"Nothing. Nothing at all. I suppose. I thought ... just skip it. I'm lonesome, that's all."
"Lonely, huh?" said the girl. "Lonely and just in, huh? Just in from space." She turned away from him to signal the bartender. "What you need is drinks."
There were more drinks. Many more drinks. The girl kept them coming, kept talking to him about—what was it? Craig looked at the girl and then at the globe lamp. He watched as the tiny bright orbs of light projected their images on the girl opposite him. He was aware of the gradual dimming of the lights, the suppression of sound in the bar. He watched the tiny lights of other globes appear around shadows, watched as the lights traced fiery trails across the dusky skin of the girl opposite him, watched as they crossed the warm, rounded flesh....
"I tell ya we didn't give him nothing but a coupla tazes."
"The pump will determine that. You might as well tell the truth."
"I am tellin' the truth. He drank, let's see ... two, three."
"Four, five, six. You let her pump him full."
"Hey, look, this guy's a spaceman, or was."
"I didn't know that. Honest I didn't. He never told us."