The wog led the man to one of the curtained-off booths scattered along the walls. They sat down. A waitress came to them. Sweat ran off her forehead and down her tubular nose.
'Keep your mask on until we've gotten our drinks,' said Fobo. 'Then we can close the curtains.'
The waitress said something in Wog.
Fobo repeated in American for Hal's benefit. 'Beer, wine, or beetlejuice. Myself, I wouldn't touch the first two. They're for women and children.'
Hal didn't want to lose face. He said, with a bravado he didn't feel, 'The latter, of course.'
Fobo held up two fingers. The waitress returned quickly with two big steins. The wog leaned his nose into fumes and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes in ecstasy, lifted the stein, and drank a long time. When he put the container down, he belched loudly and then smacked his lips.
'Tastes as good coming up as going down!' he bellowed.
Hal felt queasy. He had been whipped too many times as a child for his uninhibited eructations.
'But Hal,' said Fobo, 'you are not drinking!'
Yarrow said weakly, 'Damifino,' Siddo for, 'I hope this doesn't hurt,' and he drank.
Fire ran down his throat like lava down a volcano's slope. And, like a volcano, Hal erupted. He coughed and wheezed; liquor spurted out of his mouth; his eyes shut and squeezed out big tears.
'Very good, isn't it?' said Fobo calmly.
'Yes, very good,' croaked Yarrow from a throat that seemed to be permanently scarred. Though he had spat most of the stuff out, some of it must have dropped straight through his intestines and into his legs, for he felt a hot tide down there swinging back and forth as if pulled by some invisible moon circling around and around in his head, a big moon that bulged and brushed against the inside of his skull.
'Have another.'
The second drink he managed better – outwardly, at least, for he did not cough or sputter. But inwardly he was not so unconcerned. His belly writhed, and he was sure he would disgrace himself. After a few deep breaths, he thought he would keep the liquor down. Then, he belched. The lava got as far as his throat before he manage to stop it.
'Pardon me,' he said, blushing.
'Why?' said Fobo.
Hal thought that was one of the funniest retorts he had ever heard. He laughed loudly and sipped at the stein. If he could empty it swiftly and then buy a quart for Jeannette, he could get back before the night was completely wasted.
When the liquor had receded halfway down the stein, Hal heard Fobo, dimly and far-off as if he were at the end of a long tunnel, ask him if he cared to see where the alcohol was made.
'Shib,' Hal said.
He rose but had to put a hand on the table to steady himself. The wog told him to put his mask back on.
'Earthmen are still objects of curiosity. We don't want to waste all evening answering questions. Or drinking drinks that'll be forced on us.'
They threaded through the noisy crowd to a back room. There Fobo gestured and said, 'Behold! The kesarubu!'
Hal looked. If he had not had some of his inhibitions washed away in the liquorish flood, he might have been overwhelmingly repulsed. As it was, he was curious.
The thing sitting on a chair by the table might, at first glance, have been taken for a wogglebug. It had the blond fuzz, the bald pate, the nose, and the V-shaped mouth. It also had the round body and enormous paunch of some of the Ozagens.
But a second look in the bright light from the unshaded bulb overhead showed a creature whose body was sheathed in a hard and light green tinted chitin. And, though it wore a long cloak, the legs and arms were naked. They were not smooth-skinned but were ring segmented with the edges of armor-sections, like stove pipes.
Fobo spoke to it. Yarrow understood some of th words; the others, he was able to fill in.
'Ducko, this is Mr. Yarrow. Say hello to Mr. Yarrow Ducko.'
The big blue eyes looked at Hal. There was nothin about them to distinguish them from a wog's, yet the seemed inhuman, thoroughly arthropodal.
'Hello, Mr. Yarrow,' Ducko said in a parrot's voice.
'Tell Mr. Yarrow what a fine night it is.'
'It's a fine night, Mr. Yarrow.'
'Tell him Ducko is happy to see him.'
'Ducko is happy to see you.'
'And serve him.'
'And serve you.'
'Show Mr. Yarrow how you make beetlejuice.'
A wog standing by the table glanced at his wristwatch. He spoke in rapid Ozagen. Fobo translated.
'He says Ducko ate a half hour ago. He should be read to serve. These creatures eat a big meal every half hou and then they – watch!'
Duroku set on the table a huge earthenware bowl. Ducko leaned over it until a half-inch-long tube projecting from his chest was poised above the edge of the bowl. The projection, thought Hal, was probably a modified tracheal opening. From the tube a clear liquid shot into the bowl until it was filled to the brim. Duroku grabbed the bowl and carried it off. An Ozagen came from the kitchen with a plate of what Hal later found out was highly sugared spaghetti. He set it down, and Ducko began eating from it with a big spoon.
Hal's brain was by then not working very fast, but he began to see what was going on. Frantically, he looked around for a place to vomit. Fobo shoved a drink under his nose. For lack of anything better to do, he swallowed some. Whole hog or none. Surprisingly, the fiery stuff settled his stomach. Or else burned away the rising tide.
'Exactly,' replied Fobo to Hal's strangled question. 'These creatures are a superb example of parasitical mimicry. Though quasi-insectal, they look much like us. They live among us and earn their room and board by furnishing us with a cheap and smooth alcoholic drink. You noticed its enormous belly, shib? It is there that they so rapidly manufacture the alcohol and so easily upchuck it. Simple and natural, yes? Duroku has two others working for him, but it is their night off, and doubtless they are in some neighborhood tavern, getting drunk. A sailor's holiday–'
Hal burst out, 'Can't we buy a quart and get out? I feel sick. It must be the closeness of the air. Or something.'
'Something, probably.' Fobo murmured.
He sent a waitress after two quarts. While they were waiting for her, they saw a short wog in a mask and blue cloak enter. The newcomer stood in the door way, black boots widespread and the long tubular projection of the mask pointing this way and that like a sub's periscope peering for prey.
Hal gasped and said, 'Pornsen! I can see his uniform under the cloak!'
'Shib,' replied Fobo. 'That drooping shoulder and the black boots also give him away. Who does he think he's fooling?'
Hal looked wildly around. 'I've got to get out of here!'
The waitress returned with the bottles. Fobo paid her and gave one to Hal, who automatically put it in the inside pocket of his cloak.