"Do I?" Kinnison did sneer, this time. "Act your age, pal. As I told that fool Harkleroy, this ain't the first planet I ever sat down on, and it won't be the last. And don't call no maulers," as the Boskonian officer's hand moved almost imperceptibly toward a row of buttons. "If you do, I start blasting as soon as we spot one on our plates—and they're full out right now."
"You would start blasting?" The zwilnik's surprise—almost amazement—was plain, but the hand stopped its motion.
"Yeah—me. Them heaps of scrap metal you got up there don't bother me a bit, but maulers I can't handle, and I ain't afraid to tell you so because you probably know it already. I can't stop you from calling 'em, if you want to, but bend both ears to this—I can outrun 'em, and I'll guarantee that you personally won't be alive to see me run. Why? Because your ship will be the first one I'll whiff on the way out. And if the rest of your heaps stick around long enough to try to stop me, I'll whiff twenty-five or thirty more of them before your maulers can get close enough so that I'll have to flit. Now, if your brains are made out of the same kind of thick, blue mud that Harkleroy's was, start something!"
This was an impasse. Kinnison knew what he wanted the other to do, but he could not give him a suggestion, or even a hint, without tipping his hand. The officer, quite evidently, was in a quandary. He did not want to open fire upon this tremendous, this fabulous ship. Even if he could destroy it, such a course would be unthinkable—unless, indeed, the very act of destruction would brand as false rumor the tales of invincibility and invulnerability which had heralded its coming, and thus would operate in his favor at the court-martial so sure to be called. He was very much afraid, however, that those rumors were not false—a view which was supported very strongly both by Thyron's undisguised contempt for the Boskonian warships threatening him and by his equally frank declaration of his intention to avoid engagement with craft of really superior force. Finally, however, the Boskonian perceived one thing that did not quite fit.
"If you are as good as you claim to be, why aren't you doing a flit right now?" Mendonai asked, smoothly. "If you could get away, I should think that you'd be doing it. We've got stuff, you know, that's both heavy and fast."
"Because I don't want to flit, that's why. Use your head, pal." This was better. Mendonai had shifted the conversation into a line upon which the Lensman could do a bit of steering. "I had to leave the First Galaxy because it got too hot for me, and I got no connections at all, yet, here in the Second. You folks need certain kinds of stuff that I've got, and I need other kinds, that you've got. So we could do a nice business, if you wanted to. That was what I had in mind with Harkleroy, but he got greedy. I don't mind saying that I'd like to do business with you, but I just got bit pretty bad, and I'll have to have some kind of solid guarantee that you mean business, and not monkey business, before I take a chance again. See?"
"I see. The idea is good, but its execution may prove difficult. I could give you my word, which I assure you has never been broken."
"Don't make me laugh." Kinnison snorted. "Would you take mine?"
"The case is different. I would not. Your point, however, is well taken. How about the protection of a high court of law? I will bring you an unalterable writ from any court you name."