"Matthew Hughes - The Meaning of Luff" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Matt)

"From my resources," Imbry corrected her. "Thus it shall be a joint venture. I shall take eighty parts; you
will have twenty. But, out of gratitude, I shall write off the five thousand hepts you owe me."

"This seems unjust."

"It seemed no less unjust to me that my five thousand were put to work without my consent. I know
several less indulgent persons who, in the same circumstances, would now be arranging to remove two
corpses from these premises."

Tung grumbled but acquiesced. "It was ever thus," she said. "The big teeth take the big bites."
****
Imbry invested more of his funds in the enterprise, thoroughly refurbishing the house so that its
appearance would not startle or dismay persons of advanced social rank. When all was in readiness, he
employed his research matrix to identify a dozen persons, each of whom met two criteria: they would be
intrigued by the concept, and they would spread the word among the refined of Olkney in a manner that
would bring those whose lives were governed by fashion to his door, thirsting for knowledge.

He summoned the dozen to a soiree and demonstrated the salience indicator. As he had expected, the
meaning of each of the initial batch's lives was confined to the subject's having an effect on style. To
Imbry these seemed poor excuses for existence, but the opinion makers were delighted to have their
tawdry and ephemeral goals demonstrated.

Word soon spread. Imbry engaged a pair of large, silent attendants and dressed them in suitably
impressive costumes. The mutes collected extravagant fees and conducted aristocrats and magnates into
the presence. The fat man had determined that he would earn more if he restricted his operation to no
more than one hour, every other night. The compressed supply of enlightenment speedily drove up
demand, returning his investment many times over in the first week, then lifting his profit into reaches that
were enough to make even Imbry blink in surprise.

He fastidiously meted out to Welliver Tung every grimlet that she was owed as a twenty-percent
participant in the venture. Her take must have greatly exceeded whatever she might have expected to
have received before his entry into the proceedings, Imbry knew. Yet she showed a sour attitude, even
as he handed her a valise bulging with pelf.

To cheer her, he said, "Let me put your name to the salience indicator. Free of charge. It will be as if you
were a duke or count-margrave."

She signaled a negative. "I decided from the beginning that that was not a knowledge I cared to
encompass."

"Why?" Imbry said, in an airy tone. "Did you not wish to discover that the point of your existence was to
assist me in my goals?"

Tung's eyes became narrow, glinting with a hard light, but she said nothing. She departed and Imbry
prepared to receive the next intake of well-heeled punters.
****
In time, however, a bleakness threatened to descend upon the fat man. He tired of the sameness of the
life-meanings he dispensed to the highest echelons of Old Earth society. Too often, he was required to
extemporize an answer because he soon discovered that telling the unvarnished truth, as it appeared in his
mind when he touched a name or image to the lump, could never satisfy the client.