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

I'd been assured the inspector wouldn't be able to spot that the manifests had been falsified. I mentally
crossed my fingers and hoped the assurances were accurate.

Apparently they were. The inspector moved on to more items on the checklist, mostly dealing with
equipment. "It's been a long time since your last engine certification."

"We're within limits."

"Time-wise, maybe." She gave the entry lock another look. "How well does your gear still work?"
It wouldn't take a lot of experience for her to guess our gear wouldn't pass a certification test right now.
"It works fine."

"Maybe I ought to look at it."

Maybe. I knew what that meant. "Hey, I just remembered something. Can you hold here just a sec?"

She gave her watch an annoyed look and nodded. I went straight to my quarters. In the bottom of one
drawer, well wrapped, I found the bottle and carefully carried it out. "I've got a friend in port I meant to
give this. But I forgot. Could you get it to him?"

"I suppose." She took the bribe, examining the label as if ready to reject it, but then her face cleared.
"From Mother Sol?"

"Yeah." Mother Sol was a long, long ways from the port of Mandalay orbiting the planet of the same
name orbiting the star humans had named Ganesha. Anything from Sol, even rotgut, had the exotic aura
imbued by great distance, and this wasn't rotgut. "From Martinique. That's an island. It's good rum. You
ought to try some."

"Maybe I will. I guess this friend isn't that special if this is all you got him."

I shrugged and gestured at the entry lock. "Funds are pretty short right now. It's all I could afford."

"Okay." Cover story for the bribe established for the benefit of any hidden recorders, and her questioning
whether we could give her a bigger payoff also fielded, the inspector pocketed the bottle. "You're
cleared for departure. But I've tagged your ship entry. Next time you hit this port you'd better have a
recent engine certification or we'll do a full inspection."

"No problem."

She grinned at what we both knew was a lie, then headed off, patting the place where she'd stashed that
rum. Damn. I'd been saving it for a special occasion. But like just about everything else, I'd had to use it
in an emergency.

I checked the lock's log to confirm everyone was aboard, then sealed the lock tight. "Able Spacers
Kanidu, Jungo, and Siri. Meet me in the crew's mess."

The two tables grandly labeled the crew's mess had plenty of empty places even when breakfast was
supposedly being handed out. Dingo wasn't here, of course, but we had a lot of unfilled slots. We
couldn't afford to pay for a full crew, but then again that wasn't really a problem because it was so hard