“They might be poison.”
“Undoubtedly.” Zintal placed the cigarettes under another bell jar.
The deck of cards he riffled through with knowing deftness. The dictionary he filed carefully away, and the bottle of ink went under another bell jar. It was, he admitted, the most palatable smelling item of the bunch. The box of candy he threw into the fireplace with a deep, distasteful wrinkle of his wide, flat nose.
He accepted the little cylinder from Vorhan, twisted the wing-nut and inhaled deeply. The distaste on Zintal’s face diminished and was replaced with a sigh of satisfaction. He marked some Martian characters on the end of a rough-surfaced board with some of VerLong’s finest Lovepruf Lipstick and put the handy, soft crayon away for future use.
The set of picture postcards he ran thr
