"Hey! You've scared all my Pigro Beasts, outsiders!"
The Little Dwarf with the long elephant trunk was clearly furious. He looked ready to leap up and punch Su Ming in the knee, waving a hooked wooden shepherd's crook in his hand.
"If they're frightened, they might stop giving milk! I'll die of thirst!"
The planet had an arid climate of grasslands and rocky deserts, so water really was precious outside the rainy season.
These strange livestock ate grass and produced milk, which was also the natives' main source of water during the dry season. The outsiders' bustling town was in plain sight, but everything there cost Credit Points. Without money, you couldn't buy a thing.
The Franlo people had originally been nomads. They had never joined the galaxy's financial system, so where would they even have gotten the idea of money?
Outside merchants wanted to trade with them, but they refused to exchange their livestock or produce for a string of numbers on a silicon card.
Su Ming showed no remorse at being scolded. He simply looked down at the red-faced Little Dwarf, took a case of purified water from his belt pouch, and set it on the ground.
"Will this cover it?" He opened the case, took out a bottle, and held its clear contents up to the sunlight. "If it does, answer a few questions for me. If not, I'll give you more."
A case of Wilson purified water held twenty-four bottles. It sold for about twelve dollars and cost roughly forty cents to produce.
But on a water-starved planet, it was hard currency. Very useful.
Sure enough, the guileless Little Dwarf clasped the bottle Deathstroke handed him in both hands. His big round eyes narrowed happily as he rubbed his cheek against it. "It's enough. You're so