"George R. R. Martin - Override" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

Munson scooped a handful of small, grayish rocks from inside the padded metal box and studied
them. Right now they weren't much to look at. But cut and polished they'd be something else again:
swirlstones. They were gems without fire, but they had their own beauty. Good ones looked like crystals
of moving fog, full of soft colors and softer mysteries and dreams.
Munson nodded, and dropped the stones back into the box. "Not bad," he said. "You always do
good, Matt. You know where to look."
"The rewards of coming back slow and easy," Kabaraijian said. "I look around me."
Munson put the box under his desk, and turned to his computer console, a white plastic intruder in
the wood-paneled room. He entered the swirlstones into the records, and looked back up. "You want to
wash down your corpses?"
Kabaraijian shook his head. "Not tonight. I'm tired. I'll just flop them for now."
"Sure," said Munson. He rose, and opened the door behind his desk. Kabaraijian followed him, and
the three dead men followed Kabaraijian. Behind the office were barracks, long and low-roofed, with
row on row of simple wooden bunks. Most of them were full. Kabaraijian guided his dead men to three
empty ones and maneuvered them in. Then he thumbed his controller off. The echoes in his head blinked
out, and the corpses sagged heavily into the bunks.
Afterwards, he chatted with Munson for a few minutes back in the office. Finally the old man went
back to his novel, and Kabaraijian back to the cool night.
A row of company scooters sat in back of the station, but Kabaraijian left them alone, preferring the
ten-minute walk from the river to the settlement. He covered the forest road with an easy, measured
pace, pausing here and there to brush aside vines and low branches. It was always a pleasant walk. The
nights were calm, the breezes fragrant with the fruity scent of local trees and heavy with the songs of the
nightflyers.
The settlement was bigger and brighter and louder than the river station; a thick clot of houses and
bars and shops built alongside the spaceport. There were a few structures of wood and stone, but most
of the settlers were still content with the plastic prefabs the company had given them free.
Kabaraijian drifted through the new-paved streets, to one of the outnumbered wooden buildings.
There was a heavy wooden sign over the tavern door, but no lights. Inside he found candles and heavy,
stuffed chairs, and a real log fire. It was a cozy place; the oldest bar on Grotto, and still the favorite
watering hole for corpse handlers and hunters and other river station personnel.
A loud shout greeted him when he entered. "Hey! Matt! Over here!"
Kabaraijian found the voice, and followed it to a table in the corner, where Ed Cochran was nursing
a mug of beer. Cochran, like Kabaraijian, wore the blue-and-white tunic of a corpse handler. He was tall
and lean, with a thin face that grinned a lot and a mass of tangled red-blond hair.
Kabaraijian sank gratefully into the chair opposite him. Cochran grinned. "Beer?" he asked. "We
could split a pitcher."
"No thanks. I feel like wine tonight. Something rich and mellow and slow."
"How'd it go?" said Cochran.
Kabaraijian shrugged. "O.K.," he said. "Four nice stones, a dozen little ones. Munson gave me a
good estimate. Tomorrow should be better. I found a nice new place." He turned toward the bar briefly,
and gestured. The bartender nodded, and the wine and glasses arrived a few minutes later.
Kabaraijian poured and sipped while Cochran discussed his day. It hadn't gone well; only six stones,
none of them very big.
"You've got to range farther," Kabaraijian told him. "The caves around here have been pretty well
worked out. But the High Lakes go on and on. Find someplace new."
"Why bother?" Cochran said, frowning. "Don't get to keep them anyway. What's the percentage in
knocking yourself out?"
Kabaraijian twirled the wine glass slowly in a thin, dark hand, and watched the dream-red depths.
"Poor Ed," he said, in a voice half-sadness and half-mockery. "All you see is the work. Grotto is a pretty
planet. I don't mind the extra miles, Ed, I enjoy them. I'd probably travel in my off-time if they didn't pay