"Jody Lynn Nye - Medecine Show" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nye Jody Lynn)

In the strain of holding her family together during the refit, Shona hadn't wanted to look farther into her
future, even in play, than to know that she would leave the shipyard safely. Now, with their journey
begun again, she had no reason to let her worries interfere with a simple game that gave Lani pleasure.
At the girl's instruction, she dipped her hand into the bowl, mixing the smooth beads with her fingers,
then pulled up a handful. Lani quickly held out a smaller, high-sided bowl into which Shona carefully
dribbled her catch. She looked into the big bowl, and then at her choices. Curiously, she hadn't picked
out more than a single orange, yellow, or white bead in the whole, random handful, and only six golds.
"Red, black, silver, purple, green, blue. Pretty, huh?" Shona asked Alex, who kept reaching for the
covered bowl, placed carefully out of reach. "Oh, no, sunshine. You can't eat these."
"Love, adventures—many, Mama—friends, wisdom, life, peace," Lani said. Shona watched as she
brought up a bead on the tip of the needle, not looking as she chose, then knotted each into place on the
thread. The girl's fingers were deft with the small bits of glass and even-sized knots. Alex watched
spellbound, his eyes huge over the thumb in his mouth.
"You'd make a good surgeon, sweetie," Shona noted. Lani dimpled, and ducked her head over her work.
In light of Lani's extraordinary wealth, it was surprising how much pleasure she took in simple things.
Lani kept little in her tiny personal cabin except for gifts she had received from the Taylors and from

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 Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show


Shona's family on Mars, books, and her doll, the single relic she retained from her life on Karela. The
crew had agreed to let her have the minute cubicle—a more than generous gift considering how much
precious cargo could be stored in an eight-foot cube, but everyone thought it was a worthy sacrifice for
the girl they had adopted as an honorary daughter. Eblich, a kindly man with five children of his own,
planetside, was the particular person to whom Lani turned for paternal comfort and advice. Neither of
them spoke much or often. Shona supposed that was part of the bond. Perhaps Lani's own father had
been a laconic man. In a nod to the mission of the trading ship, Lani was made to understand that she'd
have to bunk in with Shona or the animals if they took aboard a load that was sensitive to temperature or
needed more than the available cargo space if the price was right. Knowing Kai's skill at shoe-horning
an elephant into a cookie jar, Shona thought it was unlikely the girl would ever lose her room. Still, the
theory was important for the girl to learn. Living in space had its rules, and chief among them was that
you didn't crimp your own air hose. If something paid the bills, it got priority.
Paying the bills had continued to haunt Shona's sleep. Because of the expensive refit and the long time
away from the trading lane, the Taylors were in actual danger of running out of money before they could
recoup the cost of the construction. Sometimes she lay awake, seeing huge numbers play before her eyes
like afterimages: mortgage, upkeep, taxes, fuel, the cost of carrying loads of cargo that hadn't been paid
for, losses, and constant repairs because of attacks. Shortly before the refit they'd lost a premium load of
fresh candy because a would-be assassin's mining laser had breached their container hull. They'd had to
go back and replace the candy at their own expense. Cargo insurance paid off late, if at all. Acts of God
or Nature might have been covered, but armed insurrection was not. Shona watched Lani knot one more
gold bead onto the long string, and shook her head.
Lani had been awarded most of the assets that had devolved to her after the destruction of her colony,
making her a very wealthy young woman. Brought up in a virtual barter economy, she had no idea of the
power her money commanded, except that her adoptive parents never seemed to have quite enough of it.
Nor did she understand the delicacy of the situation into which her wealth put the Taylors. She kept
trying to give them money, but Shona had been firm about refusing it, insisting that the money belonged
only to her, and it wasn't as important to them as Lani was. It was difficult for a generous child, scarcely
into her teens, to understand the complexities of legal battles, and how rumors could so easily ruin a
reputation.