"Джон Варли. Платежное поручение(engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

street, eating in a restaurant, in a show, sleeping in some rooming house.
The SP were everywhere.
Everywhere? Not quite. When an individual person was defenseless, a
business was not. The big economic forces had managed to remain free,
although virtually everything else had been absorbed by the Government. Laws
that had been eased away from the private person still protected property
and industry. The SP could pick up any given person, but they could not
enter and seize a company, a business. That had been clearly established in
the middle of the twentieth century.
Business, industry, corporations, were safe from the Security Police.
Due process was required. Rethrick Construction was a target of SP interest,
but they could do nothing until some statute was violated. If he could get
back to the Company, get inside its doors, he would be safe. Jennings smiled
grimly. The modern church, sanctuary. It was the Government against the
corporation, rather than the State against the Church. The new Notre Dame of
the world. Where the law could not follow.
Would Rethrick take him back? Yes, on the old basis. He had already
said so. Another two years sliced from him, and then back onto the streets.
Would that help him? He felt suddenly in his pocket. And there were the
remaining trinkets. Surely he had intended them to be used! No, he could not
go back to Rethrick and work another contract time. Something else was
indicated. Something more permanent. Jennings pondered. Rethrick
Construction. What did it construct? What had he known, found out, during
those two years? And why were the SP so interested?
He brought out the five objects and studied them. The green strip of
cloth. The code key. The ticket stub. The parcel receipt. The half poker
chip. Strange, that little things like that could be important.
And Rethrick Construction was involved.
There was no doubt. The answer, all the answers, lay at Rethrick. But
where was Rethrick? He had no idea where the plant was, no idea at all. He
knew where the Office was, the big, luxurious room with the young woman and
her desk. But that was not Rethrick Construction. Did anyone know, beside
Rethrick? Kelly didn't know. Did the SP know?
It was out of town. That was certain. He had gone there by rocket. It
was probably in the United States, maybe in the farmlands, the country,
between cities. What a hell of a situation! Any moment the SP might pick him
up. The next time he might not get away. His only chance, his own real
chance for safety, lay in reaching Rethrick. And his only chance to find out
the things he had to know. The plant - a place where he had been, but which
he could not recall. He looked down at the five trinkets. Would any of them
help?
A burst of despair swept through him. Maybe it was just coincidence,
the wire and the token. Maybe --
He examined the parcel receipt, turning it over and holding it up to
the light. Suddenly his stomach muscles knotted. His pulse changed. He had
been right. No, it was not a coincidence, the wire and the token. The parcel
receipt was dated two days hence. The parcel, whatever it might be, had not
even been deposited yet. Not for forty-eight more hours.
He looked at the other things. The ticket stub. What good was a ticket
stub? It was creased and bent, folded over, again and again. He couldn't go