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

"Be careful, Victoria my dear. Very careful."
"Listen, there's two options. One, it's some kind of commercial operation-, which must be illegal
because nobody has filed for industrial development rights." She gave him a significant look.
"You think they're mining pitchblende?" he datavised.
"What else? We thought of the concept, why not one of the black syndicates as well? They just didn't
come up with my magnetic array idea, so they're having to do it the hard way."
"Secondly," she continued aloud, "it's some kind of covert military station; in which case they've
tracked us from the moment we emerged. Either way, we're under observation. We have to know who
they are before we proceed any further."


"A station?" Marcus asked. "Here?"
"It would appear so," Antonio said glumly.
"And you want us to find out who they are?"
"I think that would be prudent," Victoria said, "given what we're doing here."
"All right," Marcus said. "Karl, lock a communication dish on them. Give them our CAB identification
code, let's see if we can get a response."
"Aye, sir," Karl said. He settled back on his acceleration couch.
"While we're waiting," Katherine said. "I have a question for you, Antonio.
She ignored the warning glare Marcus directed at her.
Antonio's bogus smile blinked on. "If it is one I can answer, then I will do so gladly, dear lady."
"Gold is expensive because of its rarity value, right?"
"Of course."
"So here we are, about to fill Lady Mac's cargo holds with 5,000 tonnes of the stuff. On top of that
you've developed a method which means people can scoop up millions of tonnes any time they want. If
we try and sell it to a dealer or a bank, how long do you think we're going to be billionaires for, a
fortnight?"
Antonio laughed. "Gold has never been that rare. Its value is completely artificial. The Edenists have
the largest stockpile. We don't know exactly bow much they possess because the Jovian Bank will not
declare the exact figure. But they dominate the commodity market, and sustain the price by controlling
how much is released. We shall simply play the same game. Our gold will have to be sold discreetly, in
small batches, in different star systems, and over the course of several years. And knowledge of the
magnetic array system should be kept to ourselves."
 "Nice try, Katherine," Roman chuckled. "You'll just have to settle for an income of a hundred million
a year."
She showed him a stiff finger, backed by a shark's smile.
"No response," Karl said. "Not even a transponder."
"Keep trying," Marcus told him. "Okay, Antonio, what do you want to do about it?"
"We have to know who they are," Victoria said. "As Antonio has just explained so eloquently, we
can't have other people seeing what we're doing here."
"It's what they're doing here that worries me," Marcus said; although, curiously, his intuition wasn't
causing him any grief on the subject. "I see no alternative but a rendezvous," Antonio said.
"We're in a retrograde orbit, 32 million kilometres away and receding. That's going to use up an
awful lot of fuel."
"Which I believe I have already paid for."
"Okay, we rendezvous."
"What if they don't want us there?" Schutz asked.
"If we detect any combat wasp launch, then we jump outsystem immediately," Marcus said. "The
disc's gravity field isn't strong enough to affect Lady Mac's patterning node symmetry. We can leave any
time we want."