"Why not what?" Maota dragged his eyes back.
"Negotiate."
"No." Maota's eyes grew hard as steel. They stood there in the sun, not twenty feet apart, hating each other. The two moons, very pale and far away on the western horizon, stared like two bottomless eyes.
"All right, then. At least it's a quick death. I hear that thing just disintegrates a man. Pfft! And that's that."
Michaelson prepared himself to move if the old man's finger slid closer toward the firing stud. The old man raised the gun.
"Wait!"
"Now what?"
"At least read some of the book to me before I die, then."
The gun wavered. "I am not an unreasonable man," the webfoot said.
Michaelson stepped forward, extending his arm with the book.