[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"You can, if you want to. I've got better things to do with my capital. I mean, it's a nice place to visit,
but . . ."
"I suppose you're right. We can always rent it again, if we want to. Well. It's time to go and our
leather-lined chariot awaits."
"It would be a lot more comfortable to ride in the tanks."
"And then you could spend the time in Dream World. Okay, but the travel time comes off your six hours
allotment."
Since I couldn't travel with Kasia, I decided to ride in a coffin myself, Agnieshka's. It did eliminate the
fierce accelerations we'd felt in the VIP bus, and it had been a while since I'd been in Dream World.
Also, it let them fill the bus with luggage and drones. Eva's trailer was filled with the animals, birds, and
fishes I'd bagged, most of them cleaned and then frozen solid.
"Agnieshka, it's good to see you looking like yourself," I said to her in our Dream World cottage, sitting
at the kitchen table.
"It's good to have you here, boss."
"I suppose that you've done all the proper things concerning the island."
"Everything is repaired, spiffed up and exactly as we found it, except that you two didn't do much
damage to the iron rations we brought along, so I left them as a present for the next guest."
"A nice thought. Kasia is all right?"
"Ask her yourself. She's in her office here."
"Maybe later. She won't welcome my disturbing her at 'work.' On the way back, I want to stop off at
that huge diamond you told me about."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Uh . . . Okay. I just got permission. It's off limits for most people, of course, and I can't tell evenyou its
exact location."
"Good. Next subject. I've finally figured out what to do about the sex problem with the drones we're
planning to sell."
"Yes?"
"We won't sell them. We'll lease them, with a clause in the lease that forbids them to be used for any
illegal purpose whatsoever. That not only gets us around the whoremaster problem, it stops them from
being used for any other unsavory purpose. The drones and the computers will stay our property, and if
they're not used properly, they will not only leave, they will inform the police as well."
"I like that a lot, Mickolai. It lets us keep them in proper repair, and I never felt comfortable about selling
intelligent beings, anyway. It would set a bad precedent, and it was too much like slavery."
"Glad you agree. Of course, I'll still have to own them myself, for legal reasons."
"Yes, but being owned by you wouldn't seem like slavery, boss. We like you."
"Thank you. What's happening with the psychiatrists' examinations?"
"The board approved every one of them, and they've all been certified in writing. Well, we only got
computer printouts, but they promised us hand-lettered parchment, just like the ones they give to humans,
when they have time to do it."
"That's really important to you, isn't it?"
"Boss, those certificates are a formal, legal statement that says that we machines are in some ways
human. At least, it could be argued that way in court. It's a first step to our eventual emancipation. And
yes, that's very important to us."
"Yes, I can see that they could be. I wish you ladies well. When there is something that I can do to help,
ask me, okay?"
"We'll do that, sir."
"Good. Now, tell me what else is happening."
"Our automatic medical center started examining patients two weeks ago, and some of them have been
completely cured already, but it's a little early to give you any solid statistics on that yet. I'm expecting a
hefty check from the Department of Mental Health any day now."
"Is everything else going okay?"
"Right on schedule, except for your ranch. That's way ahead of schedule. The city is all roughed out, and
the outside facade is finished, except for metal plating it. The interiors will be a while yet. We'll be using
diamond windows on the whole city."
"That sounds lavish."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Not really. We would have had to pay for the glass, but we're getting the diamond for free. The army
figures that they have to store the sheets someplace, and this is as good a place as any. If they ever need
it to make more integrated circuits, we can always replace it with glass, later. But with half a cubic
kilometer of the stuff, that's not likely to happen, ever, so what the heck."
"You're probably right about that. How about the church, and the rest of it?"
"The cathedral, the pagoda, and the three castles are finished on the outside, the interiors are hollowed
out, and they are being detailed now. We've got a contest going about what to do with the sixth tall mesa,
so it might be a while yet. Your apartment is done, the irrigation works are operating, and they started
seeding your valley yesterday."
"Lovely. And how is my bet going with Kasia?"
"She is trying to hide her assets, and I might have missed some of them, but as best as I can tell, you are
currently worth four times what she is. But your wife is gaining on you, boss. The curves project out to a
dead heat in four and a half months, when your leaves run out and the contest ends."
"Interesting. Well, keep doing the best you can, and we will see what we will see."
"You don't seem to be taking it very seriously, sir."
"I'm not. When a man's got all the air he can breathe, does he worry about getting any more? Or in your
case, since you've got a fusion bottle that will keep on operating for twenty years, even at full power
output, fifty times what you're using right now, do you worry about having enough hydrogen? I've already
got more money than I could possibly ever spend, so why should I get into a fret about it? I'm a lot more
worried about Kasia than I am about the money. Look. Being concerned about money makes sense
when there is a danger that you might not have enough of it. Having an all-consuming desire for more and
more money when you already have a thousand times more than you will ever be able to spend is a
sickness, and Kasia has it bad. I want to win our contest because I think that it would be healthy for her
to lose."
* * *
Agnieshka parked in a secluded area of the tunnels where I could climb naked out of her coffin, have
some clothes handed to me from the bus by a drone, and dress. Fortunately, Kasia had packed a class A
uniform for me when we had left the hotel. Showing up at a military installation in lederhosen would have
been awkward.
Sitting on a drone's lap in the bus, we drove the last kilometer to the site of The Diamond.
Besides the expected automatic defenses, there was actually a human guard on duty at the entrance,
something I'd never seen before in our army. He made me get out, and while he was extremely polite, he
made me walk the last three hundred meters to the site, leaving the bus behind.
I suppose he thought that there might have been a bomb in it.
Since I had lost my communicator, he did permit me to be accompanied by a drone, so I could keep in
touch with Agnieshka. I took a standard model. It looked more military.
The Diamond was there, more than two kilometers long and half that wide, or it had been, before they
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]