"Heinlein, Robert A - The Man Who Sold the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

УHuh? Have you gone crazy?Ф
УProbably. But IТm going to need all the cash you can shake loose for me. Roadways and Belt Transport are no good anyhow; we should have unloaded earlier.Ф
УYou are crazy! ItТs the one really conservative venture youТve sponsored.Ф
УBut it wasnТt conservative when I sponsored it. Believe me, George, roadtowns are on their way out. They are growing moribund, just as the railroads did. In a hundred years there wonТt be a one left on the continent. WhatТs the formula for making money, George?Ф
УBuy low and sell high.Ф
УThatТs only half of it. . . your half. WeТve got to guess which way things are moving, give them a boost, and see that we are cut in on the ground floor. Liquidate that stuff, George; IТll need money to operate.Ф The taxi landed; they got in and took off.
The taxi delivered them to the roof of the Hemisphere Power Building they went to the power syndicateТs board room, as far below ground as the landing platform was aboveЧin those days, despite years of peace, tycoons habitually came to rest at spots relatively immune to atom bombs. The room did not seem like a bomb shelter; it appeared to be a chamber in a luxurious penthouse, for a Уview windowФ back of the chairmanТs end of the table looked out high above the city, in convincing, live stereo, relayed from the roof.
The other directors were there before them. Dixon nodded as they came in, glanced at his watch finger and said, УWell, gentlemen, our bad boy is here, we may as well begin.Ф He took the chairmanТs seat and rapped for order.
УThe minutes of the last meeting are on your pads as usual. Signal when ready.Ф Harriman glanced at the summary before him and at once flipped a switch on the table top; a small green light flashed on at his place. Most of the directors did the same.
УWhoТs holding up the procession?Ф inquired Harriman, looking around. УOhЧyou, George. Get a move on.Ф
УI like to check the figures,Ф his partner answered testily, then flipped his own switch. A larger green light showed in front of Chainnan Dixon, who then pressed a button; a transparency, sticking an inch or two above the table top in front of him lit up with the word RECORDING.
УOperations report,Ф said Dixon and touched another switch. A female voice came out from nowhere. Harriman followed the report from the next sheet of paper at his place. Thirteen Curie-type power piles were now in operation, up five from the last meeting. The Susquehanna and Charleston piles had taken over the load previously borrowed from Atlantic Roadcity and the roadways of that city were now up to normal speed. It was expected that the Chicago-Angeles road could be restored to speed during the next fortnight. Power would continue to be rationed but the crisis was over.
All very interesting but of no direct interest to Harriman. The power crisis that had been caused by the explosion of the power satellite was being satisfactorily metЧvery good, but HarrimanТs interest in it lay in the fact that the cause of interplanetary travel had thereby received a setback from which it might not recover.
When the Harper-Erickson isotopic artificial fuels had been developed three years before it had seemed that, in addition to solving the dilemma of an impossibly dangerous power source which was also utterly necessary to the economic life of the continent, an easy means had been found to achieve interplanetary travel.
The Arizona power pile had been installed in one of the largest of the Antipodes rockets, the rocket powered with isotopic fuel created in the power pile itself, and the whole thing was placed in an orbit around the Earth. A much smaller rocket had shuttled between satellite and Earth, carrying supplies to the staff of the power pile, bringing back synthetic radioactive fuel for the power-hungry technology of Earth.
As a director of the power syndicate Harriman had backed the power satelliteЧwith a private ax to grind: he expected to power a Moon ship with fuel manufactured in the power satellite and thus to achieve the first trip to the Moon almost at once. He had not even attempted to stir the Department of Defense out of its sleep; he wanted no government subsidyЧthe job was a cinch; anybody could do itЧand Harriman would do it. He had the ship; shortly he would have the fuel.
The ship had been a freighter of his own Antipodes line, her chem-fuel motors replaced, her wings removed. She still waited, ready for fuelЧthe recommissioned Santa Maria, nee City of Brisbane.
But the fuel was slow in coming. Fuel had to be eannarked for the shuttle rocket; the power needs of a rationed continent came nextЧand those needs grew faster than the power satellite could turn out fuel. Far from being ready to supply him for a УuselessФ Moon trip, the syndicate had seized on the safe but less efficient low temperature uranium-salts and heavy water, Curie-type power piles as a means of using uranium directly to meet the ever growing need for power, rather than build and launch more satellites.
Unfortunately the Curie piles did not provide the fierce star-interior conditions necessary to breeding the isotopic fuels needed for an atomic-powered rocket. Harriman had reluctantly come around to the notion that he would have to use political pressure to squeeze the necessary priority for the fuels he wanted for the Santa Maria.
Then the power satellite had blown up.

Harriman was stirred out of his brown study by DixonТs voice. УThe operations report seems satisfactory, gentlemen. If there is no objection, it will be recorded as accepted. You will note that in the next ninety days we will be back up to the power level which existed before we were forced to close down the Arizona pile.Ф
УBut with no provision for future needs,Ф pointed out Harriman. УThere have been a lot of babies born while we have been sitting here.Ф
УIs that an objection to accepting the report, D.D.?Ф
"No."
УVery well. Now the public relations reportЧlet me call attention to the first item, gentlemen. The vice-president in charge recommends a schedule of annuities, benefits, scholarships and so forth for dependents of the staff of the power satellite and of the pilot of the Charon: see appendix СCТ.Ф
A director across from HarrimanЧPhineas Morgan, chairman of the food trust, Cuisine, IncorporatedЧprotested, УWhat is this, Ed? Too bad they were killed of course, but we paid them skyhigh wages and carried their insurance to boot. Why the charity?Ф
Harriman grunted. УPay itЧI so move. ItТs peanuts. СDo not bind the mouths of the kine who tread the grain.ТФ
УI wouldnТt call better than nine hundred thousand Сpeanuts,ТФ protested Morgan.
УJust a minute, gentlemenЧФ It was the vice-president in charge of public relations, himself a director. УIf youТll look at the breakdown, Mr. Morgan, you will see that eighty-five percent of the appropriation will be used to publicize the gifts.Ф
Morgan squinted at the figures. УOhЧwhy didnТt you say so? Well, I suppose the gifts can be considered unavoidable overhead, but itТs a bad precedent.Ф
УWithout them we have nothing to publicize.Ф
УYes, butЧФ
Dixon rapped smartly. УMr. Harriman has moved acceptance. Please signal your desires.Ф The tally board glowed green; even Morgan, after hesitation, okayed the allotment. УWe have a related item next,Ф said Dixon. УA Mrs.Чuh, Garfield, through her attorneys, alleges that we are responsible for the congenital crippled condition of her fourth child. The putative facts are that her child was being born just as the satellite exploded and that Mrs. Garfield was then on the meridian underneath the satellite. She wants the court to award her half a million.Ф
Morgan looked at Harriman. УDelos, I suppose that you will say to settle out of court.Ф
УDonТt be silly. We fight it.Ф
Dixon looked around, surprised. УWhy, D.D.? ItТs my guess we could settle for ten or fifteen thousandЧand that was what I was about to recommend. IТm surprised that the legal department referred it to publicity.Ф
УItТs obvious why; itТs loaded with high explosive. But we should fight, regardless of bad publicity. ItТs not like the last case; Mrs. Garfield and her brat are not our people. And any dumb fool knows you canТt mark a baby by radioactivity at birth; you have to get at the germ plasm of the previous generation at least. In the third place, if we let this get by, weТll be sued for every double-yolked egg thatТs laid from now on. This calls for an open allotment for defense and not one damned cent for compromise.Ф
УIt might be very expensive,Ф observed Dixon.
УItТll be more expensive not to fight. If we have to, we should buy the judge.Ф
The public relations chief whispered to Dixon, then announced, УI support Mr. HarrimanТs view. ThatТs my departmentТs recommendation.Ф
It was approved. УThe next item,Ф Dixon went on, Уis a whole sheaf of suits arising out of slowing down the roadcities to divert power during the crisis. They alleged loss of business, loss of time, loss of this and that, but they are all based on the same issue. The most touchy, perhaps, is a stockholderТs suit which claims that Roadways and this company are so interlocked that the decision to divert the power was not done in the interests of the stockholders of Roadways. Delos, this is your pidgin; want to speak on it?Ф
УForget it.Ф
УWhy?Ф
УThose are shotgun suits. This corporation is not responsible; I saw to it that Roadways volunteered to sell the power because I anticipated this. And the directorates donТt interlock; not on paper, they donТt. ThatТs why dummies were born. Forget itЧfor every suit youТve got there, Roadways has a dozen. WeТll beat them.Ф
УWhat makes you so sure?Ф
УWellЧФ Harriman lounged back and hung a knee over the arm of his chair. УЧa good many years ago I was a Western Union messenger boy. While waiting around the office I read everything I could lay hands on, including the contract on the back of the telegram forms. Remember those? They used to come in big pads of yellow paper; by writing a message on the face of the form you accepted the contract in the fine print on the backT only most people didnТt realize that. Do you know what that contract obhgated the company to do?Ф
УSend a telegram, I suppose.Ф
УIt didnТt promise a durn thing. The company offered to attempt to deliver the message, by camel caravan or snail back, or some equally streamlined method, if convenient, but in event of failure, the company was not responsible. I read that fine print until I knew it by heart. It was the loveliest piece of prose I had ever seen. Since then all my contracts have been worded on the same principle. Anybody who sues Roadways will find that Roadways canТt be sued on the element of time, because time is not of the essence. In the event of complete non-performanceЧwhich hasnТt happened yetЧ Roadways is financially responsible only for freight charges or the price of the personal transportation tickets. So forget it.Ф
Morgan sat up. УD.D., suppose I decided to run up to my country place tonight, by the roadway, and there was a failure of some sort so that I didnТt get there until tomorrow? You mean to say Roadways is not liable?Ф