Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, but
I knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affected
my metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't the
same, but the _need_ ran as deep.
I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a pure
sensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have the
price of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottles
with a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine in
them--not enough, never enough, but better than nothing.
"Now what do you want to eat?" the woman asked.
I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human--an
_Earth_ human. I was a _man_, of course, not an _alien_ like a Martian.
Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as an
Earthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? That
proved it, didn't it?
"Hamburger," I said. "Well done." I knew that would probably be all
they had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, but
then I didn't have the local prejudices.
I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering how
clean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was so
dirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed every
hour for the rest of my life.
The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernails
and raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba,
almost in a single movement of my jaws.
Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank a
glass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waiting
for me.
"Could I have a few to take with me, miss?" I pleaded.
She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly I
just felt it.
"That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am'," she
said. "I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know."
That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. "No, miss," I said.
"It's Miss Casey--Vivian Casey," she corrected. She was a
schoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as Miss
Last Name. Then there was something in her voice....
"What's your name?" she said to me.