Добавить в цитаты Настройки чтения

Страница 36 из 74



Meredith snorted. "Hardly. You keep forgetting that I don't need your permission to govern Astra as I see fit." He paused, and almost grudgingly went on, "What I called you here to talk about is what we're going to do when we start making money from all this."

Perez shifted in his seat. "Carmen was talking about that some time back. She seemed to think we'd become a world of parasites."

"You disagree?"

Perez locked eyes with him. "It's been my experience mat, given a choice, people prefer to work for their living. No one on any form of welfare is truly happy to be there."

"Granted. All right, then, let's assume we want all the people who emigrate from Earth to have meaningful jobs here. What will they be doing?"

"What do you mean?" Perez asked, puzzled. "They'll be doing the same sort of things people do on Earth."

"Wrong," Meredith said quietly. "Or haven't you noticed the lack of minerals and useful farmland?"

Perez stared at him for a moment … and then it all clicked. "Manufacturing and agriculture will be gone. Is that it?"

Meredith nodded. "There'll be some of each, but nothing like the percentages in any economy on Earth. It just doesn't make any sense to ship in raw materials to work when we can just as easily bring in finished products."

"But surely there are similar setups on Earth," Perez objected, searching his memory for a useful example. "How about—well, how about Monaco? It runs well enough with no minerals to speak of."

"Is that what you want for your huddled masses?" Meredith snorted. "To be servants and waitresses for tourists? Assuming we could even get tourists to come here, of course."

"No, of course not—"

"Put them all in government? Storekeeping? Selling insurance to each other?

You're the one who wants to make this a paradise for the poor—tell me what they're going to do here."

"All right, the point is made." Perez got to his feet. "I agree the problem needs thought, but I'm sure we can come up with an answer. If you'll excuse me, then—"

"I'm not done yet," Meredith interrupted.

Perez considered leaving anyway, thought better of it, and sat down again. "I suppose you want my word that the Council won't press for new colonists until we've sorted all this out?"

"Not really—I credit you with better sense than that. No, this is about a different matter entirely." Meredith pursed his lips. "We need to work out some kind of security arrangement with all those warships out there. Miss Olivero thought you might have some suggestions on how we might do that without creating either paranoia or animosity among whoever we send home."

Perez blinked; it was about the last thing he would have expected the colonel to ask his advice on. "I take it you don't want the whole crowd to stay up there?"

"The Rooshrike don't. They're within an ace of kicking the whole raft of them out of the system and taking over all security duties themselves."

"Not a good idea—especially after you and Carmen have been holding secret meetings with them."

"That's what I told them," Meredith nodded. "We've talked them into giving us a week to come up with a better solution."

"Hm. Well … perhaps a lottery drawing or something would be seen as fair—" He broke off as Meredith's phone buzzed. The colonel answered, and Perez let his eyes and mind drift out the window and up into the cloudless sky. Six alien races, all of them jockeying for position to get at the Spi



But for a prize as unique as the Spi

"—wait there; do you understand? Do not attempt to—ah, continue until I arrive."

Perez's attention snapped back at the intensity in Meredith's voice. One glance at the colonel's expression told him instantly something was up. "Are we being attacked?" he stage-whispered.

Meredith waved irritably for silence. "I'll bring everything we'll need. You just stay put. Right." He broke the co

Meredith stood up, punching another number, and glanced at Perez. "We'll have to continue this conversation some other—"

"What is it?" Perez interrupted, stepping to block Meredith's path to the door.

"Dr. Hafner's team's uncovered a door in one of the hills near the Dead Sea. It may be the entrance to the Spi

He dropped his arm to his side and made to go around Perez. "Let me go with you," Perez said, blocking his way again.

Meredith glared at him … then abruptly nodded. "All right. But stay out of our way." Sidestepping the other, he disappeared through the door.

Perez followed, lengthening his own stride to catch up. Maybe now, he thought, we'll finally find out what this whole Spi

Chapter 17

It seemed like forever before the flyer swooped in out of the west to settle down among the low hills, but Hafner knew it had actually been less than half an hour since his call. His four-man team had made good use of the time, though, uncovering enough of the double doors to get an idea as to how big they really were. In the silence that followed the flyer's landing, Hafner could hear the sound of approaching cars, and he wondered uneasily just how big a crowd Meredith was bringing. He debated heading out to the flyer to ask, decided not to waste the effort. Meredith and that pain Perez had emerged from the flyer; any questions could wait until they reached the doors.

As it turned out, everyone arrived at the same time: the two from the flyer plus six cars bursting at the seams with soldiers. "What's all this for?" Hafner demanded as the troops piled out and began taking up positions around the hill. Organizing things, Hafner saw, was Major Barner from Crosse.

"Security," Meredith said briefly, striding past the geologist and stopping in front of the doors.

Hafner joined him, trying to ignore the racket behind them. Moments like this should be celebrated with champagne, not machine gun emplacements. "We've been trying to enlarge the hole so that the doors will have room to open," he told the colonel. "You can see from that hinge over there that they swing outward."

"Um." Meredith ran his fingertips a few centimeters along the door. "Feels awfully smooth for something that's been buried this long."

"The Spi

"Yeah." The colonel turned away and looked around. "Well, let's get them clear.

Sergeant! Digging team, on the double!"

The caravan had come well equipped with shovels, and within two minutes a double handful of soldiers were making the din fly. It was relatively fast work, the crumbly ground offering little resistance; but had the doors been as tall as their five-meter combined width would have suggested, it would still have taken a good part of the day to uncover them. As it was, the doors proved to be just under four meters high, and the process took only an hour.

"Now what?" Perez asked when Meredith had taken as many pictures of the exposed doors as he seemed to feel was necessary.