"John G. Hemry - Lady Be Good" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemry John G)

Our IDs got us onto the pier and onto the ship. Dingo paused outside his quarters, swaying on his feet as
if our ship was riding on a planetary ocean. "Ya sure this is okay, Kilcannon?"

"Yeah. No problem."

"I'm gonna get my kit."
"You do that." I gestured him inside. Dingo grinned and staggered into his quarters. I waited until he was
almost to the bunk, then keyed in the security override on the hatch. Dingo was still turning his head to
see what the noise was when the hatch slid shut and locked. I heard a roar of anger, followed a second
later by the impact of Dingo's body against the hatch. Silence followed, so apparently Dingo had
knocked himself out. Hopefully he wasn't hurt too badly. I had no intention of cracking that hatch before
the ship was safely underway tomorrow. "See you in the morning, Third Officer Dingo."

I walked down the passageway, easily seeing dark patches of mold on the overhead even in the dimmed
night lighting of the ship. The Lady Be Good badly needed a full-scale fumigation, but that was just one
of the things she badly needed that she wasn't going to get any time soon.
****
The port inspector arrived half an hour late to give us departure clearance. As far as I knew, Dingo still
hadn't awoken and started demanding his freedom, and none of the three new sailors had shown any
signs they suspected our destination wasn't the same one they'd signed on for. The inspector gave the
entry lock of the Lady a sour look, but she couldn't flunk us on the basis of that lock. I kept that working
even if it wasn't pretty.

The inspector ran down the checklist. "You claim you've signed on enough new sailors to meet minimum
crew requirements."

"That's right." You couldn't be too subservient or the public servants would ride right over you, but you
couldn't dis ├втВм╦Ьem either. Not if you were smart. "You can confirm they're onboard from the pier access
records."

"There's ways to gimmick those records."

"I wouldn't know anything about that."

"I bet you don't." She picked a name at random. "I want to see Able Spacer Kanidu. In person. Here."

"Okay." Odds had favored her picking one of the new hires, but I'd still worried she might ask to see
Dingo. Dingo would come around once we were underway. He always did after any little
misunderstandings while he was drunk. But right now he'd still be a bit upset with me.

Kanidu answered the hail quick enough. Short and stout, she gave the inspector a bland look and
confirmed all of her qualification data. Finally satisfied, the inspector let the sailor go. "I need to verify
your cargo manifest."

"Sure." I let her plug into the ship systems and check the cargo containers. A really good inspector
would've suited up and crawled over the big cargo containers fastened around Lady's core, even opening
the loading doors to check that the contents matched the manifests. But really good inspectors didn't
work the early morning weekend shifts and didn't bother with small freighters like Lady, so it'd been safe
to assume we'd just get a manifest check.