"There will be plenty. With the ability you have already shown, and with our vast resources back of you, you will take more every week than you have been taking in a year."
"Yeah? People like you just love to do things like that for people like me. What do you figure on getting out of it?" Kinnison wondered, and Lensed a sharp thought to his junior at the board.
"On your toes, Frank. He's stalling for something, and I'm betting it's maulers."
"None detectable yet, sir."
"We stand to gain, of course," the pirate admitted, smoothly. "For instance, there are certain features of your vessel which might—just possibly, you will observe, and speaking only to mention an example—be of some interest to our naval designers. Also, we have heard that you have an unusually hot battery of primary beams. You might tell me about some of those things now; or at least refocus your plate so that I can see something besides your not unattractive face."
"I might not, too. What I've got here is my own business, and stays mine."
"Is that what we are to expect from you in the way of co-operation?" The commander's voice was still low and level, but now bore a chill of deadly menace.
"Co-operation!" The cutthroat chief was unimpressed. "I'll maybe tell you a thing or two—eat out of your dish—after I get good and sold on your proposition, whatever it is, but not one second sooner!"
The commander glared. "I weary of this. You probably are not worth the trouble, after all. I might as well blast you out now as later. You know that I can, of course, as well as I do."