"Robert A. Heinlein - Space Family Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

mentioned a third price. ‘Cash,’ he added.
‘Of course. And you pay the sales tax?’ ‘Well. . . for a cash deal, yes.’
‘Good.’
‘Sit down, gentlemen. I’ll call in my girl and we’ll stat the papers.’
‘No hurry,’ answered Castor. ‘We’ve still got to see what the Hungarian has
on his lot - and the government salvage lot, too.’



4
‘Huh? That price doesn’t stand unless you deal right now. Dealer Dan, they
call me. I got no time to waste dickering twice.’
‘Nor have we. See you tomorrow. If it hasn’t sold we can take up where we
left off.’
‘If you expect me to hold that price, I’ll have to have a nominal option
payment.’
‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t expect you to pass up a sale for us. If you can sell it by
tomorrow, we wouldn’t think of standing in your way. Come on, Pol.’
Ekizian shrugged. ‘Been nice meeting you, boys.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
As they closed the lock behind them and waited for it to cycle, Pollux said
‘you should have paid him an option.’
His brother looked at him. ‘You’re retarded, Junior.’
On leaving Dealer Dan’s office the boys headed for the spaceport, intending
to catch the passenger tube back to the city, fifty miles west of the port. They
had less than thirty minutes if they were to get home for supper on time -
unimportant in itself but Castor disliked starting a family debate on the
defensive over a side issue. He kept hurrying Pollux along.
Their route took them through the grounds of General Synthetics
Corporation, square miles of giant cracking plants, sun screens, condensers,
fractionating columns, all sorts of huge machinery to take advantage of the
burning heat, the bitter cold, and the endless vacuum for industrial chemical
engineering purposes - a Dantesque jungle of unlikely shapes. The boys paid
no attention to it; they were used to it. They hurried down the company road
in the flying leaps the Moon’s low gravity permitted, making twenty miles an
hour. Half way to the port they were overtaken by a company tractor; Pollux
flagged it down.
As he ground to a stop, the driver spoke to them via his cab radio: ‘What do
you want?’
‘Are you meeting the Terra shuttle?’
‘Subject to the whims of fate - yes.’
‘It’s Jefferson,’ said Pollux. ‘Hey, Jeff - it’s Cas and Pol. Drop us at the tube
station, will you?’
‘Climb on the rack. “Mind the volcano - come up the usual way.”’ As they did
so he went on, ‘What brings you two carrot-topped accident-prones to this far
reach of culture?’
Castor hesitated and glanced at Pollux. They had known Jefferson James for
some time, having bowled against him in the city league. He was an old