he's wrong.
Well, it sounded
like he had an interesting proposition to put to us.
He may have or may not.
That's what we are going to find out.
I need hardly remind you
to stay on your guard at all times.
Personally, I'm more worried
about the in-flight linkup.
That's no problem
so long as Slave can match vectors.
Well, he says he can.
He says he's sorry most of the time.
I don't believe that either.
Keep awake, Vila.
(Beeping)
Welcome, welcome
to the Space Princess, everybody!
He's clean.
Of course I'm clean. What do you take me for?
Avon and I are old friends.
- It's good to see you, Avon.
- Nobody said, "Move", Keiller.
- Just relax.
- But not too much.
Say, Avon, what is this, old friend?
- Can't you keep your gang under control?
- They're not my gang, Keiller.
We are together for mutual convenience.
I imagine that if I double-crossed them,
they would try and kill me.
Just as they will kill you if you let them down.
So, shall we go into the office?
I'll explain everything.
- Well?
- This is the Space Princess.
A bit of a played-out old pleasure cruiser.
This is the purser's office of the Space Princess,
and this is the purser of the Space Princess.
- Are you with me so far?
- You're relaxing too much.
- Look, can't we keep this friendly.
- No!
- You're not the pilot then?
- No, I am not.
- So who is?
- As of now, nobody.
The ship's empty. She's been for a refit.
Look at all this new stuff.
- She runs home on auto.
- Where's home, Keiller?
Zerok, a frontier planet. You may not know it.
Not very modern.
I say home. She makes orbit herself
and a pilot comes up to take her down.
- Zerok, the gold planet?
- Right.
You've got it, old friend.
So shall we get to business?
- When we know what it is?
- Smart.
It's money.
Look.
We don't only carry passengers on this ship.
We have a small hold, and we carry cargo.
- Valuable cargo. Now can anyone guess what it is?
- Gold.
Right first time. Only it travels incognito.
We pretend it's fruit.
Zerok's a natural source of gold.
It's virtually mined out everywhere else,
so Zerok's rich.
- Who buys it?
- The Federation, lots of places.
It's still used as standard currency
in fringe deals with planets
that have no computer linkup.
All the gold going from Zerok
to the Federation goes by Space Princess.
- I don't believe you.
- Oh, you should.
This is a pleasure cruiser. It's got no armour.
I told you, it's incognito.
Listen, every so often they send up
a highly-armed ship
with security written all over it,
bristling with guards.
And every so often someone attacks it
and gets killed, which is crazy.
Because that ship's carrying fruit.
We carry gold with hardly any guards.
- How do you know about this?
- Me? Look at all this surveillance.
I'm a little more than a purser, you see.
I'm a security man.
A poorly paid one.
And you want us to help you get rich
by stealing the gold from this ship.
Right. 50-50, what do you say?
We will decide the terms.
Why pick on us?
You have a ship for the getaway
and a reputation for daring.
- Which you heard about where?
- Oh, I've known Avon a long time.
- We're old friends.
- That's not what I asked.
On the grapevine, my friend,
you're getting to be big news.
- 17 billion.
- 17 billion.
- That's what it's worth in direct exchange for cash.
- That's a lot of cash.
The idea's good, isn't it? Seems good to me.
It's all clear.
Maybe Vila should be here
to give us his professional opinion.
- Vila?
- He's one of us. He stayed on Scorpio.
In case of misunderstanding.
- This Vila, is he...
- He's a thief, and a good one
but we don't need Vila to tell us
the obvious, do we?
That no one, but no one, allows a fortune like that
to travel in an unarmed crate
with just two plainclothes guards.
So?
What's the snag, Keiller?
- The processor.
- The what?
At the mine on Zerok, they process the gold.
They change its atomic constitution. It turns black.