"Stephen Kenson - Technobabel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenson Stephen)

come to

Zurich-Orbital in person. A thin sheen of sweat coated his dark brow, and he
mopped at it nervously with a linen handkerchief as he made his way carefully
around the perimeter of the chamber to his place.
Aztechnology was always a wild card in court decisions. The megacorp had the
dubious honor of being the first to be punished by the court some ten years
ago for their activities in Southern California and in Aztlan, the nation that
had taken over the former territory of Mexico and much of Central America with
encouragement from Aztechnology. It had been necessary to teach Aztechnology a
lesson, and the Court had acted decisively. Osborne knew that lesson still
stung for many in positions of power in Aztechnology. She couldn't help but
wonder if it would keep Chavez from approving similar measures against Renraku
or if the Aztechnology justice would welcome an opportunity to pay back some
of what his corporation had suffered to another member of the court.
The next to enter the courtroom were the Ares Macro-technology justices on the
court. Paul Graves came first, looking like a linebacker or a marine someone
had dressed up in a thousand-nuyen designer suit for the occasion. He moved
through the freefall of the station like a solider traversing an obstacle
course he had run a dozen times before. Osborne knew Graves was no stranger to
living and working in space, being a regular visitor to Ares' own Daedelus
orbital platform as well as the Zurich-Orbital. Graves was one of the military
types so typical of Damien Knight's inner circle of business associates and
subordinates, a lethal weapon to be pointed and fired at any target Knight
chose.
Behind Graves came Akae Ono, moving through the room like a fish in water to
reach his "seat" along the bench. Despite his age, Ono moved about the orbital
easily. He was the only justice who lived on the station full-time and had
done so since his appointment to the court some seven years before. Rumor had
it that he was there for the life-prolonging effects of living in a
zero-gravity environment, and it certainly seemed to agree with him. The
septuagenarian justice looked and acted more like a man half his age. Osborne

knew that Ono was the one holding onto Graves' leash for Damien Knight. If she
could convince the old man that Fuchi's interests were Ares' interests,
Osborne would certainly win Graves over as well.
The remaining two female members of the court entered the room together,
although neither was overly fond of the other. Yoshiko Hino of Yamatetsu was
physical perfection as only twenty-first-century biosculpt surgery could make
it. Osborne smiled briefly at the pronounced effect zero-gravity had on Hino's
breasts, which were a bit too large for her body, and how fond the
vainglorious Hino was of using the effect to her advantage whenever
circumstances brought her to the orbital. In fact, Osborne believed that
Hino's holo-image transmitted through the Matrix was "enhanced" in the same
way to provide a distraction for her largely male audience. Yamatetsu was a
hungry corporation that had forced its way onto the Corporate Court only a few
years after it was established, and they still worked under the stigma of "the
newcomer" even years later. The corp had been a vocal supporter of the action
against Aztechnology, and Osborne suspected Hino would be eager to join in
with anything that would make her employer part of the majority.