordered some clear soup and a couple of cold beers. Then I
stood in the shower and contemplated suicide. By the time the soup came I was
contemplating homicide.
The soup stayed down and by the second beer I was feeling almost human. Neanderthal,
anyhow. I made some inquiries. Lafitte had checked out. No shuttle had left, so he was either
still on the planet or he had his own ship, which was possible if he was working for the outfit
I suspected he was working for. I invoked the holy name of Hartford, trying to find out to
whom his expenses had been billed. Cash.
 I tried to order my thoughts. If I reported Lafitte's action to the Guild he would be
disbarred. Either he didn't care, because They were paying him enough to retire in luxuryтАФ
for which I knew he had a tasteтАФor he actually thought I was not going to get off the planet
alive. I discarded the dramatic second notion. Last night he could have more easily killed me
than warned me. Or had he actually tried to kill me, the talk just being insurance in case I
didn't ingest a fatal dose? I had no idea what the poison could have been. That sort of
knowledge isn't relevant to my line of work.
I suppose the thoroughly rational thing would have been to sit tight and let him have the
deal. The fortunes of Starlodge were infinitely less important to me than my skin. He could
probably offer more than I, anyhow.
The phone chimed. I thumbed the vision button and a tiny haystack materialized over the
end table.
тАФGreetings. How is the weather?
тАФIndoors, it's fine. Are you Uncle?
тАФNot now. Inside the Council Building I am Uncle.
тАФI see. Can I perform some worthless service for you?
тАФFor yourself, perhaps.
тАФPray continue.
тАФOur Council is meeting with the Lafitte this evening, with the hope of resolving this
question about the mercantile nature of land. I would be embarrassed if you did not come
too. The meeting will be at *ala'ang in the Council Building.
тАФI would not cause you embarrassment. But could it possibly be postponed?
He exposed his arms. тАФWe are meeting.
He disappeared and I spent a few minutes translating *ala'ang into human time. The !tang
divide their day into a complicated series of varying time intervals depending on the position
of the suns and state of appetite and estrous condition. Came to a little before ten 'o'clock,
plenty of time.
I could report Lafitte, and probably should, but decided I'd be safer not doing so, retaining
the threat of exposure for use as a weapon. I wrote a brief description of the situationтАФand
felt a twinge of fear on writing the word "Syndicate"тАФand sealed it in an envelope. I wrote
the address of the Hartford Translators' Guild across the seal and bounced up to the courier's