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."
"Five hundred thousand and that's my last offer."
"So why should Hazel and I risk our necks?" I added, "Pixel! Leave that
insect alone!"
"Butterflies are not insects," Captain John Sterling said soberly. "They
are self-propelled flowers. The Lady Hazel taught me that many years ago." He
reached down and gently picked up Pixel. "How were you getting him to drink?"
I showed him, using water and my fingertip. Then Sterling improved on it,
offering the kitten a tiny puddle in the palm of his hand. The kitten licked at
it, and then was lapping cat-property, curling his dainty tongue down into the
spoonful of water.
Sterling bothered me. I knew his origin, or thought I did, and thus had
trouble believing in him even as I spoke with him. Yet it is impossible not to
believe in a man when you see him, and hear him, crunching celery and potato
chips.
Yet he had a two-dimensional quality. He neither smiled nor laughed. He was
unfailingly polite but always dead serious. I had tried to thank him for saving
my life by shooting what's-his-name; Sterling had stopped me. "My duty. He was
expendable; you are not."
"Four hundred thousand. Colonel, are there any deviled eggs down there?"
I passed the stuffed eggs to Rufo. "Shall I tell you what to do with your
sword in a stone? First, pull out the sword, then-"
"Let's not be crude
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