“Convince him! You’re supposed to be the salesman!” Kitten whispered. “We’re getting too close to the city.” The computer indicated the shrinking distance between themselves, and the island of Will’s Landing, on which Repler City had been built.

“I’ve no time to argue with you, Rose. Turn about and hand the drug over and I’ll see . . .”

“No good, Hammurabi. Sorry, lad. If this works out and you change your mind about me, I might give you a job as a taskmaster.”

“Taskmaster?” Mal whispered to Kitten. “He is crazy!”

“See, lad, I know a good bit more about this monster than you think I know. I even know more than you think I know you know. I believe some sort of agreement wherein I supply, oh, locations of certain storehouses, general information, military advice and so forth might work out to mutual benefit. This thing has wants. I don’t know how well it reads minds yet, or when.”

“Listen, old man, you’re asking for a quicker death than any you’d get from your own kind. There’s more at stake here than your life. Or ours. Turn the drug over and forget any insane ideas you’ve got about trying to ally yourself with the alien. You won’t even make a decent-sized snack.”

“You haven’t got another choice,” Kitten added.

“How kind of you to be so solicitous of my health, little bird.” He paused. “Your urgency intrigues me. You want the drug but are willing to let me go. What are you going to do, go into business for yourself?” he sneered.

“We think it might have some effect on the monster,” she pleaded. Mal looked at her approvingly. This was a new act. It had appeal.

Rose only found it amusing. Or perhaps he found everything funny now. He laughed openly.

“You ascribe too much power even to jaster! Now if you were to personally guarantee my safety . . . off-planet transportation . . . immunity from prosecution . . . why, I might, just might, consider it.”

“I . . . I can’t. Not with you. With what you’ve done. I can’t promise that for others.”

“Ha! You see?”

“No, wait, wait!” Her face was taut. “Mal, see if you can raise the Rectory. There might be a channel open. I think the Major would consent to the bargain.”

“You’re really going to try and make a deal with that old scum? After what he had done to you? After what he was going to have done to you?”

“Don’t make this any harder than it is, please!” She looked at him and this time it wasn’t an act, no.

Mal adjusted the transceiver to tune in to any open Rectory frequency. “That’s the first time you ever asked me a favor instead of threatening or blackmailing your way into it.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Expectedly, Orvenalix wasn’t available. Kitten got him available.

“Well, Lieutenant, things are certainly interesting around here.” He twitched his antennae in a motion indicating thranx sarcasm. “How does your garden grow?”