"What I wanted to talk to you about—" said Ferguson, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "You understand, Cudyk, this is confidential. Strictly between us."
"I don't want any confidence that will be difficult to keep," said Cudyk.
"What do you mean?"
"If it is something that touches the safety of the Quarter—"
Ferguson waved his hand impatiently. "No, it's nothing like that. I just don't want it to get around too early. All right, use your own judgment. Here it is.
"Rack's coming back in about three weeks with his transport, to pick up anybody that wants to go to New Earth. I'm not going, and neither are any of my boys. On the other hand, I'm not going to stay here either. It isn't healthy any more.
"I don't know what Rack's got, but I've got a pretty good idea he's got enough to raise a lot of hell. Now you can figure the angles for yourself: maybe he won't bomb this planet because he thinks he can still make some use of the Quarter—but that's a big maybe. Even if he doesn't, it's a dead cinch there's going to be trouble. The Niori know he comes here, even if they can't prove it, and when the war starts they're going to be sore."
"Tell me something," said Cudyk after a moment. "If you knew all this long ago—and you must have, since you have been so closely associated with Rack—why did you help Rack, and so force yourself to leave Palumbar?"
Ferguson grinned and shrugged. "I'm not complaining," he said. "Rack never fooled me. I got mine, and he got his—it was a business arrangement. When you figure everything in, I can clear out now and I'm still ahead. See, you got to figure that nothing lasts forever. If I hadn't played along with Rack, he would have taken his business somewhere else. Maybe I could have stayed here a little longer, but then again, maybe I would have stayed too long. This way, I got my information in advance, and I got my profit from dealing with Rack.
"As a matter of fact, he thinks I and all my outfit are going to be on that transport when it goes back to his base. He knows I wouldn't take a chance on staying here when the shooting starts. What he doesn't know is that I got someplace else to go, and a way to get there."