"Jane Lindskold - Endpoint Insurance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindskold Jane)

ENDPOINT INSURANCE
by Jane Lindskold
In the course of watching old movie serials, Jane Lindskold discovered the hidden powers of insurance
investigators. In this story, Captain “Allie” Ah Lee1 discovers that working for an insurance company can
mean taking real risks. Lindskold is the author of over thirty-five short stories and several novels-
including Changer and Legends Walking. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband,
archaeologist Jim Moore, and is currently at work on another novel.

Q1 pike was the one who told me that pirates were using Othe Endpoint system to
launder stolen goods.
Allen “Spike” West worked for AASU Insurance, a sturdy, reliable company that
had offices on any world or space station with a population of five thousand or
more. As the Endpoint system had recently topped the fifteen thousand mark,
AASU practically qualified as an old timer.
AASU insured both my ship-the Mercury-and my life, so I guess I thought pretty
highly of them.
Spike had visited the Mercury so that we could discuss possible changes in the
ship’s policy. I’d thought his coming to me rather strange since we usually met in his
office and the Mercury’s cabin was pretty small-indeed, we were practically sitting
knee to knee. However, my own concerns
‘Allie also appears in “Winner Takes Trouble” published in Alien Pets, edited by
Denise Little, DAW, 1998.
about my current financial woes kept me from pursuing these thoughts further.
I make my living as a freelance courier, carrying messages and small goods from
system to system. The only reason I made a living at all was that I was willing to go
out to fringe colonies with just a couple dozen inhabitants. I also knew more about
the shady side of commerce than any proper courier would admit, but more about
that later.
Knowing that Spike’s gaze was safely locked in the middle space in front of his eyes
while the computer jacked into a port beneath his right ear presented my account for
his inspection, I studied him, trying to guess what his answer would be.
Spike wasn’t a bad-looking fellow if you liked tall, lanky, dark-haired men with large
noses, brilliant blue eyes, and goony expressions. When he wasn’t staring vacantly
into empty space, Spike had an appealing grin and enough intensity to power a
stardrive. Most of the time I even liked him. Today, he had too much power over my
financial future for me to feel at all relaxed in his presence.
In contrast to Spike’s long leanness, I’m diminutive by modern standards-a result of
growing up on a forgotten colony world where rations were limited for most of my
childhood. My hair is glossy black and my eyes, beneath the epicanthic folds of my
eyelids, are dark as well. Some have told me I look like a doll.
Happily, I’m more than a toy. When my birth colony’s sponsors back in China
settled their then most recent war, they’d sent out a belated supply ship. Help had
come before permanent damage had been done to any of the colonists-except that
most of the children remained rather small. I enjoyed being regularly misjudged-as if
size and ability have anything to do with each other!
When Spike frowned slightly and blinked twice, prepara-tory to banishing my files
from his virtual screen, I straightened and studied the Mercury’s message reader,
making a few notes for future business. Spike might have even been fooled. I have a
great poker face.
“You could reduce the coverage, Allie,” Spike began, “but I wouldn’t recommend