Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

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Lon Simpson treated him gently. He took him into the house to watch the converter at work. One of the colonists kept its large coil suitably stuffed with assorted foliage. There was a “hand” of cured, early—best quality—thanar leaves in an erratically cut tin can. Duplicates of that hand of best quality thanar were appearing in the small coil as fast as they were removed, and fresh foliage was being heaped into the large coil.

“We expect,” said Lon happily, “to have a bumper crop of the best grade of thanar this year. It looks like every colonist on the planet will be able to pay off his debt to the Company and have credit left over. We’ll be sending a committee back to Earth to collect our credits there and organize an independent cooperative trading company that will bring out decent machinery and be a competitive buying agency for thanar. I’m sure the Company will be glad to see us all so prosperous.”

It was stifling hot by now, but nobody noticed. The colonists were much too interested in seeing Carson go visibly to pieces before them. He was one of those people who seem to have been developed by an all-wise Providence expressly to be underlings for certain types of large corporations. Their single purpose in life is to impress their superiors in the corporation that hires them. But now Carson saw his usefulness ended. Through his failure, in some fashion, the Company’s monopoly on thanar leaves and its beautiful system of recruiting labor were ruined. He would be discharged and probably blacklisted.