"Zach Hughes - Mother Lode" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

It was early autumn on New Earth. Erin, Mop, and the Mother Lode
had been gone almost a year. She had scanned the areas surrounding the
port on the way down, had seen little change except that the new owner of
the Kenner home had built white fences around the entire property.

Denton Gale had not changed. He still looked exuberantly youthful. The
sun lines at the corner of his eyes gave them a permanent smile. His shop
and office were as cluttered as ever.

"You left in a hurry," he said, as he walked to a table to pour coffee for
two.

"Yes," she said.

He handed her a steaming mug. Mop had jumped from a chair to the
top of the service counter that separated the workshop from the office
area. Erin sat down. Denton leaned against the counter, a tall man, his
brown hair slightly mussed. "I hope that your trip was successful."

She nodded. "Dent, what are your plans for the future? What do you
hope to accomplish in life?"

He grinned. "You come back here to talk to me about my innermost
dreams?"

"Yes," she said, "if you want to put it that way."

He looked at her intently, realizing that she was serious.

"Would making inordinately large amounts of money interest you?"

His grin broadened. She wondered if his genes were that good or if he'd
spent a lot of time in a dentist's chair.

"How large?" he asked.
 "Obscenely so."

"I'm told that the U.P. Penal Service is quite humane," he said, "but I
have no desire to spend any portion of my life in a work camp on some
frontier planet."

"That's me," she said, "the master criminal." She stood up. Mop's right
ear came to attention and he bailed out from the top of the counter to
land with a thump at Erin's feet, ready to go. "Bring your coffee," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," he said with mock humbleness.

In the control room on the Mother Lode she handed him her bankbook.
He looked at her inquiringly, eyebrows raised, opened it. At the bottom of
the page was a figure of a few thousand credits. "Well, you had this much