"I've heard that song before."
"Well," I said stubbornly, "it's the truth."
Just then someone knocked at the door. Harry and I shared a small cabin in the Venus on the Half Shell stockade. It wasn't much of a cabin and it doubled as office and sleeping quarters. A knock on the door meant either the leader of the Venusians or Talbot Kramer, our has-been hunter who so far had been content to sit around drinking our whiskey.
I opened the door. It was Talbot Kramer, complete with week's growth of beard, red-rimmed eyes, mouldly, swamp-smelling clothing and a man-sized scowl.
"Natives are through," he said, and laughed. It may have meant a lot to me and Harry, but it meant nothing to him.
"Through?" I said. "What the hell did they quit for?"
"Wompan," Kramer said.
"Which?" Harry asked him.
"Wompan," I repeated. I was excited. "Don't you know what a Wompan is?"