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

тАЬGood day, gentlemen,тАЭ I greeted them. тАЬI'm representing the Port
Sandor Times.тАЭ
тАЬOh, run along, sonny; we haven't time to bother with you,тАЭ Hallstock
said.
тАЬBut I want to get a story from Mr. Belsher,тАЭ I began.
 тАЬWell, come back in five or six years, when you're dry behind the ears,
and you can get it,тАЭ Ravick told me.
тАЬOur readers aren't interested in the condition of my ears,тАЭ I said
sweetly. тАЬThey want to read about the price of tallow-wax. What's this
about another price cut? To thirty-five centisols a pound, I understand.тАЭ
тАЬOh, Steve, the young man's from the news service, and his father will
publish whatever he brings home,тАЭ Belsher argued. тАЬWe'd better give him
something.тАЭ He turned to me. тАЬI don't know how this got out, but it's quite
true,тАЭ he said. He had a long face, like a horse's. At least, he looked like
pictures of horses I'd seen. As he spoke, he pulled it even longer and
became as doleful as an undertaker at a ten-thousand-sol funeral.
тАЬThe price has gone down, again. Somebody has developed a synthetic
substitute. Of course, it isn't anywhere near as good as real Fenris
tallow-wax, but try and tell the public that. So Kapstaad Chemical is being
undersold, and the only way they can stay in business is cut the price they
have to pay for wax....тАЭ
It went on like that, and this time I had real trouble keeping my anger
down. In the first place, I was pretty sure there was no substitute for
Fenris tallow-wax, good, bad or indifferent. In the second place, it isn't sold
to the gullible public, it's sold to equipment manufacturers who have their
own test engineers and who have to keep their products up to legal safety
standards. He didn't know this balderdash of his was going straight to the
Times as fast as he spouted it; he thought I was taking it down in
shorthand. I knew exactly what Dad would do with it. He'd put it on
telecast in Belsher's own voice.
Maybe the monster-hunters would start looking around for a rope, then.
When I got through listening to him, I went over and got a short
audiovisual of Captain Marshak of the Peenem├╝nde for the 'cast, and then I
rejoined Tom and Murell.
тАЬMr. Murell says he's staying with you at the Times,тАЭ Tom said. He
seemed almost as disappointed as Professor Hartzenbosch. I wondered, for
an incredulous moment, if Tom had been trying to kidnap Murell away from
me. тАЬHe wants to go out on the Javelin with us for a monster-hunt.тАЭ
тАЬWell, that's swell!тАЭ I said. тАЬYou can pay off on that promise to take me
monster-hunting, too. Right now, Mr. Murell is my big story.тАЭ I reached into
the front pocket of my тАЬcameraтАЭ case for the handphone, to shift to
two-way. тАЬI'll call the Times and have somebody come up with a car to get
us and Mr. Murell's luggage.тАЭ
тАЬOh, I have a car. Jeep, that is,тАЭ Tom said. тАЬIt's down on the Bottom
Level. We can use that.тАЭ
Funny place to leave a car. And I was sure that he and Murell had come
to some kind of an understanding, while I was being lied to by Belsher. I
didn't get it. There was just too much going on around me that I didn't get,
and me, I'm supposed to be the razor-sharp newshawk who gets
everything.