“Oh,” the lady said in an arch voice, “how much?” Becker named his price. About a half dozen times more than the stuff was worth. She smiled and methodically cut it down to a pittance. He named a price more than four times what the merchandise should bring, and the bargaining began in earnest. The problem was, he was nearly selling out here. It would put him out of business until he collected more salvage. He wanted enough profit to float him and RK for a good long time, with enough left over to at least maybe take a little vacation, preferably somewhere there were still Didis or pleasure houses in operation.
“Look, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I wasn’t going to show you this, but you’re a pretty lady and I can tell you have exquisite taste. You give me my original asking price and I’ll throw this in for free.” He reached into his pocket and drew forth the bit of spiral stone that RK had let him keep. “Give it to your jeweller, he can cut and shape it into a fabulous suite of jewellry for…”
The “woman’s eyes widened when she saw it, and she snatched it from his hand. She began to laugh. Not a pretty laugh either. “Where did you get this?”
“Found it,” he said, with a shrug.
“Found it?” She laughed again. “On whom? I mean, where?”
“Now that would be telling,” he said. “Just be glad you’ve got it and nobody else does. A rare find, princess.” Part of him thought that if she liked it so much, he should show her the rest of the stones, but that would mean trying to get RK off the specimen bag. Frankly, he liked the cat a lot better than he liked this woman. He already deeply regretted letting her have this sample for nothing-well, nothing except making her pay a lot more than she’d wanted to for the items she needed.
“Yes, indeed,” she said. “What a pity you can’t get more. I have an excellent market in mind.” She thrust her skinny chest toward him. “We might even go into partnership.”
“Gee, just my bad luck. But you know how it is,” he said with a shrug. “Sometimes you just happen onto a good thing and you may never find it again.” He wouldn’t part with any more of the spiral stones until he knew what she knew about them that made her so interested in the one he let her have. The things were probably worth a lot more to someone else than what she was offering him.
“Pity,” she said, her eyes as hard and narrowed as RK’s. For some reason she seemed to doubt his veracity. Good. That made them even.
She handed him a big wad of credits. They were issued in the name of Lady Kisia Manjari. He counted and pocketed them.
“Great. It’s a deal then.”
“If you’ll step aside, I’ll have my crew reload your container and use it to transport my merchandise,” she said.
“Fair enough. Come on, RK,” he said to the cat, and grabbed the specimen bag RK was sitting on. The cat spat at the woman again.
Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “I just bought everything here, including that mangy creature. I know a laboratory that would love to get such a specimen.”
Sorry, lady,” he said. “You bought everything on the list that your singed android friend there read. And the cat’s not on that list. I can’t sell him under any circumstances. Federation law prohibits it. RK here isn’t a creature. He’s my partner. A sentient being. The brains in the outfit really.”
“I want it,” she said and beckoned to her men. RK left bloody skid marks on Decker’s arm as the cat leaped over him and raced off, to be lost among the stalls. Becker grabbed his arm and dropped the collection bag on his foot, but recovered quickly, fumbling to close the mouth of the bag before Kisia could see what he had. He didn’t dare look around too much, so he didn’t see that one of the artifacts had slid out of the bag and rolled under an oxygen recycling unit.