He was broke, diseased and 793 million miles from Liverpool.
When Lister got drunk, he really got drrrrr-unk.
He brought the hopper to a crunching halt on the corner of hundred-and-fifty-
second and third, outside a garish neon sign promising 'Girls, Girls, Girls'
and 'Sex, Sex, Sex'.
'I understand,' said the man in the navy-blue officer's coat, surreptitiously
re-gluing his moustache, 'there are some excellent restaurants in this area,
offering authentic Mimian cuisine.'
'Look,' said Lister as he short-changed the officer, 'd'you want me to pick
you up?' He really didn't feel like cruising around in the bone-juddering
hopper for another fare. I don't mind waiting.'
The officer glanced down the street at the various pimpy types with poorly-
concealed weaponry under their coats.
'Fine. Wait round the corner.'
'How long will you be?'
'Well, I'm led to believe the Mimian bladderfish is particularly exquisite,
and I would be insane if I didn't at least try the legendary inky squid soup.
Plus, of course, pudding, brandy and cigars. Say... ten minutes? Call it
twenty to be on the safe side.'
Lister took the hopper round the comer, and saw his fare tride purposefully
towards a Mimian restaurant, pause outside, studying the menu, then turn and
walk straight into the building with the neon sign boasting 'Girls, Girls,
Girls' and 'Sex, Sex, Sex.'
Lister locked the door of the hopper. He wasn't totally crazy about this area,
safety-wise. He poured what remained of the coffee into the flask lid, and lit
a cigarette. What could be nicer, he thought, than smoking Spanish tobacco and
drinking real Spanish coffee? Except, possibly, having your whole body
vigorously rubbed by a man with a cheese grater.
He was sick of this armpit of a moon.
He'd spent the last six months trying to get the eight hundred dollarpounds he
needed to buy a shuttle ticket home. So far he'd saved fifty-three. And he was
probably going to blow that tonight.
Making money on Mimas wasn't easy. For a start you needed a work permit, and
Lister didn't have a work permit because, officially, he didn't exist.
Officially, Lister wasn't here. Officially, he was a space bag lady called
Emily Berkenstein. Hence his problem. Which he attempted to solve by stealing
taxi hoppers.
Each evening, or at least each evening he felt in the mood, which turned out
to be about one evening in four, he'd hang around taxi hopper ranks and wait
for the drivers to converge for warmth and conversation in a single cab. When
he was convinced it was safe, he'd steal the rear-most hopper and bounce
around the seedier districts of the colony, where few taxi cabs and absolutely
no police ever went, and pocket the night's takings before abandoning the
hopper at a busy rank back at Mimas Central.
If he'd set about his hopper scam in a slightly more business-like way, the
chances are he'd have been off Mimas within a month. Unfortunately, he found
Mimas so deeply depressing - quite the most hideous place he'd ever been,
worse, even than Wolverhampton - that quite regularly he felt compelled to hit
the bars and drinking clubs, and blow every single pennycent he'd saved. In
some half-assed, subconscious way, he felt, if only he could get drunk enough
he was sure to wake up back outside the Marie Lloyd public house, off Regent
Street in London, trying to hail a cab to get a Monopoly board.
Sadly, the price of alcohol on Mimas was so outrageously prohibitive, he could
only ever buy enough Mimian sangria to get him in the mood to start drinking
seriously, before his money ran out and he'd have to slope back to the shuttle
port, where he'd hire a left-luggage locker, and sleep in it.