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

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 Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show


on board by Kai. They were a tightly knit functional team. All at once, three years past, two more
humans had been added, with a third one present but not yet accounted for, plus all of Shona's animal
team and the impedimenta of a working physician who was also an environmental illness specialist.
Shona always felt apologetic for the hardships caused by her signing on permanently aboard the Sibyl.
The crew, whom she loved like family, had pushed away her apologies, but she knew that having her
there all the time had changed their gestalt, taking up room they were accustomed to using. Not that they
ever acted like it, but she was an intruder. She brought with her a big lab, which could not be reduced in
size, a child, and then an infant, and a vaccine dog, a chemical-sniffing cat, two rabbit food-tasters,
several mice, and an ottle. Though the additions were anticipated and welcomed by the extant crew, the
inevi-table growing pains could not be ignored. Gershom couldn't yet afford to move up to a larger ship.
Renting a ship for such a high-risk occupation as trading was out of the question. Expansion had been
the answer. A new addition would give Shona space of her own and enable the men to realign their own
living quarters and personal space with her as an integral part of the whole. The Venturi yard had been
approached in the greatest of secrecy to undertake the refitting.
Fqr a small additional fee, Venturi was persuaded to stretch the rules just a little bit to enlarge the ship
without registering her engine numbers in the galactic database, as required, until the job was done and
the Sibyl was safely on her way to another system.
With the help of Shona's uncle Harry Elliott, a loan officer at a major bank on Mars, the Taylors
negotiated a renovation loan which was simply added without fanfare to the balance of their mortgage,
paid by monthly debit from their credit account.
The Sibyl, always over-engined for her configuration, had had her nose sliced off and the body behind it
divided in two to add a third cargo hold between the others for Shona's labora-tory module. The space
forward of the hold gave the Taylors the additional room they needed for living quarters and more
storage, reached by a hatch between the starboard hold and Shona's complex. An atmosphered corridor
fitted with airlocks divided the port hold from the lab. With the new generator installed at the head of the
addition, both storage bays could circulate full life-support systems when what they were carry-ing
required it. Before, the holds had been a cold, uncomfort-able place to sleep, as Shona herself could
testify.
Shona saw to it that Gershom was kept busy during the major work on his ship, to keep him from
whimpering over its well-being. He loved the Sibyl like a friend, a close cousin, another woman. Shona,
indulgent rather than jealous, had to find ways to distract him from hanging around the shipyard. Even
her natural cheerfulness had been strained by the time the work was finished. Venturi was a main stop


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 Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show


for colonists and traders outbound to unexplored quadrants of the galaxy be-yond. The people looking
for the Taylors could have chanced upon them at any moment. With great care, they had avoided any
references to their pasts, use of last names that were familiar or traceable, and paid cash or bartered for
supplies. The data leak had to have occurred in the shipyard itself.
And I know just when it happened, too, Shona grumbled to herself. I knew it when they entered our
number on-line with the alterations for the GG registrar. Everyone was shaking hands and beaming at
each other over finishing the job at last. We were so thrilled about the beautiful refit, I didn't think to