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

seen him for years.тАЭ
I'd caught that name, too, when we'd gotten the passenger list. Dr.
John Watson. Now, I know that all sorts of people call themselves Doctor,
and Watson and John aren't too improbable a combination, but I'd read
Sherlock Holmes long ago, and the name had caught my attention. And this
was the first, to my knowledge, that Bish Ware had ever admitted to any
off-planet connections.
We started over to the gate. Hallstock and Ravick were ahead of us. So
was Sigurd Ngozori, the president of the Fidelity & Trust, carrying a heavy
briefcase and accompanied by a character with a submachine gun, and Adolf
Lautier and Professor Hartzenbosch. There were a couple of spaceport cops
at the gate, in olive-green uniforms that looked as though they had been
sprayed on, and steel helmets. I wished we had a city police force like that.
They were Odin Dock & Shipyard Company men, all former Federation
Regular Army or Colonial Constabulary. The spaceport wasn't part of Port
Sandor, or even Fenris; the Odin Dock & Shipyard Company was the
government there, and it was run honestly and efficiently.
They knew me, and when they saw Tom towing my hamper they cracked
a few jokes about the new Times cub reporter and waved us through. I
thought they might give Bish an argument, but they just nodded and let
him pass, too. We all went out onto the bridge, and across the pit to the
equator of the two-thousand-foot globular ship.
We went into the main lounge, and the captain introduced us to Mr.
Glenn Murell. He was fairly tall, with light gray hair, prematurely so, I
thought, and a pleasant, noncommittal face. I'd have pegged him for a
businessman. Well, I suppose authoring is a business, if that was his
business. He shook hands with us, and said:
 тАЬAren't you rather young to be a newsman?тАЭ
I started to burn on that. I get it all the time, and it burns me all the
time, but worst of all on the job. Maybe I am only going-on-eighteen, but
I'm doing a man's work, and I'm doing it competently.
тАЬWell, they grow up young on Fenris, Mr. Murell,тАЭ Captain Marshak
earned my gratitude by putting in. тАЬEither that or they don't live to grow
up.тАЭ
Murell unhooked his memophone and repeated the captain's remark into
it. Opening line for one of his chapters. Then he wanted to know if I'd been
born on Fenris. I saw I was going to have to get firm with Mr. Murell, right
away. The time to stop that sort of thing is as soon as it starts.
тАЬWho,тАЭ I wanted to know, тАЬis interviewing whom? You'll have at least
five hundred hours till the next possible ship out of here; I only have two
and a half to my next deadline. You want coverage, don't you? The more
publicity you get, the easier your own job's going to be.тАЭ
Then I introduced Tom, carefully giving the impression that while I
handled all ordinary assignments, I needed help to give him the full VIP
treatment. We went over to a quiet corner and sat down, and the interview
started.
The camera case I was carrying was a snare and a deceit. Everybody
knows that reporters use recorders in interviews, but it never pays to be
too obtrusive about them, or the subject gets recorder-conscious and
stiffens up. What I had was better than a recorder; it was a recording radio.