"Robert Reed - A Place With Shade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

stood there enjoying impolite conversation, an army of robots was beneath the
deep water-ice crust, gnawing at rock, harvesting metals to be sold at a
profit
throughout the district.

"What do you think of my little home, Mr. Locum? Speaking as a professional
terraformer, of course."
I blinked, hesitating again.

"Please. Be honest."

"It belongs to a miser." Provo didn't have propriety over bluntness. "This is
cheap Arctic package. Low diversity, a rigorous durability, and almost no
upkeep. I'm guessing, but it feels like the home of a man who prefers
solitude.
And since you've lived here for two hundred years, alone most of the time, I
don't think that's too much of a guess."

He surprised me, halfway nodding.

"Your daughter's how old? Thirty?" I paused, then said, "Unless she's exactly
like you, I would think that she would have left by now. She's not a child,
and
she must be curious about the rest of the Realm. Which makes me wonder if I'm
an
inducement of some kind. A bribe. Speaking as a person, not a terraformer, I
think she must be frighteningly important to you. Am I correct?"

The brown eyes watched me, saying nothing.

I felt a brief remorse. "You asked for my opinion," I reminded him.

"Don't apologize. I want honesty." He rubbed his rounded chin, offering what
could have been confused for a smile. "And you're right, I do bribe my
daughter.
In a sense. She's my responsibility, and why shouldn't I sacrifice for her
happiness?"

"She wants to be a terraformer?"

"Of the artistic variety, yes."

I moved my feet, cold gravel crunching under my boots.

"But this 'cheap package,' as you so graciously described it, is a recent
condition. Before this I maintained a mature Arctic steppe, dwarf mammoths
here
and a cold-water reef offshore. At no small expense, Mr. Locum, and I'm not a
natural miser."