"FWLS7" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

earlier, a hovership started to descend, kicking up a minor dust
cloud.

"Crap," I cursed. "Cover the equipment! Cover all of it!"

"Where are you going?" Clara asked, as I marched off.

"I want to see who our visitor is," I replied. Not
unusually, Clara followed me towards the hovership. A hatch
swiftly opened.

"Ah, just the pair I wanted to see," a shortish, impy man
with a cane said. "I trust you are Clara and Alain Fund, experts
on the twentieth century? Before the Terran Confederation, space
travel, and the such?"

"Yeah. And who might you be?"

"Hammock," he said, shaking my hand vigorously. "I've come
quite a distance, but have to get back to my office very soon.
I'd like you two to come with me, however."

"Any reason?" Clara asked.

Hammock waved a credit chip under my nose. A quick
examination of the digital readout showed an absurdly large
number of zeroes.

"All yours for research funding, if you come with me just
for the weekend. I need some outside opinions of my
establishment for the insurance company."

"What makes you think we'd sell out to some corporate bigwig
with a flashy ship and a large bank account?" Clara exclaimed.
"How dare you barge in here, almost ruin our site, and think you
can buy us off with a five plus figure bribe?"

"How soon do we leave?" I asked.

"Eh?" Clara said.

"We DO need the money, Clara," I said. "Besides, it's just
a weekend and the interns can handle this dig."

"We leave immediately," Hammock said, grabbing his cane. I
first noticed the lump of glass at the top of the cane.

Inside it was a very small picturesque farmhouse, and a
hundred or so little plastic snowflakes falling on its white
roof.