"Larry Niven and Steven Barnes - The Descent of Anansi v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Please. Be seated. Drink?" Yamada shook his head no, accepting the invitation to sit. Xavier busied himself at a small wetbar, coming back with a short glass of ice and clear liquid garnished with a twisted slice of lime.
He sat across from Yamada, sipped his drink and gazed at him speculatively. Yamada felt naked, stripped to the skin and then flensed to the bone. Xavier probed and examined and weighed, finally laying the meat arid organs back in place, slipping the skin back onto the body.
No Japanese would have stared so. The room's silence was oppressive, and Yamada fought to escape that gaze, to break contact with those bottomless black eyes. He found a painting to look at, a garish thing of oranges and blacks. Concentric rings of color surrounded plastic bubbles that rose inches out from the canvas, sprays of yellow arcing through the black background like comets through space.
A name clicked in his mind. "This is your Mr. Castellar's work, is it not?"
Xavier smiled, some of the coolness leaving his face. "Yes. You know our painters? He was one of the finest. Emilio Castellar dreamed of space when much of our country was trying merely to enter the industrial age. A man of vision."
The office door opened, and two men entered, followed a moment later by a third. One of them was Xavier's height, a fraction over six feet, but heavy in the stomach and thighs. He nodded without speaking. Xavier filled the silence. "This is Mr. da Silva. Edson da Silva."
The second was a small, neat man with a beard that had been trimmed to a razor point. His hazel eyes seemed to be in constant quick movement. His skin was lighter than Xavier's or da Silva's. He sized Yamada up in two intense seconds, then stretched out his hand. "Djalma Costa," he said. "Djalma with a D."
"Takayuki Yamada." Yamada turned to the third man, noting the limp, and the silver wolf's head cane that corrected it. "And of course you are Mr. Giorgi. Lucio Giorgi."
Giorgi was as tall as da Silva, but much thinner. His eyes were hollow, and the skin on his face was stretched taut over the bones, as if a long illness had stripped away the fat. Giorgi nodded with satisfaction and spoke with excellent, though accented, English. "I see that news of my accident precedes me."
"We were interested in your work on the Parana Dam project. Of course, when the scaffolding collapsed, we knew that the famous Giorgi had been the only survivor."
"I am perhaps too old to continue on-site inspections."
"If this project is as successful as we hope, we will definitely desire your expertise." They shook hands, and all five men were seated.
There was a moment of uncomfortable tension. Then Xavier cleared his throat and slapped his palms on the table. "Well, Mr. Yamada. If you would be so kind as to share your information with us."
"Certainly." All hesitation had left him now. He swung his briefcase up to the table and dialed its five-digit combination. There was a sharp click, and Yamada eased it open and removed a thin folder of papers. He locked the case and set it on the floor.
Yamada thumbed through the folder, talking to himself in barely audible Japanese. "Ah, yes. I trust that I do not have to fill you three gentlemen," nodding in the direction of the newcomers, "in on much, of the background material?"
"Skim through to today's business," Xavier suggested.
"Agreed. The item of interest is a cable recently extruded by Falling Angel Enterprises. Put as simply as possible, the cable is a strand of single-crystal iron filaments locked in an epoxy matrix." He looked up at them with a distracted look on his face. "It is eight-tenths of a millimeter thick and fourteen hundred kilometers long. All preliminary tests indicate that it is much stronger than Kevlar, at least ten or twenty times stronger."
His eyes slid over a page and a half of notes. "Suffice it to say that the. . . ah. . . delicate situation existing between America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Falling Angel Enterprises has severely limited buyers for the cable."
Da Silva nodded enthusiastically. "This is true. Pressure from the U. S. of A. has caused four nations to drop out of the bidding, Great Britain just this morning."
"Saving face," Costa laughed. "They knew they would be outbid. Quitting now earns them a few points in the eyes of the Americans." There was a twist on the word "American," as if he was sharing a private joke. "No. We and the Japanese are the only ones remaining in the bidding."
"I think that I can guarantee, that Oyama Construction will win the bid. The Bridge project is entirely too important."
Xavier caught his breath. "How high is Oyama going?"
"One hundred and eighty million dollars."
There was a hiss of exhaled breath, and * Costa cursed vividly. "He's insane. . ."
"No," Xavier said, his voice a solid weight in the room. "It is one of a kind. A thousand miles of the strongest cable even produced by man. An option on the next five thousand to be produced. Oyama is taking the kind of gamble that Castellon would have taken twenty years ago, before he lost his ovos. Unlike any material ever produced on earth, now in orbit around the Moon, waiting for someone with the will to defy the stockholders and the U. S. of A."
"There is no hope that your Mr. Castellon will commit more funds to the project?"
"None. One hundred million is as high as he is prepared to go."
"Then Oyama will win the bid."
The five men looked at each other, saying nothing. Costa watched Xavier carefully, watched him turn to Giorgi and measure his words before speaking. "Lucio. In your opinion, how important is that cable to the construction of the Japan-South Korea bridge?"
Giorgi's hollow, pale face took on some colon as he sat forward, fingers twining animatedly. "Mr. Da Silva will correct me if I am wrong, but Oyama Construction is overextended financially. If the project is successful, Oyama will be in an exceedingly advantageous position. If it fails, or if the Bridge goes disastrously over budget, they will be in considerable difficulty. Certainly the present administration of the company would undergo considerable upheaval. Therefore, they need the cable. Even at the cost of one hundred and eighty million dollars, it is cheap. They will save money, time, and establish a permanent advertisement for their most advanced engineering techniques. Oh, yes, they need it. Oh, yes."
Xavier's eyes were cold and calm. "Well, then. If it is certain that Oyama needs the Cable, then we can proceed with Phase Two. Again, Mr. Yamada?"
The Japanese swallowed, stepping over the edge of a mental cliff, trusting that there was water at the base. "I can supply you with course data for the Space Shuttle Anansi. With this information, you will know where the vehicle is during every second of its descent to Kwanto spaceport. If all the other elements are in readiness, interception will be possible."
"Excellent." Xavier took a thoughtful sip of his drink, eyes focused on the wall behind Yamada. "Giorgi. You are sure of yours pilots?"
"Their loyalty is to me. To us. They understand their reward for efficiency and discretion will be handsome. We will need 48 hours start-up time."
"Costa? Your friends in the UMAF?"
"Ready and eager. It has been a dry time for them, and a headline of such magnitude will do much to revitalize the organization."
"I try never to denegrate our...allies... but one would think that these people would forget the Zionites and find themselves another war. It has been sixty years."
Costa laughed loudly, the laughter dimming to chuckles, then a private smile as no one else joined in. Xavier drummed his fingers on the table. He said, "It is a holy war. Soldiers in a holy war win or die. They do not seek new wars. Mr. da Silva?"
"As of today, for a short operation, I believe that we can divert nearly eight million dollars from the central computer without any danger until the July audit." Da Silva twisted slightly in his chair and wiped a thin sheen of perspiration from his forehead. Yamada noted that it wasn't warm in the conference room.
"Today is November the Seventeenth. That gives us almost seven months. By that time, it will all be over, one way on the other. Well, gentlemen...there is the gamble: Disgrace and prosecution, or control of Brasil Tecimetal-Electromotores."
Again, there was no sound in the room, except for the subdued hum of the air conditioner. Then Giorgi cleared his throat and spoke. "I myself have always been a gambling man."
There was a murmur of agreement, and Yamada joined in quietly.
"Good," said Xavier. "Then, gentlemen: let us drink to our venture." He rose halfway from the table, then turned back, his expression of content tinged with doubt. "Lucio," he asked, "Are you quite certain about the missile? We can trust the UMAF to operate it properly?"
"We will have our own man on hand to supervise."
"Good, good. It is best not to take chances." He dusted his hands against each other. "Well. That drink, eh?"

Two


GRAND THEFT