He could write. That in itself was amazing.

I said, «I couldn't tell you about the blackmail aspect.» We weren't shouting now. The undersea dome isn't really glass; it's something that absorbs shock waves, including sound, not to mention tsunamis.

Ander Smittarasheed grinned at me patronizingly. «Did you think you were putting something over on General Products!»

«At the time. I still don't know for sure. Maybe I was crazy to think that a spacegoing species wouldn't understand tides.»

«Maybe. But why would they send a human pilot to learn what they already knew?»

«Mmm … Ander, look at it this way. A university team sets out to investigate a cold neutron star. They make a mistake, probably without informing General Products, but they're using a GP hull. The ship comes back with the pilots dead in vividly gory fashion. General Products works out how it happened, but they'd rather not be seen as making excuses. Why not let someone of the same species solve the problem and then talk for them?»

«They seem to have had a good deal of faith in you.»

I laughed as if I hadn't a care in the world. «Oh, Ander. I wonder how many times they tried it.»

He thought it over. «No. They showed Sigmund your contract. They would have had to do that several times.»

«Yeah.»

«Beowulf, Sigmund would not have participated while they killed one pilot after another.»

I said, «Mad Bomber Sigmund? Ander, I never had any intention of stealing that ship.» I saw his look, but I went on. «Now, that could imply that Sigmund is a bad judge of character. Or it could mean that he braced … oh, a dozen pilots, each in turn. The odds of one of us stealing a ship get pretty good. Remember, if each of us does our job, the hull comes back at the end of the orbit. Those things cost.»