"You are not lying," Ayna said. "I probed your mind, Devin Orth. You are not an android. And I believe that your space ship has been seized by Ivath. It was an alien object on the vast canvas of his pictured world."
"Here's Hardpan," Red Moustache said, leering slack-jawed at Ayna. "Sorry you couldn't go along to New Yok," he added to Orth, "you and your squirt. She's some fowl."
Orth choked and gulped twice. He thanked the driver and climbed down the ladder. Horgan was already standing in the shadow of a doorway above which swung a dust-grimed sign. Two Drik Tony's, the sign read.
"Wait for us in that store," said Horgan, pointing out a door across the street that was flanked by barrels of fruit and other produce. "Orth and me needs a drink."
Orth started to protest and then desisted as he saw the girl's eyelid twitch and her head motion toward the door. He followed the frontiersman. Ayna was talking softly to herself as they left her.
They joined the men bellied up to the bar. Dun Horgan ordered two shots of alcohol which were brought to them in shallow saucers of glass. Horgan dropped three bits on the bar.
"How about a shot of tea?" he whispered to the bartender.
The man's flabby pink face whitened. Imperceptibly he nodded toward the back room and scooped up the three shining coins. The two men downed their fiery drinks and then elbowed their way toward the closed door.
"It's this accursed Volsad Law," said Horgan. "All a result of the Boston tea runners. Tried to smuggle it in and then the reform crowd took it up. Blamed tea for crime and poverty. Pushed the laws through outlawing its sale."