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

of making this announcement personally."
 "You're leaving Grotto!" someone shouted. There was laughter all along the bar. "I'll drink to that,"
another voice added.
"No," said Bartling. "No, friend, you are." He looked around, savoring the moment. "Bartling
Associates has just acquired the swirlstone concession, I'm happy to tell you. I take over management of
the river station at the end of the month. And, of course, my first act will be to terminate the employment
of all the corpse handlers currently under contract."
Suddenly the room was very silent, as the implications of that sank in. In the corner in the back of the
room, Cochran rose slowly to his feet. Kabaraijian remained seated, stunned.
"You can't do that," Cochran said belligerently. "We've got contracts."
Bartling turned to face him. "Those contracts can be broken," he said, "and they will be."
"You son of a bitch," someone said.
The bodyguard tensed. "Watch who you call names, meatmind," one of them answered. All around
the room, men started getting to their feet.
Cochran was livid with anger. "Damn you, Bartling," he said. "Who the hell do you think you are?
You've got no right to run us off the planet."
"I have every right," Bartling said. "Grotto is a good, clean, beautiful planet. There's no place here for
your kind. It was a mistake to bring you in, and I've said so all along. Those things you work with
contaminate the air. And you're even worse. You work with those things, those corpses, voluntarily, for
money. You disgust me. You don't belong on Grotto. And now I'm in a position to see that you leave."
He paused, then smiled. "Meatmind," he added, spitting out the word.
"Bartling, I'm going to knock your head off," one of the handlers bellowed. There was a roar of
agreement. Several men started forward at once.
And jerked to a sudden stop when Kabaraijian interjected a soft, "No, wait," over the general
hubbub. He hardly raised his voice at all, but it still commanded attention in the room of shouting men.
He walked through the crowd and faced Bartling, looking much calmer than he felt. "You realize that
without corpse labor your costs will go way up," he said in a steady, reasonable voice, "and your profits
down."
Bartling nodded. "Of course I realize it. I'm willing to take the loss. We'll use men to mine the
swirl-stones. They're too beautiful for corpses, anyway."
"You'll be losing money for nothing," Kabaraijian said.
"Hardly. I'll get rid of your stinking corpses."
Kabaraijian cracked a thin smile. "Maybe some. But not all of us, Mr. Bartling. You can take away
our jobs, perhaps, but you can't throw us off Grotto. I for one refuse to go."
"Then you'll starve."
"Don't be so melodramatic. I'll find something else to do. You don't own all of Grotto. And I'll keep
my corpses. Dead men can be used for a lot of things. It's just that we haven't thought of them all yet."
Bartling's smirk had vanished suddenly. "If you stay," he said, fixing Kabaraijian with a hard stare, "I
promise to make you very, very sorry."
Kabaraijian laughed. "Really? Well, personally, I promise to send one of my dead men by your house
every night after you go to bed, to make hideous faces at the window and moan." He laughed again,
louder. Cochran joined him, then others. Soon the whole tavern was laughing.
Bartling turned red and began a slow burn. He came here to taunt his enemies, to crow his triumph,
and now they were laughing at him. Laughing in the face of victory, cheating him. He seethed a long
minute, then turned and walked furiously out the door. His bodyguards followed.
The laughter lingered a while after his exit, and several of the other handlers slapped Kabaraijian on
the back as he made his way back to his seat. Cochran was happy about it, too. "You really took the old
man apart," he said when they reached the corner table.
But Kabaraijian wasn't smiling anymore. He slumped down into his seat heavily, and reached almost
immediately for the wine. "I sure did," he said slowly, between sips. "I sure did."