Frederik Pohl Super Pack. Frederik Pohl

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      Chapter One

      The liner from Port Lyautey was comfortable and slick, but I was leaning forward in my seat as we came in over Naples. I had been on edge all the way across the Atlantic. Now as the steward came through the compartments to pick up our Blue Plate ration coupons for the trip, I couldn’t help feeling annoyed that I hadn’t eaten the food they represented. For the Company wanted everyone to get the fullest possible benefit out of his policies—not only the food policies, but Blue Blanket, Blue Bolt and all the others.

      We whooshed in to a landing at Carmody Field, just outside of Naples. My baggage was checked through, so I didn’t expect to have any difficulty clearing past the truce-team Customs inspectors. It was only a matter of turning over my baggage checks, and boarding the rapido that would take me into Naples.

      But my luck was low. The man before me was a fussbudget who insisted on carrying his own bags, and I had to stand behind him a quarter of an hour, while the truce-teams geigered his socks and pajamas.

      While I fidgeted, though, I noticed that the Customs shed had, high up on one wall, a heroic-sized bust of Millen Carmody himself. Just standing there, under that benevolent smile, made me feel better. I even managed to nod politely to the traveler ahead of me as he finally got through the gate and let me step up to the uniformed Company expediter who checked my baggage tickets.

      And the expediter gave me an unexpected thrill. He leafed through my papers, then stepped back and gave me a sharp military salute. “Proceed, Adjuster Wills,” he said, returning my travel orders. It hadn’t been like that at the transfer point at Port Lyautey—not even back at the Home Office in New York. But here we were in Naples, and the little war was not yet forgotten; we were under Company law, and I was an officer of the Company.

      It was all I needed to restore my tranquility. But it didn’t last.

      *

      The rapido took us through lovely Italian countryside, but it was in no hurry to do it. We were late getting into the city itself, and I found myself almost trotting out of the little train and up into the main waiting room where my driver would be standing at the Company desk.

      I couldn’t really blame the Neapolitans for the delay—it wasn’t their fault that the Sicilians had atomized the main passenger field at Capodichino during the war, and the rapido wasn’t geared to handling that volume of traffic from Carmody Field. But Mr. Gogarty would be waiting for me, and it wasn’t my business to keep a Regional Director waiting.

      I got as far as the exit to the train shed. There was a sudden high, shrill blast of whistles and a scurrying and, out of the confusion of persons milling about, there suddenly emerged order.

      At every doorway stood three uniformed Company expediters; squads of expediters formed almost before my eyes all over the train shed; single expediters appeared and took up guard positions at every stairwell and platform head. It was a triumph of organization; in СКАЧАТЬ