Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

7 страница из 776

Lon Simpson heard the click as he began to describe, heatedly, what was in his mind. He said it anyhow. Then Cathy’s voice came from the exchange. She sounded shocked but sympathetic.

“Lon! Please!”

He swallowed a particularly inventive description of the manners, morals and ancestry of all the directors and employees of the Cetis Gamma Trading Company. Then he said, still fuming, “I told you not to listen!”

His wrongs overcame him again. “It’s robbery! It’s peonage! They’ve got every credit I had! They’ve got three-quarters of the value of my crop charged up for replacements of the lousy machinery they sold me—and now I’ll end the growing season in debt! How am I going to ask you to marry me?”

“Not over a beamphone, I hope,” said Cathy.

He was abruptly sunk in gloom.

“That was a slip,” he admitted. “I was going to wait until I got paid for my crop. It looked good. Now—”

“Wait a minute, Lon,” Cathy said. There was silence. She gave somebody else a connection.

The phone-beams from the colony farms all went to Cetopolis and Cathy was one of the two operators there. If or when the colony got prosperous enough, there would be a regular intercommunication system. So it was said. Meanwhile, Lon had a suspicion that there might be another reason for the antiquated central station.