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

CHAPTER SIX

Dent watched nervously as Erin maneuvered Mother into the stream of
asteroids, working her way toward the center where she had found the
fragments containing the richest ore on her previous trip. The detectors
spotted a promising site. Mop said "yipe" when the ship settled against
the tumbling chunk of rock. Dent loosed a long sigh. Erin pretended total
nonchalance, although each time she attached Mother to an asteroid it
was pucker time. She balanced out forces with the flux drive and with
steering jets until ship and rock flowed through space without tumbling.
There were less than six hours left of her shift and Denton had been awake
for eighteen hours.

"You're going to need some sleep," she said.

"Now that the excitement's over?"

"What excitement?"

He laughed. "I'm familiar in theory with the extraction equipment, but
it might be a good idea to have you go through the procedures with me."

She was thinking that at the end of his next twelve he would have gone
thirty-six hours without sleep. A tired man was a careless man. X & A
axiom. She, herself, would use the rest of her watch making minute
measurements to be sure that their neighbors in the crowded asteroid belt
were not being pushy and moving in on Mother as she sat on her rocky
perch.

"All right," she said. She led the way into the mining control room. He
had moved a locker from the gym to store his clothing and personal
possessions. The bed was neatly made, although the movable partition
that separated it from the rest of the room was pushed back. At least, she
thought, he wasn't a slob. She ran him through the checklists, operating
procedures, and buttonology for the biter and extractor. Within an hour
he was handling the equipment well. It was a rich deposit and the weight
of ore built quickly in Mother's hold.

"Won't take long at this rate," he said.

"All the deposits are not this rich," she said.

She glanced at the clock and saw that they were two hours into Dent's
watch. The tension of taking the ship into the belt, the stimulation of
finding a good ore field, all drained away, leaving her exhausted. "I'm
declaring a holiday," she said.

"In honor of what?"