"Piper, H Beam - Fuzzy 1 - little Fuzzy1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

makers with Stenson's skills would have been unreasonable, even
for wishing. There was only one Henry Stenson, just as there had
been only one Antonio Stradivari. Why a man like that worked in a
little shop on a frontier planet like Zarathustra...

Then he looked, pridefully, at the globe. Alpha Continent had
moved slowly to the right, with the little speck that represented
Mallorysport twinkling in the orange light. Darius, the inner moon,
where the Terra-Baldur-Marduk Spacelines had their leased
terminal, was almost directly over it, and the outer moon, Xerxes,
was edging into sight. Xerxes was the one thing about Zarathustra
that the Company didn't own; the Terran Federation had retained
that as a naval base. It was the one reminder that there was
something bigger and more powerful than the Company.

Gerd van Riebeek saw Ruth Ortheris leave the escalator, step
aside and stand looking around the cocktail lounge. He set his
glass, with its inch of tepid highball, on the bar; when her eyes
shifted in his direction, he waved to her, saw her brighten and wave
back and then went to meet her. She gave him a quick kiss on the
cheek, dodged when he reached for her and took his arm.

"Drink before we eat?" he asked.

"Oh, Lord, yes! I've just about had it for today."

He guided her toward one of the bartending machines, inserted his
credit key, and put a four-portion jug under the spout, dialing the
cocktail they always had when they drank together. As he did, he
noticed what she was wearing: short black jacket, lavender
neckerchief, light gray skirt. Not her usual vacation get-up. "School
department drag you back?" he asked as the jug filled.

"Juvenile court." She got a couple of glasses from the shelf under
the machine as he picked up the jug. "A fifteen-year-old burglar."

They found a table at the rear of the room, out of the worst of the
cocktail-hour uproar. As soon as he filled her glass, she drank half
of it, then lit a cigarette.

"Junktown?'I he asked.

She nodded. "Only twenty-five years since this planet was dis
covered, and we have slums already. I was over there most of the
af ternoon, with a pair of city police." She didn't seem to want to
talk about it. "What were you doing today?"

"Ruth, you ought to ask Doc Mallin to drop in on Leonard Kellogg
sometime, and give him an unobtrusive going over."