"Chalker, Jack L - G.o.d. Inc. 2 - The Shadow Dancers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)sometimes bluff 'em with a convincin' destination, but they can send messages at
about the same speed as they can send you, and they call security on both ends. At least, you could, 'cause we did it, but I'm told they tightened that up now. No code, and you get dumped no matter what. They tightened up a lot of other shit when we breezed through their system. Now before you go in you got to file a destination and any stops with the stationmaster who sends it to the security computer, and you're checked as you go along. Guess they were kinda sloppy and cocksure of themselves till we screwed 'em. Still, somebody first found the world with this drug disease thingie, whatever it was, then figured out how to bottle or can it or whatever and brought it down the line to the Type Zero-our type-area. There ain't a lot of switches up in Type One and Two territory, and lots of unexplored worlds in between them, so it was possible that somebody could be goin' from one legit point to another and stop off just long enough to pick up the goods. That meant there had to be somebody who knew just what they was doin' in the world where this shit came from, then somebody who could get messages back and forth without security knowin' to set up the deal and the pickups, then somebody in the transport guild to actually pick up and carry the stuff, disguised as part of legitimate cargo, and drop it off at its destination, where other big plotters would make use of it. Pretty complicated stuff. The Company didn't know who discovered it, or how, and how they managed to both figure out what they had and keep it quiet, even settin' up this scheme. They didn't know how long it had taken to set up. They did know that it was well organized and involved some real bigwigs someplace and lots of corruption, but one of the cargo haulers or whatever that they use and found it strictly by luck. They didn't let on they knew, and it seemed like the transport guild worker was innocent. They'd already switched it and he was now on a legit run. They put a tracer on it to see who'd pick it up, and somebody did. "Rupert Conrad Vogel," Bill said, showin' us a photo of a guy who looked like a fugitive from a cheap World War II movie. "He's a stationmaster, which means administration and a Company man, or so we thought. He got the shipment, took a lot of it, then sent some back disguised as something else, again looking very routine. The pickup courier was legitimate, but he encountered another courier along his route and somehow that second courier got the package and dropped it clandestinely at a world where we didn't have a station but did know. We picked this courier up, stuck him in a hypnoscan, then erased any memories he had of being picked up and discovered and let him continue. He didn't know much. He just got some nice little extras all in things he and his family could enjoy but we wouldn't particularly notice, and for that he got a message slip passed into his pocket now and then that a shipment-he didn't even know what it was, nor cared-would be with so-and-so as unlisted or misaddressed cargo. He'd meet the other courier, either get the parcel or note that it was wrong and offer to take it back to headquarters for resorting, then drop it when his route took him near this other world. That was it." "You dead sure this ain't just the tip of the iceberg?" I asked him. "Pretty sure. Their supply is limited. There's no clear routine as to when the shipments come, but that's probably just to disguise their origins. Vogel's their dispatcher. He gets it, he holds on to it, and then he sends it out in |
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