"H. Beam Piper - Fuzzy Papers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

This is a Class-III uninhabited planet; the Company owns the whole thing outright. We can do anything
we want as long as we don't violate colonial law or the Federation Constitution. As long as we don't do
that, Nick Ernmert hasn't anything to worry about. Now forget this whole damned business, LeonardP'
He was beginning to speak sharply, and Kellogg was looking hurt. "I know you were concerned about
injurious reports getting back to Terra, and that was quite commendable, but. . ."

By the time he got through, Kellogg was happy again. Victor blanked the screen, leaned back in his
chair and began laughing. In a moment, the screen buzzed again. When he snapped it on, his screen-girl
said:

"Mr. Henry Stenson's on, Mr. Grego."

'Hell, put him on." He caught himself just before adding that it would be a welcome change to talk to
somebody with sense.

The face that appeared was elderly and thin; the mouth was tight, and there were squint-wrinkles at
the corners of the eyes.

"Well, Mr. Stenson. Good of you to call. How are you?"

"Very well, thank you. And you?" When he also admitted to good health, the caller continued:
"How is the globe running? Still in synchronization?"

Victor looked across the office at his most prized possession, the big globe of Zarathustra that
Henry Stenson had built for him, supported six feet from the floor of its own contragravity unit,
spot-lighted in orange to represent the KO sun, its two satellites circling about it as it revolved slowly.

"The globe itself is keeping perfect time, and Darius is all right. Xerxes is a few seconds of longitude
ahead of true position."

"That's dreadful, Mr. Grego!" Stenson was deeply shocked. "I must adjust that the first thing
tomorrow. I should have called to check on it long ago, but you know how it is. So many things to do,
and so little time."

"I find the same trouble myself, Mr. Stenson."

They chatted for a while, and then Stenson apologized for taking up so much of Mr. Grego's
valuable time. What he meant was that his own time, just as valuable to him, was wasting. After the
screen blanked, Grego sat looking at it for a moment, wishing he had a hun dred men like Henry Stenson
in his own organization. Just men with Stenson's brains and character; wishing for a hundred instrument
makers with Stenson's skills would have been unreasonable, even for wishing. There was only one Henry
Stenson, just as there had been only one Antonio Stradivari. Why a man like that worked in a little shop
on a frontier planet like Zarathustra . . .

Then he looked, pridefully, at the globe. Alpha Continent had moved slowly to the right, with the
little speck that represented Mallorysport twinkling in the orange light. Darius, the inner moon, where the
Terra-Baldur-Marduk Spacelines had their leased terminal, was almost directly over it, and the outer
moon, Xerxes, was edging into sight. Xerxes was the one thing about Zarathustra that the Company
didn't own; the Terran Federation had retained that as a naval base. It was the one reminder that there
was something bigger and more powerful than the Company.