Well, the rest is history, as the books say. With me still not believing a word of it, we made the trade, fair and open, as Akroida had said. She even let me stand by while her scorps copied the plans, and then I checked and rechecked a dozen times. Not a phony mark anywhere. When I handed over the emeralds, she cooed in rapture. A thing like that coo? Well, she did. Akroida didn't hardly know I was going. She just waved me, her lover-for-a-day, carelessly away and went on stroking those beauties, while the hopper-scorps hovered around in such crowds that Attaboy and I had to elbow our way out of there. As a parting gift, out at the edge of that hellish Red Spot, I reached out of the lock and handed Attaboy the little bottle with what was left of the perfume. "Here you are, pal," I tapped. "This'll promote you to Court Lover number one. Kiss the old girl for me." V Back on Earth I was still trancing around feeling the air with my fingers and pinching myself here and there just to make sure I had really got out of that inferno all in one piece, when they hauled me out to the airport to present me with my ship. They even made a ceremony of it and gave me a medal for distinguished service to Mankind. And who do you think presented the medal? I looked at the dapper little figure waltzing over all togged out in the S.S.C. uniform, and then I did a double take. It was no other than my old pal of the Iron College, perfume-manufacturer for hopper-scorps, Pard Hoskins. He came over and clapped me on the back, but I didn't feel a thing. I was paralyzed. So I'd been taken for a ride right from the start. So they'd outsmarted me all the way: out-fought and out-figured me, and even planted a stoolie on me and made me like it. I didn't hear a word they said, nor even notice when they pinned the medal on. When they got through with me, I just crawled into my beautiful new ship like it was an old tin can and headed out. I didn't even care right then if I landed back in Akroida's bony lap. I'd have stuck my head in her mandibles and told her, "Chew it up, Ak. It's just a cabbage, anyway." But a funny thing happened. Out there, mooning along all alone in the dark with not a soul in a million miles, I heard Akroida laughing. It was a horrible sound, a kind of metallic neighing and snorting, but pretty soon I began laughing, too. I didn't know what the joke was, but all of a sudden I knew I'd find out some day. It did me a lot of good. I braced up and went on to Venus, where I made some real good trades. I didn't try any more capers, though. I was all capered out. It wasn't until a year later, in a joint on Mars, that I ran into Pard Hoskins again. I gave him the old frost, but he only grinned sort of sad and touched me for some of that filthy Martian beer. He looked real seedy. "What's the matter?" I asked, as sarcastic as I could manage. "They sending you over the road again to nab another sucker?"