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

small woman, five-feet-four-inches in height, one-hundred-and-twenty
pounds. She was just over thirty years old. She'd spent the last twelve
years of her life in the service, four of them at the Space Academy on
Xanthos, the last six standing watches on the navigation bridge of the
Rimfire. She had developed the faraway gaze of the deep spacer, but the
tiny squint lines at the corners of her large, almond-shaped, sea-green eyes
were becoming. Other than that her skin was flawless. Her nose, she felt,
was just a little too cute to be dignified. Her lips were wide and full.

She looked up as a tall, mature man came through the security door
onto the bridge. Her feet dropped to the floor.

"As you were," the newcomer said. "How's it going, Erin?"
 "Slow," she said.

"That eager to leave us?"

She shrugged. "Yes and no," she said truthfully. "I haven't seen my
father in six years."

"As I remember it you're from Terra II."

"New Earth," she corrected automatically, for Earthers felt that the
formal name of their planet was a bit stilted.

Lieutenant Commander Jack Burnish knew very well that Erin was a
New Earth girl. He knew quite a lot about her, for until she had learned
quite by accident that he had a wife and family on Delos III, she had held
nothing back from him.

"Commander?" she asked formally, breaking the silence. "Is there
something I can do for you?"

"ErinтАФ" He moved closer. There was a pained look in his eyes. For a
moment she remembered, and felt that soft, sliding, melting feeling in the
pit of her stomach. She shook her head, tossing her short, ashen hair.

"Erin, IтАФ"

"If you have no business here, Commander, I am on watch, you know."
Her voice was cold, service standard.

"I loved you," Burnish said.

She looked at him evenly for long moments, her face set in serious lines,
before she smiled and said softly, "Bullshit."

"I hope you find what you're looking for back on Terra II," he said.

She opened her mouth to correct him, but remained silent. For two