Книга только для ознакомления
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He became aware that he was droning back to Pop the lesson he had learned. "Did I get it right?"
"Yes. Now go to sleep. Sleep the rest of the night"
Baslim was gone in the morning. Thorby was not surprised; Pop's movements had been even less predictable than usual lately. He ate breakfast, took his bowl and set out for the Plaza. Business was poor -- Pop was right; Thorby now looked too healthy and well fed for the profession. Maybe he would have to learn to dislocate his joints like Granny the Snake. Or buy contact lenses with cataracts built into them.
Midafternoon an unscheduled freighter grounded at the port. Thorby started the usual inquiries, found that it was the Free Trader Sisu, registered home port New Finlandia, Shiva III.
Ordinarily this would have been a minor datum, to be reported to Pop when he saw him. But Captain Krausa of the Sisu was one of the five persons to whom Thorby was someday to deliver a message, if and when.
It fretted Thorby. He knew that he was not to look up Captain Krausa -- that was the distant future, for Pop was alive and well. But maybe Pop would be anxious to know that this ship had arrived. Tramp freighters came and went, nobody knew when, and sometimes they were in port only a few hours.
Thorby told himself that he could get home in five minutes -- and Pop might thank him. At worst he would bawl him out for leaving the Plaza, but, shucks, he could pick up anything he missed, through gossip
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