"C M Kornbluth & Frederik Pohl - Critical Mass (SS Collection) UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

"You've simply no idea what I go through," he sobbed. "And then they won't pay. No, really. Fellow beat me out of $14,752.03 just lately. I'm taking it out of the co-signer's hide, of course, but after you pay the collection agency, what's the profit?"
I choked on the beer, but he was too deep hi sorrow to notice.
Strangling, I gasped, "Did you say fourteen thousand-?"
He nodded. "Seven hundred and fifty-two dollars, yes. And three cents. Astonishes you, doesn't it, the deadbeats hi this world?"
I couldn't speak.
"You wouldn't think it," he mourned. "All those salaries. All those rooms. The hydrotherapy tubs. The water bill."
I shook my head.
"Probably you think my life's a bowl of roses, hey?"
I managed to pry my larynx open enough to wheeze, "Up to this minute, yes, I did. You've opened my eyes."
"Drink to that," he said promptly. "Hey, barman!"
But before the bartender got there with Number Ten the little man hiccoughed and slid melting to the floor, like a glacier calving into icebergs.
The bartender peered over at him. "Every damn night," he grumbled. "And who's going to get him home this tune?"
My mind working as fast "as Ngo, the dancing
spider, spinning her web, I succeeded in saying, "Me. Glad to oblige. Never fear."
Garigolli to Home Base
Chief,
All right, I admit we haven't been exactly 144 p.g. on this project, but there's no reason for you to get loose. Reciting the penalties for violating the Triple Directive is uncalled-for.
Let me point out that there has been no question at any time of compliance with One or Three. And even Directive Two, well, we've done what we could. "To repay sentients in medium suitable to them for information gained." These sentients are tricky, Chief. They don't seem to empathize, really. See our reports. They often take without giving in return among themselves, and it seems to me that under the circumstances a certain modification of Directive Two would have been quite proper.
But I am not protesting the ruling. Especially since you've pointed out it won't do any good. When I get old and skinny enough to retire to a sling in Home Base I guess 111 get that, home-base mentality too> but way out here on the surface of the exploration volume it looks diflerent, believe me.
And what is happening with the rest of our crew back at Host's domicile I can't even guess. They must be nearly frantic by now.
Garigolli
There was some discussion with a policeman he wanted to hit (apparently under the impression that the cop was his night watchman playing hookey), but I finally got the little man to the Institute for Psychosomatic Adjustment.
The mausoleum that had graduated my brother-in-law turned out to be three stories high, with a sun porch and a slate roof and bars on the ground-floor bay windows. It was not all that far from my house. Shirl had been pleased about that, I remembered. She said we could visit her brother a lot there, and in fact she
had gone over once or twice on Sundays, but me, I'd never set eyes on the place before.
Dagger-sharp fangs flecking white spume, none dared dispute me as I strode through the great green corridors of the rain forest. Corded thews rippling like pythons under my skin, it was child's play to carry the craven jackal to his lair. The cabbie helped me up the steps with him.
The little man, now revealed as that creature who in anticipation had seemed so much larger and hairier, revived slightly as we entered the reception hall. "Ooooh," he groaned. "Watch the bouncing, old boy. That door. My office. Leather couch. Much obliged."
I dumped him on the couch, lit a green-shaded lamp on his desk, closed the door and considered.
Mine enemy had delivered himself into my power. All I had to do was seize him by the forelock. I seemed to see the faces of my family-Shirl's smiling sweetly, Butchie's cocoa-overlaid-with-oatmeal-spurring me on.
There had to be a way.
I pondered. Life had not equipped me for this occasion. Raffles or Professor Moriarity would have known what to do at once, but, ponder as I would, I couldn't think of anything to do except to go through the drawers of his desk.
Well, it was a start. But it yielded very little. Miscellaneous paper clips and sheaves of letterheads, a carton of cigarettes of a brand apparently flavored with rice wine and extract of vanilla, part of a fifth of Old Rathole and five switchblade knives, presumably taken from the inmates. There was also $6.15 in unused postage stamps, but I quickly computed that, even if I went to the trouble of cashing them in, that would leave me $14,745.88 short.
Of Papers to Burn there were none.
All in all, the venture was a bust. I wiped out a water glass with one of the letterheads (difficult, be-
cause they were of so high quality that they seemed likelier to shatter than to wad up), and forced down a couple of ounces of the whiskey (difficult, because it was of so low).
Obviously anything of value, like for instance co-signed agreements with brothers-in-law, would be in a safe, which itself would probably be in the offices of the Gudsell Medical Credit Bureau. Blackmail? But there seemed very little to work with, barring one or two curious photographs tucked in among the envelopes. Conceivably I could cause him some slight embarrassment, but nowhere near $14,752.03 worth. I had not noticed any evidence of Red espionage that might put the little man (whose name, I learned from his letterhead, was Bermingham) away for 10,104 and a quarter days, while I saved up the price of reclaiming our liberty.
There seemed to be only one possible thing to do.
Eyes glowing like red coals behind slitted lids, I walked lightly on velvet-soft pads to the kraal of the witch-man. He was snoring with his mouth open. Totally vulnerable to his doom.
Only, how to inflict it?
It is not as easy as one might think to murder a person. Especially if one doesn't come prepared for it. Mr. Morgan doesn't like us to carry guns at the office, and heaven knows what Shirl would do with one if I left it around home. Anyway, I didn't have one.
Poison was a possibility. The Old Rathole suggested itself. But we'd already tried that, hadn't we?
I considered the switchblade knives. There was a technical problem. Would you know where the heart is? Granted, it had to be inside his chest somewhere, and sooner or later I could find it. But what would I say to Mr. Bermingham after the first three or four exploratory stabs woke him up?
The only reasonably efficient method I could think of to insure Mr. Bermingham's decease was to burn the place down with him in it. Which, I quickly per-
ceived, meant with whatever cargo of drying-out drunks the Institute now possessed in it too, behind those barred windows.
At this point I came face to face with myself.
I wasn't going to kill anybody. I wasn't going to steal any papers.
What I was going to do was, I was going to let Mr. Klaw's lawyers go ahead and take our house, because I just didn't know how to do anything else. I hefted the switchblades in my hand, threw them against the wall and poured myself another slug of Mr. Bermingham's lousy whiskey, wishing it would kill me right there and be a lesson to him.
Garigolli to Home Base
Now, don't get excited, Chief,
But we have another problem.
Before I get into it, I would like to remind you of a couple of things. First, I was against exploring this planet in the first place, remember? I said it was going to be very difficult, on the grounds of the difference in mass between its dominant species and us. I mean, really. Here we are fighting member to member against dangerous beasts all the time, and the beasts, to the Host and his race, are only microorganisms that live unnoticed in their circulatory systems, their tissues, their food and their environment. Anybody could tell that this was going to be a tough assignment, if not an impossible one.