"I'll bet!" Reetal said cryptically.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Hm-m-m," she said. "Bad News Quillan! A really tough boy, for sure. You know, I didn't believe for an instant that you were after the Hlats—"
"Why not?"
Reetal said, "I've been on a couple of operations with you, and you'd be surprised how much I've picked up about you from time to time on the side. Swiping a shipment of odd animals and selling them to Yaco, that could be Bad News, in character. Selling a couple of hundred human beings—like Brock and Solvey Kinmarten—to go along with the animals to an outfit like Yaco would not be in character."
"So I have a heart of gold," Quillan said.
"So you fell all over your own big feet about half a minute ago!" Reetal told him. "Bad News Quillan—with no interest whatsoever in the Hlats—still couldn't afford to let Ryter live to talk about him to the Feds, big boy!"
Quillan looked reflective for a moment. "Dirty trick!" he observed. "For that, you might freshen up my glass."
Reetal took both glasses over to the liquor cabinet, freshened them up, and settled down on the armrest of the chair again. "So there we're back to the embarrassing little problem," she said.