"Jerry Pournelle - High Justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

"Yeah, I know," Adams said. His voice was harsh. "They call it foreign aid. I call it Danegeld.
That's why we're here."

Adams climbed down from the executive jet and mopped his brow immediately. Heat shimmers rose from
the cement runway. "My God, it's hot here!" he said to the man waiting below the ramp. "Excuse me,
Father. ..."
Father George Percy grinned. "If you want to tell the Almighty something that must be quite
obvious to Him, that's your affair. " Father Percy was a short, heavy man with no trace of fat but
broad shoulders and thick arms. He wore white trousers and shirt with clerical collar, a small
gold cross on a chain around his neck, and his accent was the heavy modified British of South
Africa. "Have a good flight?"
"Good enough." Adams mopped his brow again. The handkerchief was soaked.
"It's best we get inside," the priest told him. "Aren't your people coming?" He led the way to a
waiting Jeep and held the door for Adams.
"There's just the one, and she wants to look at the phosphorus plant," Adams said. "I let Courtney
run around these places on her own. She might find out something. Let's go, I want to see Jeff."
"He's in his office. Lot of work for the Station Chief. I told him I'd meet your plane." The
priest studied Adams closely. He'd only met this sandy-haired American once before. It wouldn't do
to get Mr. Franklin in more trouble than he was in, Jefferson was a good man.
"Quit worrying," Adams said, reading his thoughts. "There are standing orders all through the
Company that station chiefs aren't to meet my plane. You're not very familiar with Nuclear
General, are you, Father?"
"No. When the Mission Society put me here as their representative I tried to get out. I'm only a
missionary, Mr. Adams. I don't belong on something as technical as this."
They were driving across the shimmering runway toward a group of concrete and fiberglass buildings
at its edge. The big domes of the nuclear reactors towered over the administration buildings, and
beyond them were barracks for the four thousand natives and five hundred foreign technicians
living at Otjiwar Station. Next year there would be more than forty thousand people here-if the
Station survived, Adams added to himself. It seemed problematical.
Even through dark glasses and white pith helmet his eyeballs and head felt baked. Wouldn't they
ever get to the air-conditioned buildings? The Station was big, they'd been driving for several
minutes now. "How do you like it here, Father?"
"I've been in worse places. We even have air conditioning in the church and some of the houses.
But I fear it's a waste of power, and I really shouldn't use mine."
"Trivial waste, Father," Adams said. "Giving the farm workers air conditioning increases
production, cuts down on their water consumption. Besides, we pipe the heat from the air
conditioning units into the solar evaporators, so we don't lose much." Except to envy, he added to


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himself. And that might be the biggest loss of all. . . .
The Jeep pulled up at the glaring white Administration building. The native driver leaped from his
seat to open the doors for Adams and the priest, another uniformed guard examined their
identification before waving them to the elevators.
They went to the top of the four-story building, past a miniskirted European secretary to
Jefferson Franklin's office. The Station Chief was in shirtsleeves, his collar open. Franklin
stood at a draftsman's table across the room from his desk. His black skin glistened with sweat,
and his face contorted with emotion as he shouted at a white man. "I don't care what the Prime