"C M Kornbluth - That Share Of Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

тАФa slovenliness in which Alen could not share. Many of his waking hours were spent in his locked
cubicle burnishing his metal and cleaning and pressing his robes. A Herald was never supposed to
suggest by his appearance that he shared moral frailties.



Blackbeard himself yielded a little, to the point of touching his cap sullenly. This probably was not so
much awe at Alen's studied manner as respect for the incisive, lightning-fast job of auditing the Herald did
on the books of the trading venture



тАФabsurdly complicated books with scores of accounts to record a simple matter of buying gems cheap
on Vega and
 chartering a ship in the hope of selling them dearly on Lyra. The complicated books and overlapping
accounts did tell the story, but they made it very easy for an auditor to erroneously read a number of
costs as far higher than they actually were. Alen did not fall into the trap.



On the fifth day after blastoff, Chief Elwon rapped, respectfully but urgently, on the door of Alen's
cubicle.



"If you please, Herald," he urged, "could you come to the bridge?"



Alen's heart bounded in his chest, but he gravely said: "My meditation must not be interrupted. I shall
join you on the bridge in ten minutes." And for ten minutes he methodically polished a murky link in the
massive gold chain that fastened his boat-cloakтАФthe "meditation." He donned the cloak before stepping
out; the summons sounded like a full-dress affair in the offing.



The trader was stamping and fuming. Chief Elwon was riffling through his spec book unhappily.
Astrogator Hufner was at the plot computer running up trajectories and knocking them down again. A
quick glance showed Alen that they were all high-speed trajectories in the "evasive action" class.



"Herald," said the trader grimly, "we have broken somebody's detector bubble." He jerked his thumb at
a red-lit signal. "I expect we'll be overhauled shortly. Are you ready to earn your twenty-five per cent of
the net?"



Alen overlooked the crudity. "Are you rigged for color video, merchant?" he asked.