I sank into a chair and took it for awhile. "I can wait," I growled at them. "Sooner or later somebody'll get around to telling me what goes on."
"He can wait, he says," Doughbelly fairly yelped in delight. "Brother, he ain't just a whistlin' Terra Forever, he can wait! Bring on the woji! Start the initiation!"
I woke up in the morning in Mike Holiday's apartment. I groaned and told myself that I was sworn off of woji for all time.—I didn't know then that Terra-side liquor sold for ten credits a bottle.
Mike was grinning down at me. "You'll get used to woji," he said.
"I should live so long," I moaned. Then I sat up suddenly in the bed. "You guys wouldn't tell me anything last night," I said. He was still grinning. "That's part of the initiation into the Zloor Club. What'd'ya want to know, Nap?"
I swung my feet over the side of the bed and came to a sitting position. I groaned and shook my head in an attempt to clear it.
"What are half the professional hunters I know doing on Mars?"
He spun a chair around so that the back faced me, and straddled it, his arms resting on the top rung. "Same thing you are, Nap. Being suckers for that makron Westley Marks."
I started to say something there but he interrupted me with a wave of a hand. "This is what it boils down to. Marks has a contract with some branch of the government to bring back one or more zloors. And don't ask me why he doesn't go out and catch one himself—he's tried."