"Well, they surely know what is best. But I...." He sighed and walked away.
"I too," Tzadi murmured. "I too."
"What was that all about?" Derrence asked. He was preoccupied with his own problem, but had heard enough to be puzzled. "You two sounded like a bad mystery movie; members of the underground meeting in enemy territory."
"Something like that," Tzadi said.
"One what?" Derrence asked. "You said there was only one. And what did he have to do with a waiter offering us credit on an unfinished meal? And why...."
"We are members of a rather strange religious order," Tzadi said, looking at Derrence with unblinking intensity. "The objects of our worship are just about extinct. Except for one. I recognized this waiter as practicing a certain ritual ... well, suffice it to say I told him we have run out of gods."
"Except for one?"
"Yes. One. Just one. And soon that one...."
"One what? Is it an animal?"
"Yes, an animal."