“Sure, but it won’t last. Not when the folks back in Capella and Deneb and Sol System hear about it.”
“Six months,” said Englander bleakly. “It’ll take at least that long.”
“Six months I can wait. What d’you say?”
Englander coughed wrackingly, his eyes watering. He got off the bed and shook Ramsey’s hand solemnly. Ramsey gave him three hundred and seventy-five credits and said: “Just see you make that go a long way supporting Sally and the kids. I don’t want to see you dropping any of it at the gaming tables. I’ll knock your block off if I see you there.”
“I’ll knock my own block off if I see me there. Jase, I don’t know how to thank—”
“Don’t is right. Forget it.”
“Do you have enough—”
“Me? Plenty. Don’t worry about old Jase.” Ramsey went to the door. “Well, see you.”
Englander walked quickly to him and shook his hand again. On the way out, Ramsey played for a moment or two with the twins, who were rolling a couple of toy spaceships marked hyper-one and hyper-two across the floor and making anachronistic machine-gun noises with their lips. Sally Englander, a plump, young-home-maker type, beamed at Ramsey from the kitchen. Then he went out into the gathering dusk.
As usual on Irwadi, and particularly with the coming of night, it was bitterly cold. Sucker, Ramsey told himself. But he grinned. He felt good about what he’d done. With Stu sick, and with Sally and the kids, he’d done the only thing he could do. He still had almost twenty-five credits left. Maybe he really would have a lucky night at the tables. Maybe … heck, he’d been down-and-out before. A fugitive from Earth didn’t have much choice sometimes….