"E. E. Doc Smith - Lensman 7 - Masters Of The Vortex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

Graves thrust a key into an orifice and a plate swung open, revealing a chute into which the bodies were dumped. The two
retraced their steps to the manager's office.
'Well, that's all we can feed to the disintegrator,' Fairchild lit an Alsakanite cigarette and exhaled appreciatively.
'Why? Going soft on us?'
'No. The ice is getting too thin.'
'Whaddya mean, "thin"?' Graves demanded. 'The Patrol inspectors are oursтАФall that count. Our records are fixed.
Everything's on the green.'
'That's what you think,' the scientist sneered. 'You're supposed to be smart. Are you? Our accident rate is up three
hundredths; industrial hazard rate and employee turnover about three and a half; and the Narcotics Division alone knows
how much we have upped total bootleg sales. Those figures are all in the Patrol's books. How can you give such facts the
brush-off?'
'We don't have to.' Graves laughed comfortably. 'Even a half of one percent wouldn't excite suspicion. Our distribution is
so uniform throughout the galaxy that they can't center it. They can't possibly trace anything back to us. Besides, with our
lily-white reputation, other firms would get knocked off in time to give us plenty of warning. Lutzenschiffer's, for instance,
is putting out Heroin by the ton.'
'So what?' Fairchild remained entirely unconvinced. 'Nobody else is putting out what comes out of cave two seventeenтАФ
demand and price prove that. What you don't seem to get, Graves, is that some of those damned Lensmen have brains.
Suppose they decide to put a couple of Lensmen onto this job
тАФthen what? The minute anybody runs a rigid statistical analysis on us, we're done for.'
'Um ... m.' This was a distinctly disquieting thought, in view of the impossibility of concealing anything from a Lens-man
who was really on the prowl. 'That wouldn't be so good. What would you do?'
'I'd shut down two seventeenтАФand the whole hush-hush end
тАФuntil we can get our records straight and our death-rate down to the old ten-year average. That's the only way we can be
really safe.'
'Shut down! The way they're pushing us for production? Don't be an idiotтАФthe chief would toss us both down the chute.'
'Oh, I don't mean without permission. Talk him into it. It'd be best for everybody, over the long pull, believe me.'
'Not a chance. He'd blow his stack. If we can't dope out something better than that, we go on as is.'
'The next-best thing would be to use some new form of death to clean up our books.'
'Wonderful!' Graves snorted contemptuously. 'What would we add to what we've got nowтАФbubonic plague?'
'A loose atomic vortex.'
'Wh-o-o-o-sh!' The fat man deflated, then came back up, gasping for air. 'Man, you're completely nuts! There's only one on
the planet, and it's ... or do you mean ... but nobody ever
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touched one of those things off deliberately ... can it be done?'
'Yes. It isn't simple, but we of the College of Radiation know howтАФtheoreticallyтАФthe transformation can be made to
occur. It has never been done because it has been impossible to extinguish the things; but now Neal Cloud is putting them
out. The fact that the idea is new makes it all the better.'
'I'll say so. Neat ... very neat.' Graves' agile and cunning brain figuratively licked its chops. 'Certain of our employees will
presumably have been upon an outing in the upper end of the valley when this terrible accident takes place?'
'ExactlyтАФenough of them to straighten out our books. Then, later, we can dispose of undesirables as they appear. Vortices
are absolutely unpredictable, you know. People can die of radiation or of any one of a mixture of various toxic gases and
the vortex will take the blame.'
'And later on, when it gets dangerous, Storm Cloud can blow it out for us,' Graves gloated. 'But we won't want him for a
long, long time!'
'No, but we'll report it and ask for him the hour it happens ... use your head, Graves!' He silenced the manager's anguished
howl of protest. 'Anybody who gets one wants it killed as soon as possible, but here's the joker. Cloud has enough Class-A-
double-prime-urgent demands on file already to keep him busy from now on, so we won't be able to get him for a long,
long time. See?'
'I see. Nice, Doc. ... very, very nice. But I'll have the boys keep an eye on Cloud just the same.'