"As a consequence we find ourselves with only one alternative—a happy chance resulting from your arrival at Areopolis with this, ah, smiley."
I got it then. At first glance it was a neat enough idea; the catch was that Shanig didn't know his smileys. He couldn't put himself under Joey's euphoric golden-rule spell and still direct a big business.
And besides that I hadn't gone through the slimy hells of those Mimasan jungles to rehabilitate a burned-out old credit-shark like Hume Shanig. Joey belonged to humanity, to the poor overwrought hypertensive homos who really needed him.
"If you want my smiley to keep this old goat from snapping his leash," I said, "the answer is no. Joey would quiet him down like a country churchyard, sure, but—"
Shanig cut me short by smacking a peremptory hand on his desk top.
"That will be all, Dr. Humphrey," he barked. "Get out."
When the medic had gone Shanig turned on me. "I have no time to waste in haggling, Bailey. How much do you ask for this creature?"
I thought it over and it still read the same.
More was at stake than the wasting of Joey's talents on a bad hat like Shanig. There was the inevitable blowup that must come later. When Shanig found out what being too long under a smiley's influence could do to a homo with his financial responsibilities, there would be the devil to pay for fair.