Rage - Smith Wilbur - Страница 8
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'Marylee has a master's in electrical engineering from MIT,' David murmured, and Shasa's initial attraction was spiced with respect.
'It's so damned big,' he protested. 'It fills the entire basement. The ruddy thing is the size of a four-bedroomed house." 'Cooling,' Marylee explained. 'The heat build-up is enormous.
'Most of the bulk is oil cooling baffles." 'What are you processing at the moment?" 'Professor Dart's archaeological material from the Sterkfontein caves. We are correlating about two hundred thousand observations of his against over a million from the sites in East Africa." 'How long will that take you?" 'We started the run twenty minutes ago, we'll finish it before we shut down at five o'clock." 'That's in fifteen minutes,' Shasa chuckled. 'You're having me on!" 'I wouldn't mind,' she murmured speculatively, and when she smiled her mouth was wide and moist and kissable.
'You say you shut down at five?" he asked. 'When do you start up again?" 'Eight tomorrow morning." 'And the machine stands idle overnight?" Marylee glanced down the length of the basement. David was at the other end watching the print-out and the hum of the computer covered their voices.
'That's right. It will stand idle all tonight. Just like me." Clearly she was a lady who knew exactly what she wanted, and how to get it. She looked at him directly, challengingly.
'We can't have that,' Shasa shook his head seriously. 'One thing my mummy taught me was 'Waste not, want not'. I know a place called the Stardust. The band is far beyond belief. I will wager a pound to a weekend in Paris that I can dance you until you plead for mercy." 'It's a bet,' she agreed as seriously. 'But do you cheat?" 'Of course,' he answered. David was coming back and Shasa went on smoothly and professionally. 'What about running costs?" 'All in, including insurance and depreciation, a little under four thousand pounds a month,' she told him with a matching businesslike expression.
As they said goodbye and shook hands, she slipped a card into Shasa's palm. 'My address,' she murmured.
'Eight o'clock?" he asked.
'I'll be there,' she agreed.
In the Cadillac, Shasa lit a cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring that exploded silently against the windscreen.
'Okay, Davie, contact the dean of engineering first thing tomorrow. Offer to hire that monster all its down time from five o'clock in the evening until eight the next morning, and weekends also.
Offer him four thousand a month and point out that he'll get the use of it for free. We'll be paying all his costs." David turned to him with a startled expression and almost drove up on to the pavement, then corrected with a wild swing of the wheel.
'Why didn't I think of that?" he wondered when he had the Cadillac under control.
'You have to get up earlier,' Shasa grinned and then went on, 'Once we know how much time we will need on the thing, we'll sublet the surplus time to a couple of other non-competitor companies who must be thinking about buying a computer themselves. That way we'll get our own usage free, and when IBM have improved the design and made the damned thing smaller, then we will buy our own." 'Son of a gun." David shook his head in awe. 'Son of a gun." Then with sudden inspiration, Tll get young Marylee on our payroll --' 'No,' said Shasa sharply. 'Get someone else." David glanced at him again and his excitement faded. He knew his brother-in-law too well.
'You won't be taking up Matty's invitation to dinner this evening, will you?" he asked morosely.
'Not this evening,' Shasa agreed. 'Give her my love and apologies." 'Just be careful. It's a small own and you are a marked man,' David warned as he dropped Shasa off at the Carlton Hotel where the company kept a permanent suite. 'Do you think you will be fit for work tomorrow?" 'Eight o'clock,' Shasa told him. 'Sharp!" By mutual agreement the dance competition at the Stardust was declared a draw, and Shasa and Marylee got back to his Carlton suite a little after midnight.
Her body was young and smooth and hard and just before she drifted off to sleep with her thick honey-coloured hair spread on his bare chest, she whispered drowsily, 'Well, I guess that's about the only thing my IBM 701 can't do for me." Shasa was in the Courtney mining offices fifteen minutes before David the next morning. He liked to keep everybody on their toes.
Their offices occupied the entire third floor of the Standard Bank building in Commissioner Street. Although Shasa owned a prime piece of real estate on the corner of Diagonal Street opposite the stock exchange and within yelling distance of Anglo American Corporation's head office, he hadn't yet got around to building on it; any spare money in the company always seemed to be earmarked for mining options or extensions or other income-producing enterprises.
The young blood on the Courtney executive board was judicially leavened with a few grey heads. Doctor Twenty-man-Jones was still there, in an old-fashioned black alpaca jacket and string tie, hiding his affection for Shasa behind a mournful expression. He had run the very first prospect on the H'am diamond mine for Centaine back in the early twenties and was one of the three most experienced and gifted mining consultants in southern Africa, which meant the world.
David's father Abraham Abrahams was still head of the legal section, perched up beside his son, bright and chirpy as a little silver sparrow. His files were piled high on the table in front of him, but he seldom had to refer to them. With half a dozen other newcomers whom Centaine and Shasa between them had hand-picked, it was a balanced and functional team.
'Let's talk about the Courtney chemical plant at Chaka's Bay first." Shasa brought the meeting to order. 'How much meat is there in the beef against us, Abe?" 'We are running hot sulphuric acid into the sea at a rate of between eleven and sixteen tons per day at a concentration of one in ten thousand,' Abe Abrahams told him matter-of-factly. 'I've had an independent marine biologist do a report on it for us." He tapped the document. 'It isn't good. We have altered the pH for five miles along the coastline:' 'You haven't circulated this report?" Shasa asked sharply.
'What do you think?" Abe shook his head.
'All right, David. What will it cost us to modify the manufficturing procedure on the fertilizer division to dispose of the acid waste some other way?" 'There are two possible modifications,' David told him. 'The simplest and cheapest is trucking the effluent in tankers, but then we have to find another dumping ground. The ideal solution is recycling the acid." 'Costs?" 'One hundred thousand pounds per annum for the tankers - one shot of almost three times that for the other way." 'A year's profits down the drain,' Shasa said. 'That's not acceptable.
ii!i iiii 'il Who is this Pearson woman that is heading up the protest? Can we reason with her?" Abe shook his head. 'We have tried.
She is holding the whole committee together. Without her they would crumble." 'What is her position?" 'Her husband owns the local bakery." 'Buy it,' said Shasa. 'If he won't sell, let him know discreetly that we will open another bakery in competition and subsidize its product.
I want this Pearson woman far away and long ago. Any questions?" He looked down the table. Everybody was busy making notes, nobody looked at him and he wanted to ask them reasonably, 'All right, gentlemen, are you prepared to spend three hundred thousand pounds to give a good home to the oysters and the sea urchins of Chaka's Bay?" 'No questions!" he nodded instead. 'All right, let's take on the big one now. Silver River." They all shifted in their seats, and there was simultaneous and nervous exhalation of breath.
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