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

Cochran looked at him curiously. "You don't seem too happy."
"No," said Kabaraijian. He studied his wine. "I'm having second thoughts. That insufferable bigot riled
me, made me want to get to him. Only I wonder if I can pull it off. What can corpses do on Grotto?"
His eyes wandered around the tavern, which had suddenly become very somber. "It's sinking in," he
told Cochran. "I'll bet they're all talking about leaving . . ."
Cochran had stopped grinning. "Some of us will stay," he said uncertainly. "We can farm with the
corpses, or something."
Kabaraijian looked at him. "Uhuh. Machinery is more efficient for farming. And dead men are too
clumsy for anything but the crudest kind of labor, much too slow for hunting." He poured more wine, and
mused aloud. "They're O.K. for cheap factory labor, or running an automole in a mine. But Grotto
doesn't have any of that. They can hack out swirlstones with a vibrodrill, only Bartling is taking that away
from us." He shook his head.
"I don't know, Ed," he continued. "It's not going to be easy. And maybe it'll be impossible. With the
swirlstone concession under his belt, Bartling is bigger than the settlement company now."
"That was the idea. The company sets us up, and we buy it out as we grow."
"True. But Bartling grew a little too fast. He can really start throwing his weight around now. It
wouldn't surprise me if he amended the charter, to keep corpses off-planet. That would force us out."
"Can he get away with that?" Cochran was getting angry again, and his voice rose slightly.
"Maybe," Kabaraijian said, "if we let him. I wonder . . ." He sloshed his wine thoughtfully. "You think
this deal of his is final?"
Cochran looked puzzled. "He said he had it."
"Yes. I don't suppose he'd crow about it if it wasn't in his pocket. Still, I'm curious what the company
would do if someone made them a better offer."
"Who?"
"Us, maybe?" Kabaraijian sipped his wine and considered that. "Get all the handlers together,
everybody puts in whatever they have. That should give us a fair sum. Maybe we could buy out the river
station ourselves. Or something else, if Bartling has the swirlstones all locked up. It's an idea."
"Nah, it'd never work," Cochran said. "Maybe you've got some money, Matt, but I sure as hell don't.
Spent most of it here. Besides, even the guys that have money, you'd never be able to get them
together."
"Maybe not," Kabaraijian said. "But it's worth trying. Organizing against Bartling is the only way
we're going to be able to keep ourselves on Grotto in the long run."
Cochran drained his beer, and signaled for another. "Nah," he said. "Bartling's too big. He'll slap you
down hard if you bother him too much. I got a better idea."
"Swirlstone smuggling," Kabaraijian said, smiling.
"Yeah," Cochran said with a nod. "Maybe now you'll reconsider. If Bartling's gonna throw us
off-planet, at least we can take some of his swirlstones with us. That'd set us up good wherever we go."
"You're incorrigible," Kabaraijian said. "But I'll bet half the handlers on Grotto will try the same thing
now. Bartling will expect that. He'll have the spaceport screwed up tight when we 'start leaving. He'll
catch you, Ed. And you'll lose your crew, or worse. Bartling might even try to force through dead-man
laws, and start exporting corpses."
Cochran looked uneasy at that. Corpse handlers saw 'too much of dead men to relish the idea of
becoming one. They tended to cluster on planets without dead-man laws, where capital crimes still drew
prison terms or "clean" executions. Grotto was a clean planet now, but laws can change.
"I might lose my crew anyway, Matt," Cochran said. "If Bartling throws us out, I'll have to sell some
of my corpses for passage money."
Kabaraijian smiled. "You still have a month, even with the worst. And there are plenty of swirlstones
Override out there for the finding." He raised his glass. "Come. To Grotto. It's a lovely planet, and
we may stay here yet."
Cochran shrugged and lifted his beer. "Yeah," he said. But his grin didn't hide his worry.