"Peter F. Hamilton - Escape Route" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

"This could be them," Roman said, glancing over the rail. One of Sonora's little taxi boats was
approaching their big resort raft.
The trim cutter curving round towards the Lomaz had two people sitting on its red leather seats.
Marcus watched with interest as they left the taxi. He ordered his neural nanonics to open a fresh
memory cell, and stored the pair of them in a visual file. The first to alight was a man in his mid-30s,
dressed in expensive casual clothes; a long face and a very broad nose gave him a kind of imposing
dignity.
His partner was less flamboyant. She was in her late 20s, obviously geneered; Oriental features
matched with white hair that had been drawn together in wide dreadlocks and folded back
aerodynamically.
They walked straight over to Marcus's table, and introduced themselves as Antonio Ribeiro and
Victoria Keef. Antonio clicked his fingers at the waitress, and told her to fetch a bottle of Norfolk Tears.
"Hopefully to celebrate the success of our business venture, my friends," he said. "And if not, it is a
pleasant time of day to imbibe such a magical potion. No?"
Marcus found himself immediately distrustful. It wasn't just Antonio's phoney attitude; his intuition
was scratching away at the back of his skull. Some friends called it his paranoia programme, but it was
rarely wrong. A family trait, like the wanderlust which no geneering treatment had ever eradicated.
"The cargo agent said you had a charter for us," Marcus said. "He never mentioned any sort of
business deal."
"If I may ask your indulgence for a moment, Captain Calvert. You arrived here without a cargo. You
must be a very rich man to afford that."
"There were ... circumstances requiring us to leave Ayachcho ahead of schedule."
"Yeah," Katherine muttered darkly. "Her husband."
Marcus was expecting it, and smiled serenely. He'd heard very little else from the crew for the whole
flight.
Antonio received the tray and its precious pear-shaped bottle from the waitress, and waved away the
change.
"If I may be indelicate, Captain, your financial resources are not optimal at this moment," Antonio
suggested.
"They've been better."
Antonio sipped his Norfolk Tears, and grinned in appreciation. "For myself, I was born with the
wrong amount of money. Enough to know I needed more."
"Mr Ribeiro, I've heard all the get-rich-quick schemes in existence. They all have one thing in
common, they don't work. If they did, I wouldn't be sitting here with you."
"You are wise to be cautious, Captain. I was, too, when I first heard this proposal. However, if you
would humour me a moment longer, I can assure you this requires no capital outlay on your part. At the
worst you will have another mad scheme to laugh about with your fellow captains."
"No money at all?"
"None at all, simply the use of your ship. We would be equal partners sharing whatever reward we
find."
"Jesus. All right, I can spare you five minutes. Your drink has bought you that much attention span."
"Thank you, Captain. My colleagues and I want to fly the Lady Macbeth on a prospecting mission."
"For planets?" Roman asked curiously.
"No. Sadly, the discovery of a terracompatible planet does not guarantee wealth. Settlement rights
will not bring more than a couple of million fuseodollars, and even that is dependant on a favourable
biospectrum assessment, which would take many years. We have something more immediate in mind.
You have just come from the Dorados?"
"That's right," Marcus said. The system had been discovered six years earlier, comprising a red dwarf
sun surrounded by a vast disc of rocky particles. Several of the larger chunks had turned out to be nearly
pure metal. Dorados was an obvious name; whoever managed to develop them would gain a colossal