Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

34 страница из 776

The colonist, however, said briefly: “Go to hell.”

He started to leave Carson’s air-cooled office. Carson said mildly:

“You’re broke. You’ll want a job when you haven’t got a farm. You can’t afford to tell me to go to hell.”

“You can’t take my farm unless my fields are neglected,” the colonist said comfortably. “They aren’t. And my thanar leaf crop is going to be a bumper one. I’ll pay off all I owe—and we colonists are planning to start a trading company of our own, to bring in good machinery and deal fairly.”

Carson smiled coldly.

“You forget something,” he said. “As representative of the Trading Company, I can call on you to pay up all your debts at once, if I have reason to think you intend to try to evade payment. I do think so. I call on you for immediate payment in full. Pay up, please!”

This was an especially neat paragraph in the fine print of the colonists’ contract with the Company. Any time a colonist got obstinate he could be required to pay all he owed, on the dot. And if he had enough to pay, he wouldn’t owe. So the Trading Company could ruin anybody.