Under some circumstances, and depending on the deal, he'd say yes. But not all deals are the same. Despite Tom's insistence, it still came out as just a threat wrapped up in the pretense of a deal. Pretenses could be good, useful, even, but really, here it still struck the Doctor as a regular, cut and dried threat underneath that fake choice.

Surprising one, though. So this brother knew too. Odd thing to do, have the brother make a decision like that for Tom. The Doctor stood by, watching Tom’s face in the light from the void outside.

“Not much of a deal to keep, I’d say,” the Doctor said quietly. Seemed like Tom was still determined to be selectively clever; not that the Doctor could blame him. Human, right. Yeah. Usually a trait of the species, for everything else that was beautiful about them. “What else could you say, ‘sure, infect my family and then infect me while you’re at it’? If everyone had your attitude, they wouldn’t have needed to invade quietly.”

All they had to do was just walk right in -- not that a space slug could walk -– and make a few threats. Watch humanity throw themselves at their nonexistent feet. Maybe there were some species out there that were like that, but he’d expected better from humans.