"George R. R. Martin - Loaves and Fishes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

Off to her side, she heard the buzzing of her comm unit. The computer would not have disturbed her
unless it was the call she had been waiting for. “I’ll take it,” she said. The stars blurred, the Ark
dissolved, and the vidscreen ran with liquid colors for an instant before resolving itself into the face of
First Councillor Josen Rael, majority leader of the Planetary High Council.
“Portmaster Mune,” he said. At this merciless magnification, she could see all the tension in his long neck,
the tightness around the thin lips, the hard glitter in his dark brown eyes. The top of his head, domed and
balding, had been powdered, but was beginning to sweat nonetheless.
“Councillor Rael,” she replied. “Good of you to call. You’ve gone over the reports?”
“Yes. Is this call shielded?”
“Certainly,” she said. “Speak freely.”
He sighed. Josen Rael had been a fixture in planetary politics for a decade now. He had first made the
newsfeeds as councillor for war, later had climbed to councillor for agriculture, and for four standard
years he had been the leader of the council’s majority faction, the technocrats, and therefore the single
most powerful man on S’uthlam. The power had made him look old and hard and tired, and this was the
worst Tolly Mune had ever seen him. “You’re certain of the data, then?” he said. “ If our crews have
made no mistake? This is too crucial for error, I don’t have to tell you that. This is truly an EEC
seedship?”
“Damn right,” said Tolly Mune. “Damaged and in disrepair, yes, but the puling thing is still functional,
more or less, and the cell library is intact. We’ve verified it.”
Rael ran long, blunt fingers through his thinning white hair. “I should be jubilant, I suppose. When this is
over, I will have to pretend to be jubilant for the newsfeeds. But right now, all I can think of are the
dangers. We’ve had a council meeting. Closed. We can’t risk too much getting out until the affair is
settled. The council was largely in accord—technocrats, expansionists, zeros, the church party, the fringe
factions.” He laughed. “I’ve never seen such unanimity in all the years I’ve served. Portmaster Mune, we
must have that ship.”
Tolly Mune had known it was coming. She had not been Portmaster this long without understanding the
politics of the society downstairs. S’uthlam had been locked into endless crisis all her life. “I’ll try to buy
it for you,” she said. “This Haviland Tuf was a freelance trader originally, before he stumbled on the Ark.
My crews found his old ship on the landing deck, in terrible shape. Traders are greedy abortions, every
one of them. That should work for us.”
“Offer him whatever it takes,” said Josen Rael. “Do you understand, Portmaster? You have unlimited
budgetary authority.”
“Understood,” said Tolly Mune. But there was another question to be asked. “And if he won’t sell?”
Josen Rael hesitated. “Difficult,” he muttered. “He must sell. A refusal would be tragic. Not for the man
himself, but for us, perhaps.”
“If he won’t sell?” Tolly Mune repeated. “I need to know the alternatives.”
“We must have the ship,” Rael told her. “If this Tuf proves unreasonable, he gives us no choice. The High
Council will exercise its right of eminent domain and confiscate. The man will be compensated, of
course.”
“Damn. You’re talking about seizing the ship by force.”
“No,” said Josen Rael. “Everything would be proper—I’ve checked. In an emergency, for the good of
the greatest number, the rights of private property must be set aside.”
“Oh, hell and damn, that’s puling rationalization, Josen,” said Mune. “You had more common sense when
you were up here. What have they done to you downstairs?”
He grimaced, and for an instant, he looked a little like the young man who had worked at her side for a
year, when she had been Deputy Portmaster and he third assistant administrator for interstellar trade.
Then he shook his head, and the old, tired politician was back. “I don’t feel good about this, Ma,” he
said, “but what choice do we have? I’ve seen projections. Mass famine within twenty-seven years unless
we have a breakthrough, and there’s no breakthrough in sight. Before it comes to that, the expansionists
will regain power and we’ll have another war, perhaps. Either way, millions will die—billions, perhaps.