Warworld: The Lidless Eye Read Online Free

thoughts were elsewhere as he almost collided with the club’s last serving robot.
    Hamilton’s usual companions were in their seats, but their usual brittle cheerfulness was missing. Even Roger Morgan, the President of Castell Union Bank, failed to greet him with his usual upraised eyebrows.
    “Sit down, John,” David Steele said. Steele was a wealthy planter who hadn’t harvested anything but dividends since Hamilton had known him. Howard Whakley, the remaining member of their daily card game, sat with an untouched drink beside him, staring at the center of the table as if he expected a hangman bush to sprout there at any moment.
    Hamilton took his seat and asked, “What is this? A wake? I came here for amusement, gambling and the pernicious influence of bad companions. Now, here you all sit, as sober as a bench of Harmony deacons or Imperial Magistrates. Have I missed something?”
    Steele silenced him with a sharp look. “Whakley here has suffered a bit of a reverse.”
    “What do you mean ‘a bit’!” Howard Whakley exclaimed” Obviously, some earlier drinks had not gone untouched since Whakley was usually polite to a fault. “And what would you know about it, anyway, Steele? You sit there clipping coupons the bank has to redeem in Imperial crowns, while the rest of us barely scrape by. With this damned inflation, your wealth goes up with every sip of that whisky you’re drinking; meanwhile the bastards are forcing me right out of business!”
    “What’s wrong with your bearing factory?” Hamilton asked. “Everything mechanical needs bearings; you should have lots of work now that there’s no off-world competition. Business should be booming.” He decided he must have missed something, but didn’t think it was a good time to make a joke about it, not in light of Whakley’s disheveled appearance.
    “Oh, business is fine,” Whakley said, waving a finger under Hamilton’s nose. “So damned fine that the Chamber of Deputies bowed to Provo pressure and decided that bearings are Essential Materials.”
    “Damn, bad for you!” Hamilton said. It wasn’t a sympathetic remark, but at least the pieces were starting to fall into place.
    “Do you understand that now we can’t raise prices without government approval. That could take weeks; meanwhile, prices are going up daily. I was beating inflation by overbuying steel, warehousing the surplus and selling later when prices had doubled. Now, I’m stuck and every bearing I sell from now on will cost me more than I can ever sell it for. And I’m not the only one; by winter, there won’t be a non-essential factory operating anywhere within a hundred klicks of Castell City.”
    “It can’t be that bad, can it?” he remonstrated. “Don’t you get a price break on Essential Raw Materials, as well as reduced taxes?”
    “TAXES!” the word came blaring out like a rarely heard obscenity. “The miscarrying Parliament can’t raise taxes fast enough to keep up with the devaluation of the mark. Any tax breaks’ll be too late. The state-subsidized mines have already cut their production in half during the past year; the workers make more by stealing the ore and selling it on the black market to privateer furnaces. Where do you think I’ve been getting my cobalt and tungsten?”
    “Sell the factory, then,” Steele said, with a chill in his voice, “before you lose it.”
    “To whom? And for what?” The only thing left that has any real value is land. Who’s crazy enough to sell that to buy a factory guaranteed by the government to lose money? They’ve already taken over half the factories in the city. The only ones that are still running are staffed with conscripts guarded by troops.”
    “I’ll buy your factory,” Steele said.
    Hamilton saw Whakley’s face turn bright red and his hands ball into fists as he tried to rise up out of his seat. Morgan’s hand pinned him to his chair.
    “Hear him out” Morgan ordered.
    Whakley subsided and