"Smith, E E Doc - Subspace 01 - Subspace Explorers V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

scream and he'd roar and neither of them could make me change my mind, so we will do
it right now."

He looked at her questioningly; she shrugged and went on, We aren't what you could call
a happy family. She's been trying to make me marry an old goat of a prince and I finally
told her to go roll her hoop-to get a divorce and marry the foul old beast herself. And he's
been pushing me to marry an oil-man-to consolidate two empires-that it makes me sick
at the stomach just to look at! Last week he insisted on it and I blew an atomic bomb. I'd
keep on finding oil and stuff for him, I said, but . . ." She broke off as Deston stiffened
involuntarily.

"Oil?" he asked, too quietly. "You're the oil-witch, then; not your mother. Besides having
more megabucks in your own right than any. . . ."

"Don't say it, dearest!" She seized both his hands in hers. "I know how you feel. I don't
like to let you ruin your career, either, but nothing can come between us now that we've
found each other. So I'll tell you this." Her eyes looked steadily into his. "If it bothers you
that much I'll give every dollar I own to some foundation or other. I swear it."

He laughed shamefacedly as he took her into his arms. "That's knocking me for the
well-known loop, sweetheart. I'll live with it and like it."

Then, to get away from that subject, he explored with knowing fingers the muscles of her
arms and back. "You're trained down as fine as I am and it's my business to be--how
come?"

"I majored in Phys. Ed. and I love it. And I'm a New-martian, you know, so I teach a few
courses. . ." "Newmartian? But I thought-aren't the headquarters of all the big outfits,
including WarnOil, on Tellus?"

"In a way. Management, yes, but very little property. Everything possible is owned on
Newmars and we Warners have always lived there. The tax situation, you know."

"I didn't know; taxes don't bother me much. But go ahead. You teach a few courses. In?"

"Oh, bars, trapeze, ground-and-lofty tumbling, acrobatics, aerialistics, highwire work,
muscle-control, unarmed combat-all that sort of thing."

"Ouch! So if you ever happen accidentally to get mad at me you'll tie me up into a
pretzel?"

She laughed. "A pleasant thought; but you know as well as I do that a good big man can
take a good little one every time."

"But I'm not big. I'm just a little squirt."

"You outweigh me by forty pounds and I know just how good space officers have to be.
You're exactly the right size."

"For the first time in my life I'm beginning to think so." Laughing, he put his arm around