"Jane Lindskold - Endpoint Insurance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindskold Jane)

Clearly the residents of Gilbert City had tried to make the refugees welcome. From
where I stood packed flank to flank in a crowded tube car, I could see that when the
refugee camp had been initially designed the registration center had been positioned
as a hub from which neat rows of prefab dwellings extended like spokes on a wheel.
As the war between the Absolutists and the Loyalists grew uglier and uglier, more
refugees flooded out. To remain was to be forced to take sides-and the Absolutist
fanatics didnтАЩt care if this was against your will. With the new influx, the tidy order
of the camp had broken down. Now buildings were being put up any old way, the
only criteria being access to water, sewage, and power.
Between the prefab units, huts like you might see on some primitive world had been
erected, shelters where the spillover residents from the houses slept and perhaps
dreamed of the day when they could return home.
Gilbert City had provided only one tube stop to serve all the inhabitants of the
Bathtub. No one had anticipated that the camp might grow large enough to need
more than one. I shuffled my way to the station exit, glancing at the tired faces of
men and women burdened down with packages of goods dearly bought in the main
city. Some were empty-handed, burdened only with sorrow and disappointment.
Fortunately, at least for now, there was plenty of work available throughout the
Endpoint system-one of the reasons that it had become a popular choice for the
refugees. As I walked briskly down the wide avenue leading toward the registration
center, I had a feeling who one of the less reputable employers might be.
Pirates would find this refugee camp a good recruiting ground. As my smuggler
friends had noted so acidly, it would serve even better as an outlet for black market
goods and as a place from which the piratesтАЩ planetside spies could gather
information.
From the piratesтАЩ point of view, the Bathtub would be all the more attractive because
of the secondary spaceport that had been erected nearby. Theoretically, the port was
solely for refugee ships-there having been complaints that refugee traffic was
crowding the main spaceport. Realistically, other ships could get clearance to land
and take off. EndpointтАЩs orbital traffic control, like everything else, was strained
these days.
Thinking thus, I bypassed the registration center and walked through the prefab
sprawl to where a makeshift market had grown up on the fringes of the Bathtub.
Here, if my contacts were correct, evidence of illicit commerce could be found.
Steeling myself to the task-for no spacer walks when she can ride-I trudged up and
down rows marked out in a more or less orderly fashion. Sound-deadening barriers
along the edge of the secondary port muted the noise, but intermittently I heard the
rumble of a spaceship engine- mostly shuttles like the one that had brought me
ground-side, but every so often the deeper roar of a larger vessel.
The thundering of these high-tech vessels provided an odd contrast to a market so
simple that its like had existed anywhere humans had gathered. Many of the vendors
merely spread a blanket or tarp on the ground and piled their wares on top. A
handful had set up stalls cobbled together from packing crates or from less
identifiable scavenged junk.
Along these tatty corridors of commerce, men and women sold everything from
household goods and old clothes to cheap luxury goods. A few of the more
ambitious sold food or offered opportunities for entertainment.
After one quick tour through the surprisingly crowded lanes, I ducked into a stall
selling puffy fried cakes seasoned with curry and onions-a Batherite treat. I traded
some of my unassigned credit vouchers for a heaping platter and something pungent,