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. Captain. You're paying the bill."
"So I am." A half-stellar note went through a crack in the cab.
When the truck slowed, Krausa went to the tailgate. As it stopped he reached down and snaked Thorby inside. "Quiet!" Thorby nodded and trembled. Krausa took tools from his pockets, attacked one of the crates. Shortly he had one side open, burlap pulled back, and he started dumping verga leaves, priceless on any other planet. Soon he had a largish hole and a hundred pounds of valuable leaves were scattered over the plain. "Get in!"
Thorby crawled into the space, made himself small. Krausa pulled burlap over him, sewed it, crimped slats back into place, and finished by strapping it and sealing it with a good imitation of the seal used by the inspectors -- it was a handcrafted product of his ship's machine shop. He straightened up and wiped sweat from his face. The truck was turning into the loading circle for the Sisu.
He supervised the final loads himself, with the Sargon's field inspector at his elbow, checking off each crate, each bale, each carton as it went into the sling. Then Krausa thanked the inspector appropriately and rode the sling up instead of the passenger hoist. Since a man was riding it, the hoist man let down the sling with more than usual care. The hold was almost filled and stowed for jump; there was very little headroom. Crewmen started wrestling crates free of the sling and even the Captain lent a hand, at least to the extent of one crate
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