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Sure, Kitty. It wasn’t my idea, okay? But it’s not out of the question, either. You haven’t put any deposits down anywhere yet.
Ты еще пальцем о палец не ударила.
“Invitations are out. And we sort of have a deposit out.
Приглашения разосланы. И мы, вроде как, подготовились.

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They met in the middle. A tall, bald man held out a hand to Kris. "I'm Jason McDowell. My father started this station." He waved at the thin, graying woman leading the other women. "This is my wife, Latishia."
Kris shook his hand, then the woman's when she joined the group. "I have food packages for you. I was hoping to leave about a month's supply. How many people do you have here?" The man shook his head. "A hundred or so, but a month's worth of food is too much. They'll just come back and take it,” he said bitterly.
"We could hide some, Jason," his wife whispered. "They'd make us tell. Someone would give it out. They'd make us."
The wife looked away but nodded agreement.
"I guess we can come out here once a week," Kris offered, not really wanting the workload. Others now came from the barns, houses, and outbuildings; the number kept growing. Kris had expected to see guns. There weren't any.
"Before I can leave the food, I'll need every person's Identacard to verify the delivery."
"Don't have any. They took 'em." Jason dropped the words like lumps of hot iron.
"Does that mean you can't help us?" Latishia asked, her hands knotting her apron. The two silent women beside her clutched their children.
"We didn't drive all this way to tell hungry folks we can't feed them because of a paperwork snafu," Kris said. And Lieutenant Pearson can finish her policies in hell.
She chinned her mike. "Tommy, bring' em in."
Still, losing Identacards was no minor matter. For the last month, these people could have had their bank accounts emptied, their personalities misused on the interplanetary web. Anything could have happened to them while they were off net and unable to say a word in their defense. This did not sound like the work of local hooligans. ''With no IDs, I'll need photographs of everyone,” Kris said, then ordered Tom to break out a camera.
"Brother, if they've got a commlink, I could check our bank account," one of the men with Jason said.
"You do that, Jerry."
"Tom, see that this man gets a link to the net." Tom took the flood of orders with a grin and a "You got it, ma'am."
"Can you get everyone out here?" Kris asked.
"My mother is bedridden," Jason said. "I guess we could bring her down here, but..."
"I'll go see her. I'm just trying to keep the damn auditors from flaying me too badly when this is over."
"I understand. We're in business. . ." Jason stopped, glanced around, ended up staring at the muddy yard. ''We were."
"We will be again," his wife said, offering a hand that he flinched away from. As a commissioned officer, Kris ought to leave this well enough alone. Still, Judith would never have let Kris get away in therapy with dodging what these two were running from, and Kris owed Judith her life. In the mud room of the house, Kris shucked her poncho before taking the stairs slowly to the third floor. The house was made of wood, finely polished by work and use.