"H. Beam Piper - The Cosmic Computer (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

Fawzi. I'd have to have a meal at Senta's before I'd really feel
at home."

"Well, it'll be a couple of hours. Suppose we all go up to my
office, in the meantime. Give the ladies a chance to fix up for
the party, and have a little drink and a talk together."

"You want to do that, Conn?" his father asked. There was an odd
undernote of anxiety, or reluctance, in his voice.

"Yes, of course. I'd like that."

His father turned to speak to his mother and Flora. Kurt Fawzi
was speaking to his wife, interrupting himself to shout
instructions to some laborers who were bringing up a
contragravity skid. Conn turned to Colonel Zareff.

"Good melon crop this year?" he asked.

The old Rebel cursed. "Gehenna of a big crop; we're up to our
necks in melons. This time next year we'll be washing our feet
in brandy." _

"Hold onto it and age it; you ought to see what they charge for
a drink of Poictesme brandy on Terra."

"This isn't Terra, and we aren't selling it by the drink,"
Colonel Zareff said. "We're selling it at Storisende Spaceport,
for what the freighter captains pay us. You've been away too
long, Conn. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a
poorhouse."

The cargo was coming off, now. Cask staves, and more cask
staves. Zareff swore bitterly at the sight, and then they
started toward the wide doors of the shipping

10

floor, inside the Airlines Building. Outgoing cargo was
beginning to come out; casks of brandy, of course, and a lot of
boxes and crates, painted light blue and bearing the yellow
trefoil of the Third Fleet-Army Force and the eight-pointed red
star of Ordnance. Cases of rifles; square boxes of ammunition;
crated auto-cannon. Conn turned to his father.

"This our stuff?" he asked. "Where did you dig it.

Rodney Maxwell laughed. "You know the old Tenth Army
Headquarters, over back of Snagtooth, in the Calders? Everybody
knows that was cleaned out years ago. Well, .always take a