"Jack Vance - Telek" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

"Oh. So that's the way of it."
"And with this accomplished, recruit your ability and your authority toward a concrete end."
 "Who are you? What is this group?"
"A number of men worried by the trend I mentioned."
"A subversive society?" Geskamp's voice held a tinge of scorn.
Shorn laughed. "Don't let the flavor of words upset you. Call us a committee of public-spirited
citizens."
"You'd be in trouble if the Teleks caught wind of you," said Geskamp woodenly.
"They're aware of us. But they're not magicians. They don't know who we are."
"I know who you are," said Geskamp. "Suppose I reported this conversation to Nollinrude?"
Shorn grinned. "What would you gain?"
"A great deal of money."
"You'd live the rest of your life in fear of revenge."
"I don't like it," said Geskamp in a brutal voice. "I don't care to be involved in any undercover plots."
"Examine your conscience. Think it over."

II.

The attack on Forence Nollinrude came two days later.
The construction office was a long L-shaped building to the west of the stadium. Geskamp stood in
the yard angrily refusing to pay a trucker more than the agreed scale for his concrete aggregate.
"I can buy it cheaper in half a dozen, places," roared Geskamp. "You only got the contract in the first
place because I went to bat for you."
The trucker had been one of the dispossessed farmers. He shook his head mulishly. "You did me no
favor. I'm losing money. It's costing me three crowns a meter."
Geskamp waved an arm angrily toward the man's equipment, a small hopper carried by a pair of
ramcopters. "How do you expect to make out with that kind of gear? All your profit goes in running back
and forth to the quarry. Get yourself a pair of Samson lifts; you'll cut your costs to where you can make a
few crowns."
"I'm a farmer, not a trucker. I took this contract because I had what I have. If I go in the hole for
heavy equipment, then I'm stuck with it. It'll do me no more good now, the job's three-quarters done. I
want more money, Geskamp, not good advice."
"Well, you can't get it from me. Talk to the purchasing agent; maybe he'll break down. I got you the
contract, that's as far as I go."
"I already talked to the purchasing agent; he said nothing doing."
"Strike up one of the Teleks then; they've got the money. I can't do anything for you."
The trucker spat on the ground. "The Teleks, they're the devils who started this whole thing. A year
ago I had my dairyтАФright where that patch of water is now. I was doing good. Now I've got nothing; the
money they gave me to get out, most of it's gone in this gravel. Now where do I go? I got my family."
Geskamp drew his bushy gray-blond eyebrows together. "I'm sorry, Hopson. But there's nothing I
can do. There's the Telek now; tell him your troubles."
The Telek was Forence Nollinrude, a tall yellow-haired man, magnificent in a rust cape, saffron
trousers, black velvet slippers. The trucker looked across the yard to where he floated a fastidious three
feet above the ground, then resolved himself and trudged sullenly forward.
Shorn, inside the office, could hear nothing of the interview. The trucker stared up belligerently, legs
spread out. Forence Nollinrude turned himself a little to the side, looked down with distaste deepening
the lines at the corners of his mouth.
The trucker did most of the talking. The Telek replied in curt monosyllables, and the trucker became
progressively more furious.
Geskamp had been watching with a worried frown. He started across the yard, with the evident