"Jerry Pournelle - High Justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

months-it's too expensive to bring the tugs home and send them out again. So I know the costs."
Courtney turned away, not so much disgusted as sad. It was true, then; he was one of Lewis's hard-
eyed troops with an account book for a heart.
Adams grinned suddenly. "But it brought us luck. Or something did. A couple of months later we
found a nine hundred billion gallon iceberg. A real monster, and we've got it under tow."
And it's still under tow, he thought. The tugs were bringing the monster iceberg up the Humboldt
Current. The fresh water was worth at least three hundred million dollars if they could get it to
Los Angeles. The trouble was that Ecuador claimed sovereignty out to two hundred miles from the
coast, and the passage fees could eat up half the value of the ice. Ecuador wanted cash. . . .
And now Persephone, with all that plutonium, was held by the Fijians, and Nuclear General was in
real trouble. There were a lot of assets tied up in those two projects, and Mr. Lewis was
stretched thin with risky investments. The big bergs made a lot of profit, but exploration and
towing weren't cheap, competition was stiff, and the taxes kept going up all the time. If they
couldn't get that plutonium back . . .
"The other lagoons have smaller fish," Courtney said, breaking in on his reverie. She wondered why
he'd lost his grin, but it came back when she pointed and said, "Rainbow trout in that one."
"You're putting me on."
"No, really, they adapt to salt water very easily. In fact, they do it naturally - haven't you
ever fished for steelhead? And hatching them is easy, that's been done for decades."
"Yeah, I guess it figures," Bill answered absently. Come to think of it he had known that. He used
to fish for steelhead when he was younger. Hard to think of anything but the plan. It had to work.
It had sounded good back in Santa Barbara, but neither he nor Mr. Lewis had ever met the Tongans
and it all depended on them.
"You can see the different color waters," she continued. "We pump cold water from six thousand
feet down. It's rich in phosphates and nitrates, so the plankton and krill grow fast. Dr. Martinez
is experimenting to see what works best. But if we can feed Susie, think how many fish we can grow
in the other lagoons!"
Bill nodded. He'd seen the figures. There was a good profit in protein, but production was low at
Tonga Station, and there'd be no profit at all if the farms had to pay their own way. He tried to
explain that to the girl, but she wasn't much interested. Blast it, he thought, she should know
such elementary things about the Company. Without funds and profits you couldn't do anything.
"Profits. I see." Her voice was acid. "I guess you have to worry about that, Mr. Adams, but out
here at the Station we're proud of what we're doing. We can feed a million people some day, more
even, and prevent kwashiorkor. . . . Do you know how much misery is due to simple protein
deficiency?"
"No. But I know we couldn't have built the plants if that were all we were doing out here,
Courtney. Breeding plutonium on a grand scale makes power, and as far as the Station's concerned
that power is free. But plutonium, not protein, is the reason for the Station."
"Why out here, then? You've got breeder reactors in the States. Dr. Martinez is Director of one."
Adams nodded wearily. "We didn't put new breeders in the States because we can't find locations
for them. Everywhere we turn there's protest. They even complain about our sea farms because we
introduce new species. As if Kansas wheat were native. . . . Anyway, Tonga's got cold water for
the reactors and no regulations about our plutonium sales. In the States the government makes us
sell over half the product at their own prices." Taxes were nonexistent at the Station, too, Adams
thought, Even though there was no market for the electric power the breeders could produce, it was


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