Ward nodded numbly, and wondered how his thirty-eight years of academic research could have qualified him for this. He had sweated out a hermit’s life on the burning Martian Deserts for four years, gathering his data on the Mo-Sanshon who filled the countless miles of catacombs under the red clay surface. And he had considered that an all time low—at the time.
He drank. The liquor scorched his throat and started quickly on his brain. He belched and wiped tears from his eyes. Finally he managed to whisper, “I’d appreciate a sort of hint as to what this is all about.”
Red’s freckled nose wrinkled. “I have a good story. Very credible. I just want to help you. Not because I give a damn about whether humanity stays around or not. But because I crave excitement. If you need a reason, that’s as good as any.” He drained his glass stoically and called for a refill.
“Real tiger-milk,” he grinned. His red hair flamed as a dancing girl slid by with a hokohloo lamp spinning its sense-drunkening harmonies in a jeweled hand.
“But how do you know so much about all this?” insisted Ward.
“We cabbies get around.” Which didn’t explain much. Or did it?
“But why should you believe me, when no one else does?”
“I just want to, Doc, that’s all. I think the old anarchistic culture was better than this puking state of the proletariat we’ve got now. Got most of my education from the past—nineteenth and early twentieth century literature. And I live in the underground ghettos of the present. Wishful thinking. I only hope you’re right, probably.”
“I assure you,” pleaded Ward. “I’m not a psycho.”
“I don’t give a damn whether you’re psycho or not. So am I. Anyway, we’re killers now, gangsters. Unheard of in our perfect little futile order. So unheard of that we’ll probably get away with it easier than we think.”