The worst of it was that Atvar H’sial was right. The Indulgence had been designed for piloting by a five-armed Chism Polypheme, with all the arms on one side of his body. Louis Nenda found the pilot’s seat inconvenient, to put it mildly, but at least he and the Polypheme both possessed eyes. If blind Atvar H’sial had tried to take the Indulgence out of the Torvil Anfract, she and Louis Nenda would have died in the first hour of flight.

That was logic, and undeniable. But Louis was not interested in logic. Whenever there was a free moment he turned to glare at the sleeping hulk of his business partner; he thought about reprisals.

Not physical ones. That wouldn’t work with someone twice his size and four times his strength. The most effective revenge on Atvar H’sial was to cheat her. But how was he going to do that, when neither of them owned anything? Even their slaves were gone. If he managed to find his way back to Glister and his beloved Have-it-all, that ship was Nenda’s. It was hard to see any way to use the Have-it-all to cheat Atvar H’sial.

Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Louis kept that in mind, while he brooded over Atvar H’sial. What sort of stupid creature was it anyway, who saw using sound, and talked using smell? And in spite of this, his partner thought herself superior to humans and everyone else in the spiral arm.

As he schemed and fumed, the Indulgence under his careful guidance crept clear of the Anfract. His annoyance was so absorbing, it was almost an anticlimax when the panorama of star-dogs and the pinwheel fireworks of rotating micro-galaxies suddenly ended, and he saw ahead a clean, undistorted starfield.