"Winning Peace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

Carver didn’t say anything. He knew what had happened to Jarred, was wondering if this was one of Mr. Kanza’s nasty little jokes.

Mr. Kanza appealed to Rider Jackson. “Do you know how long they last in those pharm factories before they cop an overdose or their immune systems collapse? No more than a year or two, three at the most. I saved this one from certain death, and has he ever thanked me? And do you want to bet he’ll thank me when he learns about his brother?”

Rider Jackson said, “Don’t make a game out of it. If you don’t tell him, I will.”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Then Mr. Kanza smiled and said, “I do believe you like him. I knew you would.”

“Do what needs to be done.”

Mr. Kanza conjured video from the air with a quick gesture. Here was Jarred White in a steel cell, wearing the same kind of black pajamas Carver had worn in the prison hospital, before he’d been sold into what the Collective called indentured labor and the Alliance called slavery. Here was Jarred standing in gray coveralls against a red marble wall in the atrium of Mr. Kanza’s house.

Mr. Kanza told Carver, “Your brother was taken prisoner, just like you. One of my data miners traced him, and I bought out his contract. What do you think of that?”

Carver thought that the videos were pretty good fakes, probably disneyed up from his brother’s military record. In both of the brief sequences, Jarred sported the same severe crew cut that was regulation for cadets in the Alliance Navy, not serving officers; when Carver had last seen him, his brother had grown his crew cut out into a flattop. That had been on Persopolis, the City of Our Lady of Flowers. Some twenty days later, Carver’s drop ship had been crippled, and he’d been taken prisoner. Three days later Jarred had been killed in action.

The Collective didn’t allow its POWs any contact with their families or anyone else in the Alliance; Carver had found out about his brother’s death from one of the other prisoners of war working in the pharm factories. Jarred’s frigate, the Croatian, had been shepherding ships loaded with evacuees from Eve’s Halo when a Collective battleship traveling at a tenth the speed of light had smashed through the convoy. The Croatian had been shredded by kinetic weapons and a collapsium bomblet had cooked off what was left: the ship had been lost with all hands. Carver had been hit badly by the news. Possessed by moments of unreasoning anger, he’d started to pick fights with other workers; finally, he attacked one of the guards. The woman paralyzed him with her shock stick, gave him a clinically methodical beating, and put him on punishment detail, shoveling cell protein from extraction pits. Carver would have died there if one of Mr. Kanza’s data miners hadn’t tracked him down.

After Mr. Kanza bought out his contract, Carver resolved to become a model worker, cultivate patience, and wait for a chance to escape; now, wondering if that chance had finally come, if he could turn Mr. Kanza’s crude trick to his advantage, he stepped hard on his anger and held his tongue.

Mr. Kanza said to Rider Jackson, “You see? Not a speck of gratitude.”

Rider Jackson turned his tell-nothing expression on Carver; Carver stared back at him through his brother’s faked-up ghost.

The young lieutenant said to Mr. Kanza, “You’re certain we can trust him?”

“I’ve had him a year. He’s never given me any trouble, and he won’t give us any trouble now,” Mr. Kanza said, pointing a finger at Carver. “Can you guess why I went to all the trouble of buying out your brother’s contract?”

Carver shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him.

Mr. Kanza said, “You really should show me some gratitude. Not only have I already saved your brother’s life, but if everything works out, I’ll void his contract, and void yours too. You’ll both be free.”

“Meanwhile, you’re holding him hostage, to make sure that I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do.”

Mr. Kanza told Rider Jackson, “There it is. I have his brother as insurance, the tug will fly itself, and if he does get it into his head to try something stupid, I can intervene by wire. If worst comes to worst, I’ll be the one short a flight engineer and a good little ship; as far as you’re concerned, this is a risk-free proposition.”

“As long as the Navy doesn’t find out about it,” Rider Jackson said.

“We’ve been over that,” Mr. Kanza said.

Carver saw that there was something tense and wary behind Mr. Kanza’s smile, and realized that he had worked up some reckless plan to get himself out of the hole, that he needed Rider Jackson’s help to do it, and he needed Carver too.

“We’ve talked it up and down,” Mr. Kanza told Rider Jackson. “There’s no good reason why the Navy should know anything about this until you buy out your service.”

Rider Jackson studied him, then shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Just like that. Two days later, Carver was aboard Mr. Kanza’s tug, cooled down in hypersleep while the small ship aimed itself at the brown dwarf, Ganesh Five B.

* * * *