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. (I thought about asking my
darling to reassign the charges right then, through Teena. But I decided not to
crowd her about it. Damn it, "tanstaafl" is a basic truth, but "beggars can't be
choosers" is true, too-and at that moment I was a beggar. (Never a good
bargaining position.)
As for the foot itself, by invariant local custom "spare parts" (hands and
feet and hearts and kidneys, etc.) were not bought or sold; there was only a
service and handling charge billed with the cost of surgery.
Galahad confirmed this. "We do it that way to avoid a black market. I could
show you planets where there is indeed a black market, where a matching liver
might mean a matching murder-but not here. Lazarus himself set up this rule,
more than a century ago. We buy and sell everything else... but we don't traffic
in human beings or pieces of human beings."
Galahad grinned at me. "But there is another reason why you should not
fret. You had no say in the matter when a team of us hemstitched that foot to
your stump; everybody knows that. But also everybody knows you can't get rid of
it... unless you want to tackle it with your own jackknife. Because I won't cut
it off. You won't find a surgeon anywhere on Tertius who will. Union rules, you
know, and professional courtesy."
He added, "But if you do decide to hack it off yourself, do please invite
me; I want to watch
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