Had a lot of stuff to do today, but I persevered.
“Ah, they serve beer here,” Oft said as he settled himself at our table. Uninvited. “May I dare hope that there might also be potatoes?”
“If you like them fermented? Sure,” I replied, after looking at the other two. “They don’t really serve food here.”
“A shame. They go so well with beer. ‘Boil them, mash them, stick them in a stew’ — oh, forgive me,” Oft said while shaking his head. “I have a bad habit of quoting Scripture, even if in this case ‘tis only from the apocrypha. But I am here on other matters. Specifically, about the smuggling operation that we all keep pretending doesn’t exist.”
“Who’s pretending?” I said, my tone perfectly even. “It doesn’t exist.”
“I can assure you, Chief Pilot Tanaka: it exists, we know this planetary station’s personnel are all involved in it, and nobody on my ship cares in the slightest about whether or not you’re paying the required tariffs. Honestly, we have other maddened grizzly bears to stun.” He rolled his eyes. “Never mind that reference. More apocrypha, I’m afraid.”