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

ship mort-gage."
"Good," Shona said.
"We are rescinding the interest, and leaving only the late charge. It will be added to the principal. Please
make note of that when remitting your next payment."
"What?" Shona exploded. "But we weren't late! We don't owe anything."
She recorded a terse message saying that since the credits had been in place before the galactic due date,
"… I would appreciate it if you would rescind the late charge, too, since as you can see by the
acknowledgment enclosed that the payment was not late. Thank you. AarrghV she growled as she shut
off the Record function. "Sometimes the personal touch is more repellent than just getting a quick notice
from a computer."
"Will you be to send it now?" Chirwl asked.
"No," Shona said. "I've got a lot of gossip for Susan, I have to send to my aunt and everyone to let them
know we're up again, and Lani might have a few words to say?" The girl reddened and shook her head.
"No? Surely later, sweetheart— One connect is all I dare risk, and I want to save that until we're ready to
warp again. We could be pinpointed if there's a lot of unexpected activity from a remote beacon like this
one." Shona sighed. "I'll be a lot happier when we don't have to run anymore. I thought when they put
you-know-who away that it would be the end of our troubles." Lani silently looked at her hands folded
in her lap. Shona reached over and squeezed the girl's fingers. "Well, it wouldn't do if things got boring,
would it?" she asked. "One day he'll run out of money, or influence, or he'll just get tired of chasing us.
You'll see."
"I hope so, Mama," Lani said solemnly.
"I promise— Oh, no, not again!"
Following in the queue were three similar sets of messages from Zeles. Each time, to Shona's extreme
irritation, he assessed interest charges and late fees, then rescinded the interest, but not the penalty for
being late, until the fourth payment due had accumulated a rider of several hundred credits in penalties.

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 Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show


Columns of figures swirled onto the screen and arrayed themselves in neat rows. Shona followed each
calculation with a sinking heart. The very rise in the amount of debt dismayed her.
"If you persist in maintaining such a poor record of pay-ment," Zeles warned, "the bank may have no
choice but to call in the loan."
Shona felt the blood drain out of her face. Standing up, she handed Alex to Lani, and went looking for
Gershom.
"Do you have a few minutes?" she asked him.
Gershom viewed the dunning notices without comment. Shona watched the muscle at the corner of his
jaw twitch at the veiled insults directed at them by the loan officer. The muscle sagged entirely when
Zeles mentioned foreclosure. Gershom glanced at his wife, who gave him a helpless shrug.
"It'll take us forever to get that straightened out," she said. "It's been months since this started to happen,
and we've sent them no explanation because of where we've been. They'll keep on adding penalty fees
until we're paying as much on them as on the principal."
He gave her a wry smile and shook his head.
"We'll have to pay for now," he said quietly. "Send to your uncle to get the records straight after the fact.
We can't afford to have the bank pull the mortgage over a mistake, so we have to eat humble pie for a
while."
Her hands shaking, Shona tapped on the command for a release of credits. She went back to wipe out her
tart rejoinder to the bank's first transmission, and recorded in its place a new message pleading for
someone to straighten out their accounts and read their "deposited-by" dates, since her records showed