"Are you trying to sell me a lucky charm, Mytor?"
The Venusian laughed.
"Would you call a space ship a lucky charm, Mr. Ransome?"
"No," Ransome said grimly. "If it were berthed across the street I'd be dead before I got halfway to it."
"Not if I provided you with a guard of my men."
"Maybe not. But I wouldn't have picked you for a philanthropist, Mytor."
"There are no philanthropists on Yaroto, Mr. Ransome. I offer you escape, it is true; you will have guessed that I expect some service in return."
"Get to the point." Ransome's eyes were weary now that the woman's dancing no longer held them. And there was little hope in his voice.
A man can put off a date across ten years, and across a hundred worlds, and there can be whiskey and women to dance for him. But there was a ship with burned-out jets lying in the desert outside this crumbling city, and it was the night of Bani-tai, the night of expiation in distant Darion, and Ransome knew that for him, this was the last world.
After tonight the priests would proclaim the start of a new Cycle, and the old debts, if still unpaid, would be canceled forever.