Billy's mom looked over the stuff. "I was hoping to get twenty dollars for the
lot, but if that's too much, I'm willing to come down."
"I'll give you thirty," my mouth said, without intervention from my brain.
They both turned and stared at me. Craphound was unreadable behind his goggles.
Billy's mom broke the silence. "Oh, my! Thirty dollars for this old mess?"
"I will pay fifty," Craphound said.
"Seventy-five," I said.
"Oh, my," Billy's mom said.
"Five hundred," Craphound said.
I opened my mouth, and shut it. Craphound had built his stake on Earth by
selling a complicated biochemical process for non-chlorophyll photosynthesis to
a Saudi banker. I wouldn't ever beat him in a bidding war. "A thousand dollars,"
my mouth said.
"Ten thousand," Craphound said, and extruded a roll of hundreds from somewhere
in his exoskeleton.
"My Lord!" Billy's mom said. "Ten thousand dollars!"
The other pickers, the firemen, the blue haired ladies all looked up at that and
stared at us, their mouths open.
"It is for a good cause." Craphound said.
"Ten thousand dollars!" Billy's mom said again.
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