respected Dimitri Vlasovich, engineer par excellence, known for his ability to
beg, borrow, steal, and adapt every engineering idea that is not walled
away and even some of those?
Vlasovich laughed, a deep belly laugh of the sort that everyone took to mean a
truly jovial soul. To me, men who could laugh that way were twice as
dangerous. Even Pyotr Romanov would not say that to my face. To my back, but
not to my face.
Pardon my ignorance. I tried to keep my tone ambivalent.
I want all the environmental technologies you will give us. What do you
want? Vlasovich's dark brown eyes bored into me.
The concessions for Columbian Dutch Petroleum to explore, extract, and
transport Alaskan north-shore oil for a reasonable royalty payment.
A broad smile crossed the face of the director of engineering technologies.
You see? It is very simple. I say what I want. You say what you want. With
PetroRus, it will take you two meetings, perhaps three, and you may get
nothing. They are what you call bureaucrats, and they call themselves
businessmen. I am the businessman, and they call me a bureaucrat.
I nodded. So how do you propose to get what you want, and for me to get what
I want?
That is harder. If I say we need the technologies, the minister will approve,
but he will not cross Pyotr Romanov, and Romanov will not approve unless those
he trusts also approve.
What you're suggesting is that if I can get PetroRus to approve of the
proposition, the Interior Ministry will agree, provided the control of the
environmental technologies goes to you?
Ha! That got another belly laugh. You could be Russian, Minister.
I doubted that, and doubted more that I'd want to be. How many other
obstacles are there that I don't know about?
In the great land of Imperial Russia, you talk of obstacles? Your high
excellency, how could one imagine such? Certainly, it is possible that our
great and glorious Air Corps might be persuaded to do without fuel it could
never refine . . . Yet, how would the Imperial Rocket Corps He broke off
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abruptly. But I wander. Best you consider the obstacles you face, about which
this poor functionary knows nothing. I only know that they must exist, or you
would have your concession, and I would have your technologies.
In everything, there is someone who would rather build a small empire and die
with it than see his country prosper. I was temporizing, but what else could
I have said?
In the west, certainly not in great and Imperial Russia, most of those are
soldiers, for they long for the days when a sword and a strong right arm would
build empires. Today, in your land, it might be an aircraft, but they feel the
same, whether that man is serving in an embassy or in an office in your
federal district.
I laughed. I won't return the favor, because I don't know enough to offer an
epigram that would be both accurate and witty.
Vlasovich shook his head. It is a terrible thing to be a scientist in our
world. If one pursues a science that improves all the world, then one is
silently condemned for not serving one's fatherland. And if one pursues a
science that grants a fatherland or a motherland a great military advantage,
then one must live with a troubled conscience.
I understood that, even if I weren't a scientist.
But always, I wander and ramble. You were kind to see me, Minister Eschbach,
and I will do as I can. He paused. Have you seen the Bronze Horseman?
Not yet, I admitted, except from across the square.
You should see it up close, especially after the sun sets. At five o'clock
tonight, perhaps quarter past, if you are lucky, you can see one of the ghosts
of the white nights. They are said to determine Russia's future. He smiled.
They have determined our past. That is certain.
I'll see what I can do.
Be careful, though. He gave a crooked smile as he stood. If you do not see
the ghosts, you will miss much. If you concentrate on one ghost . . . you may [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]