"Джон Варли. Платежное поручение(engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

but me. I'm sorry."
"Jennings, you can come in with us," Rethrick said. "You can work for
us forever, if you want. You can have anything you want. Anything except --"
"Except that no one runs the Company but you."
"That's right. Jennings, the Company is old. Older than I am. I didn't
bring it into existence. It was - you might say, willed to me. I took the
burden on. The job of managing it, making it grow, moving it toward the day.
The day of revolution, as you put it.
"My grandfather founded the Company, back in the twentieth century. The
Company has always been in the family. And it will always be. Someday, when
Kelly marries, there'll be an heir to carry it on after me. So that's taken
care of. The Company was founded up in Maine, in a small New England town.
My grandfather was a little old New Englander, frugal, honest, passionately
independent. He had a little repair business of some sort, a little tool and
fix-it place. And plenty of knack.
"When he saw government and big business closing in on everyone, he
went underground. Rethrick Construction disappeared from the map. It took
government quite a while to organize Maine, longer than most places. When
the rest of the world had been divided up between international cartels and
world-states, there was New England, still alive. Still free. And my
grandfather and Rethrick Construction.
"He brought in a few men, mechanics, doctors, lawyers, little
once-a-week newspapermen from the Middle West. The Company grew. Weapons
appeared, weapons and knowledge. The time scoop and mirror! The Plant was
built, secretly, at great cost, over a long period of time. The Plant is
big. Big and deep. It goes down many more levels than you saw. He saw them,
your alter ego. There's a lot of power there. Power, and men who've
disappeared, purged all over the world, in fact. We got them first, the best
of them.
"Someday, Jennings, we're going to break out. You see, conditions like
this can't go on. People can't live this way, tossed back and forth by
political and economic powers. Masses of people shoved this way and that
according to the needs of this government or that cartel. There's going to
be resistance, someday. A strong, desperate resistance. Not by big people,
powerful people, but by little people. Bus drivers. Grocers. Vidscreen
operators. Waiters. And that's where the Company comes in.
"We're going to provide them with the help they'll need, the tools,
weapons, the knowledge. We're going to 'sell' them our services. They'll be
able to hire us. And they'll need someone they can hire. They'll have a lot
lined up against them. A lot of wealth and power."
There was silence.
"Do you see?" Kelly said. "That's why you mustn't interfere. It's Dad's
Company. It's always been that way. That's the way Maine people are. It's
part of the family. The Company belongs to the family. It's ours."
"Come in with us," Rethrick said. "As a mechanic. I'm sorry, but that's
our limited outlook showing through. Maybe it's narrow, but we've always
done things this way."
Jennings said nothing. He walked slowly across the office, his hands in
his pockets. After a time he raised the blind and stared out at the street,
far below.