Political fiction; Science fiction; Space travelers -- Fiction
"There's a station just up the street," Craig warned.
"Sure. So what?"
The empty room was dusty and dark and received little light through
the grimy display windows that faced on the street. What kind of store
it had been, Craig could not guess. The man led him through a kind of
storage room which was piled high with moldy paper cartons and back to
a rear door. With quick, dextrous movements, the man swung an ancient
bar assembly and pushed open the rear door. It led to a litter-strewn
yard enclosed by rough, eroded shacks and a wooden garage.
They entered the garage through a creaking hinged door. It was a dank,
almost completely dark room. Craig stumbled over something on the floor
and fell against a packing box of some kind.
"Just stand still," said the man. He was shuffling invisibly about in
the darkness. Craig could hear him opening a kind of cabinet or drawer
while saying in a steady monotone, "You got the right man, mister. My
stuff is pure. You can test it. But you'd rather _drink_ it, right?"
For the tenth time, Craig asked himself why he had accepted the furtive
invitation. The thought of this man's kind of intoxicant--however
'pure'--nauseated him. Nevertheless, he felt himself compelled by a
kind of insatiable curiosity to follow out the part he had accepted.
Perhaps through this man, through this somehow fascinating street, he
could....
"You got ten; I know that. Maybe you got more, huh?" the man
interrupted his confused train of thought.
"What makes you think I got ten?" Craig asked. He did not know himself
how many units his wallet contained--certainly not after the previous
night.
"Don't get sore. I'm honest. But I know you got ten. Otherwise you
wouldn't have got out of the station."
The lack of clearly defined objects by which to orient himself in the
darkness of the garage made his head begin to swim once more. He wanted
to leave.
"Don't get scared, buddy. They don't ever come in here."
Craig fumbled for support in the darkness. He was afraid he would be
sick. Fulfillment for the half-formed plan that was beginning to take
shape in his mind would not come with the bootlegger. It would come
into being somehow in the tawdry street he had just left, only he did
not know how.
"They don't really go after polyester. They don't want to stop the
stuff. It makes their job easier. You don't have to worry, buddy. Come
on, how much you want? You might have trouble finding more for a while."
Craig said nothing. He fumbled for a grip on a packing box.
"You're from Out, aren't you, buddy? You ain't used to us here yet.
Most of my customers are from Out. What jam'd you get into?"
"I got ten units, I think," Craig evaded.
"It ain't none of my business what you done. Nobody around here is
going to ask you any questions. Long as you got units, you get poly
like the big shots that come over here all the way from Uptown."
"Yeah," said Craig. "Gimme what I get for ten units and let's beat it
out of here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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