Chapter 30

“You’re a queer one, Jerry Hammer!” said Dirk, narrowing his cold yellow eyes. Still he drummed his blunt fingers. Sharp--_tat! tat! tat!_ Something deep inside me--my liver, perhaps--shivered and grew white at hearing that klirring sound. I didn’t answer him right away. Slowly I sent up smoke rings to circle the huge stars. We sat in a cave of potted palms close by the dancing floor. Over us lay blue-black night, strange and deep. Yellow as roses were the splotches of stars swimming down the sky. “It shows you’ve …