"Let us go and drink it," Seu said. "I'm very tired."
It occurred to Cudyk that he had never heard Seu say that before. They turned the corner at Athenai and climbed the stairs to his apartment. Seu sighed, and dropped heavily into a chair while Cudyk went to get the bottle and glasses.
"Straight, or with water?" he asked.
"Straight, please." Seu tilted his glass, swallowed and shuddered. Cudyk watched him in silence.
Seu, alone in the Quarter, owned a Niori communicator—an elaborate mechanism which reproduced sound, vision in three dimensions, odors, modulated temperature changes and several other things perceptible only to Niori. There was no restriction on their sale, and they were cheap enough, but the Niori broadcasts were as dull or as incomprehensible to men as a Terrestial breakfast program would have been to Niori. Seu used his as a source of Galactic news. Today, Cudyk guessed, the news had been very bad.
"It's Rack, isn't it?" he said finally.
Seu glanced at him and nodded. "Yes, it's Rack. I haven't told anyone else about it yet. The Quarter's in a half-hysterical state as it is. But if you don't mind my talking it out to you—"
"Go ahead," said Cudyk.
"It's worse than anything we expected." Seu took another swallow of the whisky, and made a face. He said, "They've got a hydrogen-lithium bomb."
" ... I was afraid of that."