"Trance, I'm telling you." "That waitress really dug me." "We shared this thing, this,..., pure, special, cosmic connection." "Wasn't that what you said about that stripper you met on Mendocino Drift?" "The one who had the elbow spikes and threatened to perforate you, stick a light in your ribcage and turn you into a planetarium?" "She is not a stripper." "Her name was Dusky and she was a professional dancer." "Besides, Dusky was just an appetizer." "Hello, my name is Kathleen is an all-you-can-eat buffet." "Harper, you're supposed to be using Tundra Flowers to spread good will for the Commonwealth, not meet pretty girls." "Hey!" "I'm all for spreading good will." "And if I'm very lucky, the good WILL commence any minute now." " You've invited her on board?" " No." "I chased her away with my gauss gun to avoid violating professional ethics." "That would be Kathleen." "You ready to see some stars?" "Why, thank you, Mr. Harper for such a kind offer." "Gerentex." "Now why do I get the feeling that you were expecting someone else?" "The long night has come" "The system Commonwealth, the greatest civilization was fall and now one ship, one crew are about drive back the night, they'll gush up the light of civilization on the starship Andromeda hope lives again" "Fear and Loathing in the Milky Way" "Hey, rat-face!" "You owe me 84,000 thrones!" "And sorry, but we're all full of failed, evil masterminds right now." "And you're full of something else, so try back tomorrow." "Don't push me, human." "I can't say that I'd mind indulging in a little senseless violence right about now." "Funny." "I was thinkin' the same thing." "Harper, be careful." "He has two loaded guns." "You only have a bad temper." " Aren't you...dead?" " I got better." "Lucky you." "Now, as much as I'm enjoying all this blustering," "I have an appointment with a lovely lady who demands my punctual arrival." " And you are going to take me to her." " What?" "We're not taking you anywhere!" "Let me put it this way, monkey-brain." "Either you take me where I want to go, or I'll send you back to Captain Valentine in a box." "Do you practice those lines in a mirror?" "Because they really need work." " No." "He's here." " Who?" "I'm looking for a Nightsider." "Well, we have one right here." "Don't stand there staring like he's the Vedran Empress!" "Get us out of here!" "He'll kill us all!" "Give it up, Gerentex, you're coming with me!" "Dead, alive, or otherwise." "What part of "Get us out of here" did you not understand?" "Ok." "Ok." "Move!" "Uh, please secure any loose articles, and keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times." "Oh, shut up." "Hey!" "Rommie." "I was wondering if you Ooooo, yuck." "Harper." "The amount of garbage he creates and consumes boggles the mind." "Take this disgusting substance, for example." "Sparky Cola." "It has no nutritional value, rots the teeth, and slowly dissolves the digestive tract." "And yet he imbibes at least three thousand milliliters of it every single day." "Yeah." "Harper's twin muses:" ""chaos and caffeine."" "Somehow, I don't think you came here to discuss Harper's hygiene." "No." "Actually, it's Dylan." "He's been walking around brooding for the last week." "To be honest, it's a little, uh, disturbing." "I was hoping you'd know what was bothering him." "It's personal." "Rommie, as long as I'm acting as Dylan's First Officer, it's my job to look out for him." "I need to know what's going on." "Back in the days of the Commonwealth, High Guard captains were typically assigned four-year tours of duty." "In a few days time, Dylan will have been aboard this ship for four years." "His final act as captain would have been to inspect the Andromeda and turn command over to his executive officer, Gaheris Rhade." "His best friend." "The guy who tried to kill him." "I guess now would be a bad time to give him some bad news." "Bad news?" "See for yourself." "That is bad." "So, care to tell us the name of your girlfriend back there?" "If you must know, he goes by the name of "Reaper"." "Bounty hunters, so unimaginative." "So there's a price on your head." "Oh, good." "Maybe I'll get my money back after all." "If I were you, I'd spend less time trying to plot MY downfall and more time trying to guess what I'm going to do with the two of you." "Oh, I love playing guessing games!" "Call me a traditionalist, but when I kill someone, I really do prefer it when they stay dead." "Now, be quiet, the two of you." " I'm trying to think." " Don't strain yourself." "Fine." "If you don't want me to come up with a way to integrate you into my brilliant plans and use you to my advantage, then I'll just kill you now and be done with it!" "No." "No!" "We want you to think." "We encourage you to think." "Hell yeah!" "We'll even help you." "Why don't you, uh, tell us what you're up to, and we'll see if we can make ourselves useful." "Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" "Let's have old Gerentex take us into his confidence, reveal his latest scheme for wealth and success, and then we'll betray him and keep it all for ourselves!" " We would never do that." " I would." "True." "Why do I bother?" "ah-ah." "Not so fast, rat-face." "If you shoot me, it's Dosva-Bye-Bye for you." "Well, I'm sure you've got some explanation to back up your pathetic little threats." "How's this for a little known, yet highly entertaining fact?" "You see, whenever the teacher lets us take the Maru out on these little class field trips, I key the power generators to my life signs." " You do?" "See?" "Little known." "The point is, if my life signs should suddenly, I dunno expire, the generators overload and explode like that." "In a heartbeat,..., in MY heartbeat." "You'd blow up this whole ship with your little purple friend on board?" "Trance has come back from the dead before." "She's,..., tricky that way." " What makes you think she can't do it again?" " Well, let's find out, shall we?" "No!" "Yeah." "What he said." "No." " You hurt her, and I will kill you myself." " You and which Vedran cavalry, my boy?" "You don't get it, do you?" "You harm one hair on her head, and I will come after you." "And then you'll have to kill me, because I absolutely will not stop until one of us is Magog food." " You're bluffing." " Try me." "See if you can wrap your little rat brain around this." "You kill her, I kill you." "You lose." "You kill her and you kill me, the ship blows up." "You still lose." "Either way, you lose." "Excuse me." "Can we please discuss the "killing her" part?" "Fine." "I was hoping to save this for a more dire emergency, but I can see you two leave me no choice." " I'll have to resort to Plan B." " Plan B?" "Yes." "Plan B." "Son of a..." "I've just injected you with a microscopic generator which produces quite a nasty little shock." "All with the press of a button." "This button." "But why take my word for it?" "I believe the expression is "Show." "Don't Tell"." "Well." "Now." "Who's next?" "So, as I was saying, the Andromeda debacle put me into some serious debt to some rather unsavory characters." "Tell me, do you have any idea what the monthly interest on eleven million thrones might be?" "I know what it is on the 84 grand you still owe me." "I didn't even say anything!" "Oh, I am sorry, my dear, but I'm afraid I only have one button, and two hostages." "Where was I?" "Oh, yes." "My most brilliant plan ever." "Retrieve the Andromeda, deliver her to the buyer, auction off her Nova bombs, one by one, to the highest bidder." "Beautiful." "I should've been swimming in luxury by now." "Instead, I'm drowning in debt." "How tragic." "Oh, dear, my finger must have slipped." "Well, you know, in this business, you're only as good as your latest scam." "My strip-mining venture on Infinity Atoll, my Roboto-Courtesan manufacturing plant, the religion I founded." "All gone." "Forgotten." "This is the part where you're supposed to say "Oh, Gerentex, that's so sad."" " Oh, that's so sad!" " Oh, you're breaking my freakin' heart!" "So, I find myself on that rust-bucket drift with no way off." "And to make matters worse, I was on the verge of the Big Score, Harper." "Something even bigger than the Andromeda deal." "A bonanza of unparalleled plenitude." " Plenitude." "As in cash?" " Of course cash, idiot." "And then, who should I see but the two of you, handing out flowers and getting the brush-off from that snaggletooth waitress." "Hey!" "Kathleen was not snaggletooth." "And you should talk, smiley." " And is that where you came up with the evil plan?" " My dear, those are the best kind." "So the Perseids on Sintii Four think humans will screw up the new Commonwealth just like we did the old one." " Not all of them." "Just a faction on their High Council." "Hohne and your other supporters have, the motion locked up in committee, but it might not stay there." "I've spent almost an entire year trying to get worlds to sign up for the new Commonwealth." "I've managed to get three, and now one of them is threatening to back out." " That pretty much sums it up." "Yeah." " And now I'm supposed to convince them to stay?" "I mean who am I kidding?" "I'm a soldier, not a statesman." "Oh, don't be so hard on yourself." "You're at least as good a politician as I am a first officer." "Yeah." " That is a compliment, right?" " That's right." "Yeah." "Good." "I don't recall giving you permission to stop." "We are on a tight schedule." "Look." "I'm tired, ok?" "My butt's asleep and I got a mother of a caffeine withdrawal headache." "Could you at least grab me a Sparky?" "Oh, you want a Sparky?" "Here." "OK, listen to me, and listen very carefully." "Every time you press that button, it hurts a little less." "Keep it up, pretty soon it's not gonna hurt at all." "And then I'm gonna break free, crack your skull open, and drink a beer over your fuzzy corpse." " Harper, don't say that!" " What?" "You want me to be nice to him?" " You're supposed to be the good guy." " Correction." "Standing next to you, Beka, Rev, Rommie, Dylan, or .well anyway...then I'm one of the good guys." "But I didn't survive twenty years on that hellhole we lovingly call Earth by being Santa's little helper." "I survived by being the nastiest piece of work that ever clubbed someone over the head in a back alley over a hunk of cheese." "So, please, keep pressing that little button." "Get your money's worth." "'Cause then it's gonna be the worst day of the end of your life." "You know, I've always wanted to see a human glow in the dark." "It must be hard being a Nightsider." "Excuse me?" "Well, once the Commonwealth evacuated Korendar, the Nightsiders had no planet to call home." "Did you know that there are worlds where they shoot Nightsiders on sight?" "And they call US a threat to aquatic ecosystems." "Don't they realize that our children have to eat?" "It's not your fault that Nightsiders have hundreds of babies that eat everything in sight until they reach dry land and become sentient." "It's just the way you evolved." "Well, try telling that to a village full of Arswan fishmongers as they try to run you down and impale you on their boathooks." " It must be awful." "Oh, my dear, you don't know the half of it." "Do you know, the only way a Nightsider can survive these days is to be so filthy rich, so mind-bendingly wealthy that people can't help but accept you." "I'd accept you..." "loosening these ropes." "Why don't I just tighten them until your limbs pop like a Than grub under a magnifying glass?" "What's the matter, Gerentex?" "Artificial gravity misbehaving?" "Sorry, I'd love to help you, but I'm a little TIED UP." "Hey!" "Why didn't you do that before?" "Well, he was talking and I didn't want to interrupt him." "And he had that buzzer thing." "Well, it's broken now, so untie me." "I gotta go see a Nightsider about an obscenely large pile of money." "You have to promise not to kill him." "What?" "All right." "I promise." " Harper, you promised!" " I just promised not to KILL him." "You think this frightens me?" "I've been tortured by Nietzscheans." "What a coincidence." "So was I." " You wanna see some highlights?" " Hey!" "If this is that "good cop, bad cop" game you were telling me about, isn't this the place where I'm supposed to play "good cop"?" "Sorry, mon chéri." "Welcome to,..., a new game:" "Bad Cop, Worse Cop." "And,..., guess which one I am." "Gerentex, why don't you just tell us what we want to know?" " What do we want to know?" " Oh, the usual." "What's the scam, how do I get in on it, what's it worth, and where do I get my 84,000 thrones!" " I'm not telling YOU anything." " Gerentex, this is my nanowelder." "It can cut through a starship like a,..., Magog at a puppy farm." "Maybe it can jog your memory, huh?" "Hasturi's diary." " You're a fool." " N-N-N-N-No." "I hired one of my more reliable acquisition specialists to contact certain...parties." " They know where it is." " The original?" "The real one, not some bogus ca..." " OK." "What is Hasturi's diary, please?" " The journal of Hasturi?" "The mad Perseid?" "About a hundred years ago, he wandered the galaxy claiming he found a way through slipstream back to Tarn Vedra." "The diary is the documentation of his journey to the long-lost capital of the Systems' Commonwealth and all its wealth and splendor." "Whoever finds the diary and retraces his path to Tarn Vedra could command the galaxy." " Or get a Nightsider out of debt." " Oh, exactly." "And it's all..." " OURS" "You're gonna show us how to find that diary, and we're taking it." "So what do we offer the Perseids this time?" "Protection." "Peace of mind." "Mints on their pillows?" " Just don't let them dissect me." " Relax." "I'm not going to offer the Perseids anything." "If I did, I'd be making the opposition's case for them." "They say that we're no better than the Neitzcheans, and they'd be right." "We have to make the Perseids see that not all humans are consumed by greed for money, power, and control." " And how do we do that?" "Give them clean towels?" "OK,..., we use Gerentex's money to buy the diary's location." "Then we go back to the Andromeda, we tell Dylan." "Or maybe we don't have to tell Dylan." "Either way, we are going to Tarn Vedra where the livin' is easy and the women have four legs!" " Aren't you forgetting something?" " Uh, well let me see." "We get fame and fortune." "Gerentex gets nothing." "We make the biggest discovery in the history of the known worlds." "Gerentex gets nothing." "What am I forgetting?" "Nothing!" "Hostile weapons fire." "PDL's activated." " Reaper!" " Except him." " Harper!" "Slipstream!" " I'm working on it!" "But every time we're almost out of the star's gravity well,  Chuckles out there cuts us off and starts shooting again." "May I make a suggestion?" "Uh, let me think." "NO!" "Oh, you're right!" "Your plan is working SO well, you certainly don't need MY help!" "Make it quick." "I'll put this in a way your tiny mind can grasp." "Our pursuer wants to kill me, but he won't risk his life for it." "That's his weakness." "So if this is a problem in terms of psychology and mathematics our ship has fifty times the mass of his little fighter." "Fat lot of good it does us." "His ship is faster, better armed, and more maneuverable." " We can't out-shoot or out-flank him." " So don't." "Turn this whale around and aim straight at him." "If he gets out of our way, we escape." "If he doesn't, we run him down." "What?" "!" "?" "At that velocity, it would vaporize both of us." "Yes, yes, yes." "But he's a bounty hunter, not a physicist." "Any, uh, thoughts, your purpleness?" "Signs are hazy, ask again later." "But we're leaking pions and AG fields are barely holding." "Fine." "A game of chicken." "Let's bring it." "Entering slipstream." "Damn, I'm god!" "Hello!" "Does anyone remember whose idea it was?" "Shut up, rat." "Just tell me where to go." "I have SEVERAL suggestions." "Tell me we're nearing an end to this tedium." "Dylan's still planishes, trying to talk sense into the Perseids." "He might as well appeal to a Nightsider's generosity." "Blind idealism on overdrive." "So, he talks, and we sit." "Unless you've got any bright ideas." "Sadly, I doubt our beneficent commander would appreciate it if we were to nuke the planet from orbit." "Though I can hardly say I'd mind the exercise." "Threats won't work." "And apparently, neither will diplomacy." " Which leaves?" " Valentine-ology." "Albuquerque Drift." "Land of the expensive and home of the sucker." "Oh, this is so neat!" "You can win money, go to the all-you-can-eat buffet, and even enjoy the comedy stylings of the Supreme Mirth Inducer, Unru." "I dunno." "Perseid stand-up comedy?" "Some things are just SO wrong." "All right, let's get this over with." " Gerentex, are you there?" " Where else would I be?" "Oh, the injustice of it all." "The inherent brutality." " It's the system that keeps us Nightsiders down." " Yeah, yeah." "Cry me a river and drown in it." "Just identify your friend so we can get out of Loser's Palace, here, will ya?" "Look, at the bar." "Metal hair, nose-ring." "Miss Andulasia, I presume?" "And who wants to know?" " We're friends of Gerentex." " I prefer associates." "Oh, I don't think you can ever have enough friends, wouldn't you agree?" "Uh, yeah, uh...." "Shhhh." "I prefer my men strong and silent." " Well then you won't like Harper." " Trance!" "Will you..." "I..." "Much better." "So, I assume you're here about the data he wanted?" " Do you have it?" " Oh, I've got it." "I lifted it off of that wildcatter he told me about, not long before that unfortunate run-in with a faulty airlock." "That's great." "It's not great for him, but it is for us." "Harper, give her the flexi." "I think that's the amount you two agreed on." "Oh, it was." "But now, it's a zero short." "But, you had a deal." "Did you really think that I was gonna stick to that deal?" "That is so sweet." "When you get serious, you know where to find me." "And so do you." "She wants me." "She really wants me!" "She wants to get you alone, slit your throat, and rifle your pockets." " But go ahead, see for yourself." " I will." " Harper!" "Stay." " And do what?" "We can't raise that kind of cash, even if we sold the Maru." "Sure we can." "Yoshidono!" "Yoshidono!" "All hail the conquering Trance." "Place your bets, please, ladies and gentlemen." "Let it ride." "Bets please...and, no more bets, please." "Le jeu est fait." " Uh, Trance, I think we have enough." " But I'm just starting to have fun!" " Trance!" "Now." " I win again!" "Ok!" "Ok!" "Ok!" "This enough?" "Definitely." "Pleasure doing business with you." "Hey, if you want pleasure, you're talking to the right guy." "Thanks, but I prefer my men alive." "My purse?" "She just took my purse!" "H-h-hey, fellahs!" "Uh, nice place you got here." "You cheated us out of half a million thrones." "Ok, look, you want your money back, you gotta talk to the nice lady who just ran out that door." "You two!" "Where's Gerentex?" "I'm gonna turn him into a rug." "Well, that went quite well." "I think it went swimmingly." "THIS is why you kill him." "Aren't you forgetting the math, here?" "Dead Harper plus Reactor Overload equals Sayonara, Nightsider." "Yes, but it occurs to me that you don't have any vital organs in your kneecaps." "Do you?" "OK." "Much better." "You know, now that the moment is upon me, I must admit to feeling a tad misty." "Once I find Tarn Vedra, all the painful struggle, the years of yearning will finally be behind me." "I'll buy a lake." "Or maybe a small sea." "Start a harem of fecund Nightsider females who'll fill the water with furry tadpoles and watch as the strongest of our young devour the weak in the ancient dance of life." "Oh." "That is so beautiful." "Isn't it?" "You know, all I've really wanted was a home and a family of my own." "To change myself for the better." "You wanna change your life for the better?" "Put a bullet in your head." "Seamus Zelazney Harper, you take that back this instant." "Trance, THAT is the bad guy." "Habla es "bad guy"?" "Villain?" "Antagonist?" "Thug?" "Pain in the..."" "Just because he comes from a different culture with different drives and values doesn't make him a bad person." "That's strange." "Aren't we forgetting something?" "Yes, I think we are." "Something important." " OH YEAH!" "HE KILLED YOU!" " Not permanently!" "And after I saw what happened at the casino, I truly regret my harsh actions." "To think that I almost...hurt...such a sweet, understanding, profitable young lady..." "I promise I'll never do it again." "Oh, you don't have to explain." "I completely understand." "If you hadn't shot me then,  you could have lost control completely, and then where would you have been." " He was just trying to protect himself." " Exactly." "I couldn't let you play me for a fool then, and...!" "...NOT NOW!" "Et tu, Trance?" "You know, I REALLY hoped I wouldn't have to kill anybody!" "Why do you do this?" "Huh?" "Why do you point guns at people and threaten them?" "I find it very efficacious." "Well, I don't." "In fact, I think it makes you look like a complete butt-head." "And if you think you can try and kill me, well think again!" "No, in fact, I dare you!" "Come on!" "What's the matter?" "You afraid of a little purple girl?" "Yes." "You are." "Because you're a criminal, and all criminals are stupid, short-sighted, self-centered..." "You know, hurtful stereotypes like that give people like me a bad name." "No." "People like YOU give people like you a bad name." "If you had half the brain that you claim to have, you would know that if we had worked together, we would come out on top." "But no, instead you decide to play stupid power games about who gets to have control and who gives the orders." "If you keep walking down this path, you're going to end up a very unhappy person." "You really do care, don't you?" "Yes!" "Well, I don't care!" "I've got the gun, I'm in control, and everything is right with my world." "Hostile weapons fire." "PDL's activated." "Oh, yeah, you got the world on a string, baby." "And furthermore, if you can't see what you're getting out of this deal, then you are not just the most petty, self-righteous technocrats in three galaxies." "THEN, you're even stupider than you look!" "Stop." "Yeah." "I can explain about...this..." "Walk with me." "Oh boy." "It wasn't just that you insulted the Perseids." "It's the way that you did it over, and over, and over again." "And Beka, the language, it was..." "Dylan, when you recruited us to join your little quest, you didn't just appeal to the better angels in our natures." "You told us how it would be good for us." "Yeah, that's funny." "I remember that speech, and at no point do I recall suggesting that you "get your chins screwed on straight"." "Yeah, well, I got the Perseids' attention, didn't I?" "And now that I have it, we can remind them why the Commonwealth deal works for them." "Assuming they ever talk to us again." "Dylan, sorry to interrupt, but I have an incoming transmission from one of the Sintii Directors." "Probably Hohne calling." "Pipe it to my quarters." "I'll calm him down." "Actually, it's one of Hohne's opponents, and he's asking for Beka." "Faster, Harper, faster." "I'm doing the best I can." "Trance, any word from our adoring fans?" "They've just popped out of slipstream." "They're two light-minutes behind us, out of weapons range, but just barely." "As long as they can't catch us." "Best speed to Hasturi's asteroid." "This will have to be an in-and-out operation." "Hey!" "My favorite kind." "Ladies and germ, on your left, Hasturi's World." "Right next to the galaxy's biggest ball of twine." "Perfect." "Hasturi left the power on and everything's still pressurized." "Wow." "The lights are on, and nobody's been home for over a hundred years." "The guy must've been brilliant." "I don't get it, though." "There must be kilometers of tunnels in this rock." "I mean, why go to all the trouble?" "Maybe he was afraid of the dark." " Must've been a rough trip to Tarn Vedra." " Look, we can gape at the scenery later." "Right now, we have to find the mad Perseid's sanctum sanctorum." "Our pursuers can't be far behind and we all know what that means." "That you're gonna get down on your knees and beg for mercy like a little girl?" "There are two kinds of people in this universe, Mr. Harper." "The kind with loaded guns, and the kind who open doors." " YOU open doors." " Fine." "FINE." "Allow me to work the old Harper magic." " Open sez me." " Good for you!" "I think it's this way." "Now, if I remember correctly, wasn't Hasturi a paranoid." "Yes." "Like the purple girl in a room full of rocking chairs." "So, shouldn't he have set some traps?" "I am sorry, my dear." "Old habits die hard." "It's all right." "OK, this way." "Screw this!" "I'm not gonna be killed by some stupid trap to help you find MY diary." " Mr. Harper!" " Oh, for crying out loud, go ahead and shoot!" "If I gotta be killed, it's gonna be over MY fame and fortune, not YOURS." "So, excuse me." "I got a diary to go find." "Trance?" " But, Harper, we need you." " Yeah, to step on a plasma mine." "Set off your own traps." "On the other hand, maybe we should stick together!" "Run for your lives!" "But let me go first!" "H-h-hey, guys." "Aren't you a long way from the casino?" "..." "I don't understand." "Why am I the only one who attracts bullets?" "Oh, that's our High Guard ECM generators." "They mess up smart bullets really bad." "Trance!" "Are you out of your freakin' mind?" " I presume you mean that?" " Yeah." "We both have one." "How nice...for me." "Gimme." "Make my happy thought come true." "You dead." "That's my happy thought." "You are the one vulnerable to weapons fire." "I would suggest you save your own life before you try to deprive me of mine." "Now move." "Well they've stopped shooting at us." "I think they're dead." "Maybe they finally decided to cooperate." "Keep working." "Fine." "Fine." "FINE." "Sorry." "Now, sometimes, it's more important to understand why things work instead of how." "You see, these doors......." "And why is this important, class?" "Because power pressurizes the whole enchilada." " Faster, genius, faster." " Relax." "This door's solid fluorine mesh." "They're not getting through it unless they're packing nukes." "Now, as I was saying...oh..." "Hey, how you doin'?" "The thing is, what's been pressurized can be DE-pressurized." "That giant sucking sound you hear is Reaper and company leaving the building." " You are a very bad person." " You're welcome." "Now let's move on to the main course so I can get off this rock." "This is it." "Hasturi's lair." "Yeah, judging by the, uh, dead Perseid with the hole in his head, I'd say you're right." "Yes, Hasturi's story seems to have an unhappy ending." "Whoa, I guess paranoid people really do have enemies." "A dead Nietzschean." "I'm gonna go look for that diary." "Trance will find it." "You, stay there." "You know, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, though I don't know why you'd want to catch flies." "They're actually quite dirty little things." "Just find the diary." "Right." "Finding it." "If I was a diary of a mad Perseid explorer, where would I hide?" "Take your time." "My trigger finger never gets tired." "And if it does, well, I won't shed any tears." "I would." "For both of you." "You know, as much as I enjoy these long, lingerie looks into your beady little eyes," "I don't think I'm ready for a relationship." "I found it." " I have your ECM generator." " At this range, my aim's pretty good." " I just got word from the Council." " And?" "Nice work." "The Perseid's are back on board." "You know, they may not understand appeals to their better natures, but insults..." "insults they take to heart." "Well, it was a team effort." "Captain and first officer." "You set 'em up and I knocked 'em down." "Chinheads didn't stand a chance." " The Commonwealth thanks you." " I didn't do it for the Commonwealth." "I did it 'cause you're my friend and you needed me." " Is that right?" " Uh-huh." "Well, what do you have without friendship?" "Ummm, guys?" "It's been, like, twenty minutes now, and I'm really getting bored." "How 'bout this?" "I'm going to count to three and on three, you're going to get up, put your guns down, and we're going to talk about this like adults." "Great." "This'll be much better than yoshidono." "OK." "One." "Two." "Trance!" "She's quick." "Very." "I am so sick of this, you two." "With your violence and your threats and your shooting stuff!" "Neither of you gets it, do you?" "There isn't enough love in the universe as it is, and you're both just helping to kill off what's left." "So SHAPE UP!" "Because if you don't show each other a little peace, love, and understanding," "I am going to kill you BOTH." " Trance, you don't mean that!" " I do." "You know why?" "'Cause I could get away with it because I'm cute." " You wouldn't." " Oh." "Dylan, it was so horrible." "They just they killed each other right in front of me." "And I tried to stop them, really I tried, but I couldn't." "By the sacred light, she's right." "I can just see that High Guard fossil now, hugging her and saying "Trance, it'll be ok."" " While we lay here dead." " Drop your guns NOW!" "Or in a few days, Rev Bem's going to find me on the Obs Deck and console me on my tragic loss." " Drop our guns?" " Indubitably." "Good." "Very good." "Now, move!" "So, you get the diary and I get nothing once again." "Am I wrong to feel angry, disappointed?" "No." "You get something, the warm feeling of knowing that you did good." "We're docked." "Thought you might like to know." "This is it, then." "The big goodbye." "Are you sure you won't come with me?" "We could tour all the casinos in the known worlds." "Croupiers everywhere would tremble at the sound of our names." "Mmmmm..." "maybe another time." "You know, I really am sorry I shot you." "I know you don't believe me, but it's true." "Wait." "I want to give you something." "Here." "Anesterian Tundra Flowers?" "The most efficient oxygen producer ever discovered?" "I thought they were extinct!" "If I could get these three to reproduce, I can repay my debts." "I might even..." "You know, this is, um, the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." " Thank you." " You're welcome Everyone deserves a second chance." " But only one." "Or as many as they need." "Move!" "There's another crisis on Sintii!" "We've got five minutes!" "Again?" "What now?" "Segaria Beach." "Celebration for a job well done." "But we need to get our butts planished before the sun goes down." "Come on." "Move!" "Go go go!" "Hey, Trance, I know I got a little carried away back there, and I'm glad you talked some sense into me." "But you weren't REALLY gonna..." "shoot me...were ya?" "Absolutely not." "Not any more than you were gonna REALLY shoot Gerentex." "Right?" "Right." " So." "Still friends?" " Best friends." "Good." "You know what you've done, don't you?" "You've kissed off our entire tundra flower monopoly, our best commodity." "No, I haven't." "I gave Gerentex a beautiful thing to call his own." "Beautiful things can make sad people happy and bad people good." "When you think about it, beautiful things can change the universe."