"Robert A. Heinlein - The Green Hills of Earth (Collected Stor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Requisitioned personnel must be satisfactory to the contractor, meaning me.
Paragraph Seven, clause M; I wrote that clause myself."
"Then you know that if requisitioned personnel are refused without
cause the contractor bears the replacement cost"
"I'll risk paying your fare home, but I won't have you here."
"You are most unreasonable!"
"Perhaps, but I'll decide what's good for the job. I'd rather have a dope
peddler than have a woman sniffing around my boys!"
She gasped. Tiny knew he had said too much; he added, "Sorry, Miss.
But that's it. You'll' stay under cover until I can get rid of you."
Before she could speak I cut in. "Tiny-look behind you!" Staring in the
port was one of the riggers, his eyes bugged out. Three or four more floated
up and joined him.
Then Tiny zoomed up to the port and they scattered like minnows. He
scared them almost out of their suits; I thought he was going to shove his
fists through the quartz.
He came back looking whipped. "Miss," he said, pointing, "wait in my
room." When she was gone he added, "Dad, what'll we do?"
I said, "I thought you had made up your mind, Tiny."
"I have," he answered peevishly. "Ask the Chief Inspector to come in,
will you?"
That showed how far gone he was. The inspection gang belonged to
Harriman Enterprises, not to us, and Tiny rated them mere nuisances.
Besides, Tiny was an Oppenheimer graduate; Dalrymple was from M.I.T.
He came in, brash and cheerful. "Good morning, Superintendent.
Morning, Mr. Witherspoon. What can I do for you?"
Glumly, Tiny told the story. Dalrymple looked smug. "She's right, old
man. You can send her back and even specify a male relief. But I can hardly
endorse 'for proper cause' now, can I?"
4
 "Damnation. Dalrymple, we can't have a woman around here!"
"A moot point. Not covered by contract, y'know."
"If your office hadn't sent us a crooked gambler as her predecessor I
wouldn't be in this am!"
"There, there! Remember the old blood pressure. Suppose we leave
the endorsement open and arbitrate the cost. That's fair, eh?"
"I suppose so. Thanks."
"Not at all. But consider this: when you rushed Peters off before
interviewing the newcomer, you cut yourself down to one operator.
Hammond can't stand watch twenty-four hours a day."
"He can sleep in the shack. The alarm will wake him."
"I can't accept that. The home office and ships' frequencies must be
guarded at all times. Harriman Enterprises has supplied a qualified operator;
I am afraid you must use her for the time being."
Tiny will always cooperate with the inevitable; he said quietly, "Dad,
she'll take first shift. Better put the married men on that shift."
Then he called her in. "Go to the radio shack and start makee-learnee,
so that Hammond can go off watch soon. Mind what he tells you. He's a good
man."
"I know," she said briskly. "I trained him."