For a few moments, Hackworth was too startled to speak. He had expected 
exile and perhaps deserved it. Mere forgiveness was more than he could have 
hoped for. But Finkle-McGraw was giving him the opportunity for something much 
greater: a chance to enter the lower ranks of the nobility. An equity stake in 
the tribal enterprise. There was only one answer he could make, and he blurted 
it out before he had time to lose his nerve.