Maia

"And that's that!" she said. "Now you listen to me, banzi. I've jus' saved your bastin' life-I should think. Whether you realize it or not, that was the silliest damn' thing you've ever done. When Pussy came in I was just goin' to throw the blasted bear out of the window, but even that probably wouldn' have saved us. Just look out there; see? A flat, bare yard. They'd have found it all right, and they'd have guessed how it got there. Slaves can be tortured on mere suspicion of crime, you know. Still, that doan' matter now. But what I'm goin' to say does.

"Understand this once and for all: only ten-meld tarts steal from men. A girl who steals from men is a fool. I'm not talkin' about good and bad, or right and wrong, or any rubbish like that. I know it's a hard, unfair world full of rich, selfish bastards. But there are far cleverer and safer ways to take their money off them than stealin' it."

"Can't see that," answered Maia sulkily. "Strikes me as you-"

"Doan' speak to me like that!" blazed Occula, slapping her hard across the face. "Now that's for your own good! I've saved your fartin' little life and now I'm talkin' to you seriously, so you damn' well listen! Everybody's certain sure that all bed-girls are liars and thieves. So they are. We tell men the lies they pay to be told, and we steal men's

great stiff zards off their wives for money. That's business! But suppose you steal a man's money, or his rings, or his silver knives, or any damn' thing he's got when you're with him, you're just diggin' your own grave. A stupid girl says to herself, 'Oh, I wasn't caught, and what's more he daren' accuse me: his wife might get to hear, or he wouldn' like So-and-so to know where he'd been.' But none of that matters a baste. He'll know when he misses it, and so will the next fellow she steals from, andthe next. They woan' come back-and worse than that, she'll get a reputation, and likely enough a knife in her back one night. I knew a real, live girl it happened to! Stealin' becomes a habit, you see, and then one day you go too far. Every time's a big success until the last one. Believe me, a good girl can get far, far more out of a man's pocket without pickin' it. And they're so surprised to find you're what they call honest that you get one hell of a reputation-'Coo, an honest shearna!'-as if you were a god-damn' talkin' monkey or somethin'. So then you can take even more off them. And you doan' have to be afraid all the time, or wonder when you're goin' to be caught."

Maia digested this straight-from-the-shoulder advice in silence. At length she said, "When you gave it to him just now-the bear, I mean-weren't you afraid he'd think you might have stolen it?"

" 'Course not!" said Occula contemptuously. "He'd know perfectly well I'd never try and do anythin' so bastin' stupid."

"And why did you tell him that we wouldn't do what the man-"

"Did you want to do it?"

"Well, I don't know, really. I-I can't tell. But three hundred meld! I can't hardly believe it! We never saw that much in three months at home! I-"

"Well, to start with he wouldn' have paid you; he'd have paid Zuno, and I wouldn' mind bettin' the reason Zuno came here was because he'd been talkin' to the man after we'd gone, and quite likely been offered even more than three hundred. Some men go crazy when they can' get somethin' they want-you, in this case. But how much of it d'you think we'd have seen? Not a lot, if I'm any judge. And then, an Ortelgan-those squitterin' Telthearna turds! He might have wanted you to-oh, I doan' know-some beastly thing or other would have made you sick. And he

might easily be diseased-though I admit he didn' look it. I wasn' goin' to see you packed off to a man like that, just to put dishonest money in Zuno's pocket. Besides, just think! We'd have had a guilty secret from Lalloc. A nice way to start! And you'd never know when Zuno might not come out with it some other time, just to put the squeeze on us for some reason or other. Whereas now, we've got somethin' on him. He knows damned well Lalloc would have been dead against it. If you were some little drover's drab, 'twould have been different; but a girl like you, banzi? Oh dear, no! You're set for the top, my lass, and now U-Pussy knows we know it. With any luck you'll be in a position to piss on him one day."

"But won't he take it out on us tomorrow?"

"I doan' reckon so. In fact, we can use it a little bit on him, as long as we take care not to rub his nose in it. He wouldn' like us to mention it to Lalloc, you see. He couldn' possibly deny it; there's two of us, and we know the Or-telgan's name as well. But we doan' want to make an enemy of him. Jus' let him think about what we know, and that he tried to do wrong and we didn'."