"Jane Lindskold - Endpoint Insurance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindskold Jane)

it. Moreover, your lienholder on the Mercury might not okay such minimal
coverage.”
“AASU,” I reminded him, “is also the lienholder.”
“Well, then,” Spike said, a slight grin tugging the left corner of his mouth, “I can say
that your lienholder would not permit such minimal coverage. We take enough risks
with you.”
“Bosh!” I protested, knowing that he knew as well as I did that I ran a tight ship.
Spike laughed loudly.
“I’d think,” I said stiffly, “that AASU could make an exception for a faithful
customer like myself. I’ve always paid my premiums on time and my claims have
been modest.”
“True,” Spike said, “but we are assigned certain guidelines for underwriting policies.
I’ve already stretched the limits for you. Now, if you worked for AASU…”
He let the sentence trail off, and if I wasn’t a skilled haggler and poker player, I might
have missed his hint.
I glanced at him sharply. “What’s on your mind? AASU has its own courier fleet.
You don’t need to hire me.”
“Not as a courier,” Spike said, “but we could use your help catching some pirates.”
“Me?” I felt my expression turn suspicious and schooled it into a comfortable
neutrality. “Why me? I’m just a freelance courier.”
“Bosh,” Spike said, deliberately echoing my inflection of a moment before. “Captain
Ah-Lee, you have a good many skills and lots of knowledge you don’t advertise, but
before I puff up your ego, let me tell you about AASU’s problem.”
“Go ahead,” I replied, settling back in my chair. “For all my much-vaunted
knowledge, I haven’t heard that pirates are using Endpoint.”
“The local government,” Spike admitted, “has tried to keep it quiet. Pirates aren’t
good for business. Up to a point, AASU is willing to support this view, but not
when the local government’s unwillingness to act means that the pirates have easy
use of the system.”
“I can see that,” I agreed. “You’re sure it’s pirates, not smugglers? I don’t have
anything against smugglers.”
“Pirates,” Spike assured me. “A rather large consortium of pirates, if I don’t miss
my guess. Let me fill you in.”
According to Spike, about a hundred standards ago, End-point took a large leap in
population. Part of the increase was due to the arrival of refugees from the war
between the Absolutes and the Loyalists in the Bath system, part to a successful
advertising campaign.
Nearly five thousand new colonists registered for permanent taxpayer status. Fifteen
thousand isn’t many people by the standards of a world like Home Earth, where I
hear even a small city can number in the millions, but by the time you add in visitors
like myself, resident aliens, and nonpermanent residents, you have a large enough
population that no one can know everyone else.
Right on the heels of this new influx came the pirates. Endpoint didn’t provide
enough traffic to be tempting for actual piracy-though I didn’t doubt that this would
follow in time. However, there was plenty of cover for illicit shipping
“Pirates are like epidemics and property taxes,” I commented cynically when Spike
paused, “they come with growth. Why are you so worried?”
Spike frowned. “Because AASU insures many of the ships and businesses the
pirates prey on. Whether it’s a cargo that doesn’t get to its destination or a local
business that gets undercut by black market competition, piracy hurts our clients.