"Zach Hughes - Mother Lode" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

"You're sure that's not you?" she asked, coming out of the office waving
the check.

He laughed. "Nope. I'm 'The Computerman, the Century Series a
Specialty.' "

"Antiques," she said. The Century Series of computers was two
generations older than the Unicloud computers on Rimfire and all current
X&A ships.

"But solid," he said. "Look, my office is at the end of the main
administration building. I'll be glad to show the Lode to you any time."

"Can you help me sell her?"

"I guess so," he said.

"If the weather isn't too bad, I'll come over tomorrow."

"Fine."

"Give you a cup of coffee before you go?" She didn't know him, but he
had a nice smile and the house seemed so empty with only the little dog
for company.

"I really do need to run. I've got a rush job on a freighter that's
scheduled to lift for the Tigian planets tomorrow."

"Thank you for coming by."

He smiled, and for the first time his eyes showed that he had noticed
that she was a girl. "My pleasure."

She watched his aircar lift off and zoom up and away. The snow was
heavier. The ground was turning white. Mop had followed them out. He
lifted one leg and left a liquid message on a bush and then ran to wait for
her at the door. She went to the library and pulled down a reference book.

Mule Class tugs had been in deep space for almost fifty years.
Thousands of them had been built on Trojan during the last half-century.
A Mule was a stocky looking brute, knobby and squarish. She was
overpowered, built with a blink generator that could take her on half a
dozen jumps without recharging, hefty enough to enclose the largest ship
within her fields and jump with her in an electronic embrace. Spaceships,
after all, were just electronics and mechanics. Electronic things and
mechanical things had not changed since some Old One on Old Earth
invented the wheel. Machines broke down. Electronic circuits failed. And
if enough of them broke down or failed at the same time, a ship carrying a
crew and a valuable cargo or a ship with a load of passengers was