"H. Beam Piper - Four- Day Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

year. If you say it quick enough and don't think, that sounds like big
money, but the upkeep and supplies for a hunter-ship are big money, too,
and what's left after that's paid off is divided, on a graduated scale, among
ten to fifteen men, from the captain down. A hunter-boat captain, even a
good one like Joe Kivelson, won't make much more in a year than Dad and I
make out of the Times.
Chemically, tallow-wax isn't like anything else in the known Galaxy. The
molecules are huge; they can be seen with an ordinary optical microscope,
and a microscopically visible molecule is a curious-looking object, to say
the least. They use the stuff to treat fabric for protective garments. It isn't
anything like collapsium, of course, but a suit of waxed coveralls weighing
only a couple of pounds will stop as much radiation as half an inch of lead.
Back when they were getting fifteen hundred a ton, the hunters had
been making good money, but that was before Steve Ravick's time.
It was slightly before mine, too. Steve Ravick had showed up on Fenris
about twelve years ago. He'd had some money, and he'd bought shares in a
couple of hunter-ships and staked a few captains who'd had bad luck and
got them in debt to him. He also got in with Morton Hallstock, who
controlled what some people were credulous enough to take for a
government here. Before long, he was secretary of the Hunters'
Co-operative. Old Simon MacGregor, who had been president then, was a
good hunter, but he was no businessman. He came to depend very heavily
on Ravick, up till his ship, the Claymore, was lost with all hands down in
Fitzwilliam Straits. I think that was a time bomb in the magazine, but I
have a low and suspicious mind. Professor Hartzenbosch has told me so
repeatedly. After that, Steve Ravick was president of the Co-op. He
immediately began a drive to increase the membership. Most of the new
members had never been out in a hunter-ship in their lives, but they could
all be depended on to vote the way he wanted them to.
First, he jacked the price of wax up, which made everybody but the wax
buyers happy. Everybody who wasn't already in the Co-op hurried up and
joined. Then he negotiated an exclusive contract with Kapstaad Chemical
Products, Ltd., in South Africa, by which they agreed to take the entire
output for the Co-op. That ended competitive wax buying, and when there
was nobody to buy the wax but Kapstaad, you had to sell it through the
Co-operative or you didn't sell it at all. After that, the price started going
down. The Co-operative, for which read Steve Ravick, had a sales
representative on Terra, Leo Belsher. He wrote all the contracts, collected
all the money, and split with Ravick. What was going on was pretty
generally understood, even if it couldn't be proven, but what could anybody
do about it?
Maybe somebody would try to do something about it at the meeting this
evening. I would be there to cover it. I was beginning to wish I owned a
bullet-proof vest.
Bish and Tom were exchanging views on the subject, some of them
almost printable. I had my eyes to my binoculars, watching the tugs go up
to meet the Peenem├╝nde.
тАЬWhat we need for Ravick, Hallstock and Belsher,тАЭ Tom was saying, тАЬis
about four fathoms of harpoon line apiece, and something to haul up to.тАЭ
 That kind of talk would have shocked Dad. He is very strong for law and