“You lost me with your logic somewhere,” Tambu said. “Would you mind backing up and starting over?”
Blackjack rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Look, if you’re not in the business, then you’re looking for big guns to protect your cargo. If you’re willing to pay that much for weapons, it stands to reason what you’re protecting has to be pretty valuable. Right?”
“Keep going,” Tambu replied noncommittally.
“The odds of your bringing a valuable shipment through are low, at best. You can’t keep something that big a secret, and every space wolf around will be waiting for you. If you put up a fight, like it looks like you’re planning to do, you’ll probably not only lose your cargo, but your ship as well and maybe your lives.”
“And so you’re going to be generous and offer us a better deal,” Tambu said wryly.
“Why not? If you do it my way, neither of us lose any men, and we both come out of it richer. Everybody’s happy-except the insurance company that has to cover the loss. But they’ve got plenty of money.”
He beamed at them, obviously delighted with his own cleverness. Tambu matched him smile for smile.
“No deal,” he said flatly.
Blackjack’s face fell.
“Why not?” he asked in a hurt tone.
“Just because we aren’t pirates doesn’t mean we’re stupid. What if we give you our flight plan and run out the welcome mat when you show up. What’s to keep you from shooting our ship and us full of holes and keeping the whole pie instead of just half?”
Blackjack was no longer smiling.
“I’ll assume you aren’t willing to take my word for it…”