“I suppose you broke into Laj Drai’s safe and borrowed it.” The pilot was obviously incredulous.
“No. However, Drai’s suggestion of playing on the sympathies of the natives of Planet Three was a very good idea.”
“I suppose they gave you a hundred units for rescuing their kids.”
“As a matter of fact, it seems to be more like two thousand. I didn’t exactly count them, but they’re very neatly arranged; and if the unit you mean is one tenth of one of the cylinders they come in, that figure is about right.” The pilot might have been just a trifle uneasy.
“But there weren’t any landings after Drai had the idea — you couldn’t have asked for it.”
“Are you trying to insult me by saying I had to wait for Drai to have such an idea? I thought of it myself, but having been brought up with a conscience I decided against trying it. Besides, as I keep saying, I don’t know their language well enough yet. As it happened, the native I’d been talking to gave me a container of the stuff without my mentioning it at all. He seems to be a nice fellow, and apparently knows the value we place on tofacco. I fear I forgot to report that to Drai.”
Lee looked positively haggard as the likelihood of the story began to impress him; Feth, on the other hand, had brightened up amazingly. Only a slight expression of doubt still clouded his features — could the scientist be running a bluff? It seemed impossible; it was hard to see how getting started for Sarr would do any good unless he had a supply of that drug, and he had made no mention of forcing Lee to help them get it from Drai’s safe.
These points must have crossed the pilot’s mind, too; he was looking at the dwindling lump of sulfur with a growing expression of terror. He made one last objection, knowing its weakness even before he spoke.
“You won’t dare let it out — Feth has no suit, and you don’t have a helmet.”
“What difference does it make to us?”