Sliss blinked, twice, and Negu Mah nodded.
"Yes," he said. "If they carry out their plans as we heard them, that feeling will soon go. The sale of the Vulcan, even as stolen property, would give them many credits. After that—luxury, self-indulgence. And their natures are too weak to withstand the ravages of such things. So I have been troubled to know what to do.
"You see, my friend from Venus, though I would have let Nanlo go had she asked me, my own honor is at stake when she seeks to deal me an injury by slipping away in the night, and stealing from me the Vulcan. She is doing evil, and must be punished. The young man, too—indulgent as I am, I can not let him dishonor me thus without paying any penalty."
Sliss' eye membranes shut, questioningly.
"Yet," the uranium merchant went on, "I have a fondness for Nanlo. I will not prevent her from doing as she has chosen to do, for the intent would still be there, and knowing it as I do, all between us is over. I can not aid her to fulfill her plans, either, for that is to injure her and myself too. But there is another course. I have chosen that."
He gestured with one plump hand toward the silhouetted ship.
"I believe they have entered the Vulcan," he announced. "I saw light as the entrance port opened then."
The amphibian's great, frog head nodded agreement.
"So," Negu Mah continued, "I have decided to exercise what indulgence I can in the face of the injury they would do me. They shall have their chance."
He fell silent again. Sliss leaned forward in his tub. Both of them watched intently. A flare of greenish light had sprung up beneath the black pillar that was the Vulcan. For just an instant the freighter stood there, green radiance expanding around her. Then she leaped into the sky.