"Tuf Voyaging - 02 - Loaves And Fishes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

“No doubt you have,” said Tuf. “A tape of a cat and a cat, however, are somewhat different things, and require different treatment. Tapes can be stored on a shelf. Cats cannot.” He pointed at the host. “These are in the nature of quibbles, however. The crux of the matter, as I have previously mentioned, lies more in the number of S’uthlamese than in their manner. There are too many people, sir. I have been jostled repeatedly on every occasion. In eating establishments, the tables are too close to other tables, the chairs are insufficient to my size, and strangers sometimes seat themselves beside me and pummel me with rude elbows. The seats in theaters and sensoriums are cramped and narrow. The sidewalks are crowded, the lobbies are crowded, the tubes are crowded-there are people everywhere who touch me without my leave or consent.”
The host slipped into a polished professional smile. “Ah, humanity!” he said, waxing eloquent. “The glory of S’uthlam! The teeming masses, the sea of faces, the endless pageant, the drama of life! Is there anything quite as invigorating as rubbing shoulders with our fellow man?”
“Perhaps not,” said Haviland Tuf flatly. “Yet I find I am now sufficiently invigorated. Furthermore, permit me to point out that the average S’uthlamese is too short to rub against my shoulders, and has therefore been forced to content himor herself with rubbing up against my arms, legs, and stomach.”
The host’s smile faded. “You are taking the wrong attitude, sir. To fully appreciate our world, you must learn to see it through S’uthlamese eyes.”
“I am unwilling to go about on my knees,” said Haviland Tuf.
“You’re not anti-life, are you?”
“Indeed not,” said Haviland Tuf. “Life is infinitely preferable to its alternative. However, in my experience, all good things can be carried to extremes. This would seem to be the case on S’uthlam.” He raised a hand for silence before the host could respond. “More particularly,” Tuf continued, “I have developed something of an antipathy, no doubt overhasty and unjustified, to some of the individual specimens of life I have come upon during chance encounters in my travels. A few have even expressed open hostility to me, directing at me epithets clearly derogatory of my size and mass.”
“Well,” said the host, flushing, “I’m sorry, but you are, uh, ample, and on S’uthlam it is, uh, socially unacceptable to be, uh, overweight.”
“Weight, sir, is entirely a function of gravity, and is therefore most malleable. Moreover, I am unwilling to concede you the authority to judge my weight over, under, or just right, these being subjective criteria. Aesthetics vary from world to world, as do genotypes and hereditary predisposition. I am quite satisfied with my present mass, sir. To return to the matter at hand, I wish to terminate my stay immediately.”
“Very well,” said the host. “I will book passage for you on the first tubetrain tomorrow morning.”
“This is unsatisfactory. I would prefer to leave at once. I have examined the schedules and discovered a listing for a train in three standard hours.”
“Full,” snapped the host. “Nothing left on that one but secondand third-class seating.”
“I shall endure as best I can,” said Haviland Tuf. “No doubt the close press of so much humanity will leave me much invigorated and improved when I depart my train.”

Tolly Mune floated in the middle of her office in a lotus position, looking down on Haviland Tuf.
She kept a special chair for flies and groundworms who were unaccustomed to weightlessness. It was a rather uncomfortable chair, all things considered, but it was bolted securely to the deck and equipped with a web-harness to keep its occupant in place. Tuf had pushed over to it with awkward dignity and strapped himself down tightly, and she had settled in comfortably in front of him, at about the level of his head. A man the size of Tuf could not possibly be accustomed to having to look up at anyone during conversation; Tolly Mune figured it gave her a certain psychological edge.
“Portmaster Mune,” Tuf said, appearing remarkably unfazed by his inferior position, “I must protest. I comprehend that these repeated references to my own person as a fly are merely an instance of colorful local slang with no opprobrium attached. Still, I cannot but take a certain umbrage at this obvious attempt to, shall we say, pull my wings off.”
Tolly Mune grinned down at him. “Sorry, Tuf,” she said. “Our price is firm.”
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. “Firm. An interesting word. Were I not awed to be in the mere presence of such an esteemed personage as yourself, and uneasy about giving offense, I might go so far as to suggest that this firmness approaches rigidity. Politeness forebears me from mouthing any statements about greed, avarice, and deep-space piracy in order to further my end of these thorny negotiations. I will point out however, that the sum of fifty million standards is several times greater than the gross planetary product of a good number of worlds.”
“Small worlds,” said Tolly Mune, “and this is a large job. You’ve got one hell of a big ship there.”
Tuf remained impassive. “I concede that the Ark is indeed a large ship, but fear this has little bearing on matters, unless it is customary for you to charge by the square meter rather than by the hour.”
Tolly Mune laughed. “This isn’t like fitting some old freighter with a few new pulse-rings or reprogramming your drive navigator. You’re talking thousands of hours even with three full crews of spinnerets on triple-shift, you’re talking massive systems work by the best cyber-techs we’ve got, you’re talking manufacture of custom parts that haven’t been used in hundreds of years, and that’s just for starts. We’ll have to research this damn museum piece of yours before we start ripping it apart, or we’ll never be able to get it back together. We’ll have to lure some planetside specialists up the elevator, maybe even go out of system. Think of the time, the energy, the calories. The docking fees alone-That thing is thirty kilometers long, Tuf. You can’t get her into the web. We’ll have to build a special dock around her, and even then she’ll take up the berths we could have used for three hundred ordinary ships. You don’t want to know what it would cost, Tuf.” She did some quick figuring on her wrist computer, and shook her head. “If you’re here one local month, a real optimistic projection, that’s nearly a million cals in docking fees alone. More than three hundred thousand standards in your money.”
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf.
Tolly Mune spread her hands helplessly. “If you don’t like our price, you could, of course, take your business elsewhere.”
“This suggestion is impractical.” said Haviland Tuf. “Unfortunately, as simple as my requests are, it appears that only a handful of worlds possess the expertise to fulfill my requirements-a sad commentary on the present state of human technological prowess.”
“Only a handful?” Tolly Mune raised a corner of her mouth. “Perhaps we have priced our services too low.”
“Madam,” said Haviland Tuf. “Surely you would not be so crass as to take advantage of my naive frankness.”
“No,” she said. “As I said, our price is firm.”
“It appears we have reached an embarrassing and knotty impasse. You have your price. I, unfortunately, do not.”
“I never would have guessed. A ship like yours, I would have figured you to have calories to burn.”
“No doubt I shall soon pursue a lucrative career in the field of ecological engineering,” said Haviland Tuf. “Unfortunately, I have not yet commenced my practice, and in my previous trade I had recently suffered some unaccountable financial reverses. Perhaps you would be interested in some excellent plastic reproductions of Cooglish orgy-masks? They make unusual and stimulating wall decorations, and are also said to have certain mystic aphrodisiac properties.”
“I’m afraid not,” Tolly Mune replied, “but you know what, Tuf? Today is your lucky day.”
“I fear you are making light with me,” said Haviland Tuf. “Even if you are about to inform me of a half-price sale or two-for-one service special, I am not optimally positioned to take advantage of it. I will be bitterly and brutally candid with you, Portmaster Mune, and admit that I am presently suffering from a temporary inadequacy of funds.”
“I have a solution,” said Tolly Mune.
“Indeed,” said Tuf.
“You’re a trader, Tuf. You don’t really need a ship as large as the Ark, do you? And you know nothing about ecological engineering. This derelict is of no possible good to you. But it does have considerable salvage value.” She smiled warmly. “I’ve talked to the folks downstairs on S’uthlam. The High Council felt it might be in your best interest to sell us your find instead.”
“Their concern is touching,” said Haviland Tuf.
“We’ll pay you a generous salvage fee,” she said. “Thirty percent of the ship’s estimated value.”
“The estimate to be made by you,” said Tuf flatly.
“Yes, but that’s not all. We’ll toss in a million standards cash, over and above the salvage fee, and we’ll give you a new ship. A brand-new Longhaul Nine, the biggest freighter we make, with fully automated kitchen, passenger quarters for six, gravity grid, two shuttles, cargo bays big enough to hold the largest Avalonian and Kimdissi traders side-by-side, triple redundancy, the latest Smartalec-series computer, voice-activated, and even a weapons capability if you want one. You’ll be the best-equipped independent trader in this whole sector.”
“Far be it from me to deprecate such generosity,” said Tuf. “The very thought of your offer makes me want to swoon. And yet, though I would no doubt be far more comfortable aboard the handsome new ship you offer me, I have come to have a certain foolish sentimental attachment to the Ark, ruined and useless as it is, it is nonetheless the last remaining seedship of the vanished Ecological Engineering Corps, a living piece of history as it were, a monument to their valor and genius, and yet still not without its small uses. Some time ago, as I made my lonely way across space as best I could, the whim struck me to give up the uncertain life of a trader and take up, instead, the profession of ecological engineer. As illogical and no doubt ignorant as this decison was, it still has a certain appeal to me, and I fear that my stubborn nature is a great vice. Therefore, Portmaster Mune, it is with the deepest regret that I must decline your offer. I shall keep the Ark.”
Tolly Mune gave herself a little twist, spun upside down, and pushed off lightly from the ceiling, so as to come right up into Tuf’s face. She pointed a finger at him. “Damn it to hell,” she said, “I have no patience with this haggling over every puling calorie, Tuf. I’m a busy woman and I don’t have the time or the energy for your trader’s games. You’re going to sell—I know it and you know it—so let’s get this over with. Name your price.” She poked his nose lightly with the point of her finger. “Name,” poke, “your,” poke, “price,” poke.
Haviland Tuf unstrapped his harness and kicked off from the floor. He was so huge he made her feel petite-her, who’d been called a giant half her life. “Kindly cease your assault upon my person,” he said. “It can have no positive benefit upon my decision. I fear you grossly misapprehend me, Portmaster Mune. I have been a trader, true, but a poor one-perhaps because I have never mastered the skill as a haggler which you wrongly impute to me. I have stated my position concisely. The Ark is not for sale.”

“I have a certain amount of affection for you, from my years upstairs,” Josen Rael said crisply over a shielded comm-link, “and there’s no denying that your record as Portmaster has been exemplary. Otherwise, I’d remove you right now. You let him get back to his ship? How could you? I thought you had better sense than that.”
“I thought you were a politician,” Tolly Mune said with a certain amount of scorn in her voice. “Josen, think of the goddamned ramifications if I had security grab him in the middle of Spiderhome! Tuf isn’t exactly inconspicuous, even when he slips into his silly wig and tries to go incognito. This place is lousy with Vandeeni, Jazbots, Henrys, you name it, all of them watching Tuf and watching the Ark, waiting to see what we do. He’s already been approached by a goddamned Vandeeni agent. They were observed deep in conversation on the tubetrain.”
“I know,” the Councillor said unhappily. “Still, something should have . . . you could have had him taken surreptitiously.”
“And then what do I do with him?” Tolly Mune said. “Kill him and shove him out an airlock? I won’t do that, Josen, and don’t even think of having it done for me. If you try it, I’ll expose you to the newsfeeds and bring down the whole puling house.”
Josen Rael mopped at his sweat. “You’re not the only one with principles,” he said defensively. “I would not suggest any such thing. Still, we must have that ship, and now that Tuf is back inside it, our task has been made more difficult. The Ark still has formidable defenses. I’ve had scenarios done, and the odds are good that it might be able to withstand a full-scale assault by our entire Planetary Defense Flotilla.”
“Oh, puling hell, he’s parked a bare five kays beyond the terminus of tube nine, Josen. A goddamned full-scale assault by anybody would probably destroy the port and bring down the elevator on top of your puling head! Just hold your bladder, and let me work on this. I’ll get him to sell, and I’ll do it legally.”