Explore "Master of Life and Death" by Robert Silverberg on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He returned to New York alone, later that night, too tired to sleep and too wide awake to relax. He felt like a poker player who had triumphantly topped four kings with four aces, and now was fumbling in his hand trying to locate some of those aces for his skeptical opponents.
The alien had accepted his offer. That was the one solid fact he was able to cling to, on the lonely night ride back from Nairobi. The rest was a quicksand of ifs and maybes.