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A gray-haired man of infinite dignity said: "Well?" "I am," said Hoddan modestly, "a pirate. I have a ship in the spaceport with very convincing papers and a cargo of Rigellian furs, jewelry from the Cetis planets, and a rather large quantity of bulk melacynth. I want to dispose of the cargo and invest a considerable part of the proceeds in conservative stocks on Krim." The lawyer frowned.
But the first had been invented before by somebody in the Cetis cluster, and the second could have been made by anybody and the third was standard practice on Zan. He still had to do something significant. When he made fast to the liner and crawled through the boat-tube to its hull, he was in a state of doubt which passed very well for modesty.
Then he went off with great dignity but shaking with panic to think up more nonsense." "Evidently," said Hoddan in relief, "you believe me when I say that my gadget doesn't make deathrays." The ambassador looked slightly embarrassed. "To be honest," he admitted, "I've no doubt that you invented it independently, but they've been using such a device for half a century in the Cetis cluster.
As a matter of fact, that's probably been the case, some time in the past. So far as the gadget goes that they're talking about, it's been in use for half a century in the Cetis cluster. Nobody's died of it yet." Don Loris looked bitterly disappointed. "That's the truth?" he asked unhappily. "Honestly? That's your last word on it?"
Now he asked hopefully if he could reimburse the owners of the ship he'd captured off Walden. He could. Could he pay them even the profit they'd have made between the loss of their ship and the arrival of a replacement? He could. Could he pay off the shippers of Rigellian furs and jewelry from the Cetis stars, and the owners of the bulk melacynth that had brought so good a price on Krim? He could.
That was the landing grid in operation out at the spaceport, letting down a twenty-thousand-ton liner from Rigel, Cetis, and the Nearer Rim. Presently it would take off for Krim, Darth, and the Coalsack Stars, and if Hoddan was lucky he would be on it. But at the earliest part of the day there was only tranquillity over the city and the square and the Interstellar Embassy.
And then that pea diminished until the spaceship from Krim, Walden, Cetis, Rigel and the Nearer Rim had become the size of a dust mote and then could not be seen at all. But one knew that it was going on to Lohala and Tralee and Famagusta and the Coalsack Stars. Hoddan shrugged and began to trudge toward the warehouses. The durya-drawn landing ramp began to roll slowly in the same direction.
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