"Zach Hughes - Pressure Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

fuelPand to simplify matters, they zapped the fellow, putting seven slugs into
his chest in one-tenth of a second, covering him and the burning vehicle with
fire foam split seconds later. "Your main problem," a nurse told Dom later,
after a nap, "is that you inhaled some of the fumes from the foam. You'll have
sore lungs for a couple of days."
The nurse was a buxom, motherly, gray-haired lady with infinitely tender
hands. He fell in love with her and, on the morning of the third day, walking
rather well considering his bandages, he kissed her on the cheek and promised
to bring her a carbocrystal next trip back from Mars.
Outside of his room he was met by one of the policemen who had questioned him.
Theymalked down a long corridor in silence, boarded an elevator, exited the
elevator- The security man guiding Dom boarded a tube car, and zipped at
back-snapping speed to 'an unknown destination underground where Dom was left
to wait in JJ i's Outer office. He passed the time by looking at the left
Profile of the receptionist. It was a very
PRESSURE MAN
profile and he wa& in the midst of some interesting
ation when she rose, sniffed, and told him that Barnes would see him now. J I
indicated a chair in front of his desk. Dom sat
leaning his crutch on the chair. There was a hiss a-low rumble as a
blockshield closed down around ',',desk area, putting the two of them in an
impenetrashell. @@"!g__,@You have problems even here?" Dom asked. rin often
accused of being overcautious," J.J. said, .i@'Obut the last time I visited
the White House the media fiad the details of the discussion before I was
back. at ','JAy hotel."
OName dropper," Dom said. He wiggled, trying to @`Oase the weight off his sore
rear. "Plash," J.J. said, "you're just in from Mars. What .,,,Was your cargo?
Phosphates," Dom - said. He knew that J.J. was W ,A are of his ship's cargo,
but J.J. had to work up to
He'd always been methodical. "'Agricultural phosphates," J.J. said. ght "And
the trip before this one?" "The same." "Do you ever think about that?" J.J.
asked. "Not a hefluva lot," Dom said. "Why not a cargo of carbocrystals?" J.J.
asked. "Or refined platinum? Or gold, or radioactives, or even petroleumT2 "I
don't place orders for cargo," Dom said. "If you9re trying to give me a lesson
in the dynamics of .Supply and demand, I know why we carry water out to Mars
and carry phosphates back. Mars doesn't have enough water and you don7t have
enough food. You've let the topsoil wash into the oceans and you've mined
what's left by force farming."
Zach Hughes "I don't like your choice of pronouns," LJ. said. "You. You,
yourself, had- nothing to do with using up Earth's resources?" "I voted for
forced family planning in '90," Dom said. "That was the first,time I was old
enough to vote. I had common sense even at such a tender age. The rest of you
didn't." "I won't bother to claim kinihip by telling you that L too, voted for
family planning," LJ. said. "It's enough to say that the rest of the world
didn't." He lo6ked,.at Dom thoughtfully. "The man who tried to bum you was a
Publicrat, of course." "Worldsaver?" "Party affiliation is public record.
Membership in, radical and terrorist organizations is not. I would guess
either Worldsaver or Earthfirster. The latter, I suspect, since they're
becoming a bit more bloody lately." "WNch party leader was he registered
under?" Dom asked. '.'Our own lovable senator. The gentleman from New Mexico."