"Niven, Larry - Limits (SS Coll)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Aha you know it. I finished reading that article on a plane to Canaveral. The FBI couldn't follow me to Rio, but the Mafia sure could. I'd heard there was a new opening for chief engineer for the Construction Shack, and all of a sudden the post looked very, very good."

He chuckled. "Also, I hear that things are tightening up in the USA. Big crackdown on organized crime. Computer assisted. Income tax boys and Racket Squad working together. It shouldn't be long before all the chiefs who want my arse are in jail. Then I can go back, cash my stash, and head for Rio."

"Switzerland?"

"Oh no. Nothing so simple as that. I thought of something else. Say, I better get back to my bunk." He staggered out before I could stop him. Fortunately it was walking distance from my place to his; if he'd had to fly, he'd probably have ended up roosting with the chickens.

"Bloody hell," says I to myself Should I add that I had no intention of robbing Jack? I was just curious: what inflation-proof investment had he thought up? But I didn't find out for a long time...


A month later the dollar collapsed. Inflation had been a fact of life for so long that it was the goal of every union and civil service organizer to get inflation written into their contracts, thereby increasing inflation. The government printed money faster to compensate: more inflation. One of those vicious spirals. Almost suddenly the dollar, was down the drain. There followed a full-scale taxpayer revolt.

The Administration got the message: they were spending too much money. And clearly that had to stop. The first things to go were all the projects that wouldn't pay off during the current President's term of office. Long term research was chopped out of existence. Welfare, on the other hand, was increased, and a comprehensive National Health Plan was put into effect, even though they had to pay the doctors and hospitals in promissory notes.

The Senator from Wisconsin didn't even bother giving us his customary Golden Fleece award. Why insult the walking dead?

We met in our usual place, a cage-work not far from the north pole. Admiral McLeve was in the center, in zero gravity. The rest of us perched about the cage-work, looking like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds.

Dot had a different picture, from Aristophanes. "Somewhere, what with all these clouds and all this air, there must be a rare name, somewhere. . . How do you like Cloud-Cuckoo-
Land?"

Putting on wings Docs things to people. Halfey had dyed his wings scarlet, marked with yellow triangles enclosing an H. Dot wore the plumage of an eagle, and I hadn't believed it the fast time I saw it; it was an incredibly detailed, beautiful job. McLeve's were the wings of a bat, and-I tell you he looked frightening, as evil as Dracula himself. Leon Briscoe, the chemist, had painted mathematical formulae all over his, in exquisite medieval calligraphy. Jill and Ty had worn the plumage of male and female Least Terns, and she still wore hers. There were no two sets of wings alike in that flock. We were ninety birds of mnety species, all gathered as if the ancient roles of predator and prey had been set aside for a larger cause. Cloud Cuckoo-Land;

A glum Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.

"It's over." McLeve said. "We've been given three months to phase out and go home. Us, Moonbase, the whole space operation. They'll try to keep some of the near-Earth Operations going a while longer, but we're to shut down."

Nobody said anything at first. We'd been expecting it; those of us who'd had time to follow news from Earth. Now it was here,, and nobody was ready. I thought about it: back to high gravity again. Painful.

And Jill. Her dream was being shot down, Ty died for nothing. Then I remembered McLeve. He wasn't going anywhere. Any gravity at all was a death sentence.

And I hated Jack Halfey for the grin he was hiding. There had been a long piece in the latest newscast about the roundup of the Mafia lords; grand juries working overtime,, and the District of Columbia jail filled, no bail to be granted. It was safe for Jack down there, and now he could go home early.

"They can't do this to us!" Jill wailed. A leftover Fromate reflex, I guess. "We'll-" Go on strike? Bomb something? She looked around at our faces, and when I followed the look I stopped with Dot Hoffman. The potato face was withered in anguish, the potato eyes were crying. What was there for Dot on Earth?

"What a downer," she said.

I almost laughed out loud, the old word was so inadequate. Then McLeve spoke in rage. "Downers. Yes. Nine billion downers sitting on their fat arses while their children's future slides into the muck. Downers is what they are."

Now you know. McLcve the wordsmith invented that word, on that day.

My own feelings were mixed. Would the money stashed in Swiss francs be paid if we left early, even though we had to leave? Probably, and it was not a small amount; but how long would it last? There was no job waiting for me. . . but certainly I had the reputation I'd set out for. I shouldn't have much trouble getting a job.

But I like to finish what I start. The Shack was that close to being self-sufficient. We had the solar power grids working. We even had the ion engines mounted all over the grid to keep it stable. We didn't have the microwave system to beam the power back to Earth.,, but it wouldn't be that expensive to put in...except that Earth had no antennae to receive the power. They hadn't even started reconstruction. The permit hearings were tied up in lawsuits.

No. The Shack was dead. And if our dollars were worthless, there were things that weren't. Skilled labor couldn't be worthless. I would get my francs, and some of my dollar salary had been put into gold. I wouldn't be broke. And-the clincher- there were women on Earth.

McLeve let us talk a while. When the babble died down and he found a quiet lull, he said, very carefully, "Of course, we have a chance to keep the station going."