NOTHING SIRIUS Fredric Brown PLEASANTLY, I was taking the last coins out of the machines and counting them while Ma was entering the figures in the little red book. I called them out as usual. Nice figures they were.
Yes, we’d had a good play on both of the Sirius planets, Freda and Thor. Especially on Thor. Those little Earth colonies out there are starved to death for entertainment of any kind, and money doesn’t mean a thing to them.
They’d stood in line to get into our tent and push their coins into the machines. So even with the plenty high expense of the trip, we’d done all right by ourselves.
Yes, they were right comforting, those figures Ma was entering. ’Course she’d add them up wrong, but then Ellen would straighten it out when Ma finally gave up. Ellen’s good at figures, and got a good one herself, even if I do say it of my own daughter. Credit for that goes to Ma, anyway, not to me. I’m built on the general lines of a space tug.
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