"Kren" Part Seven (The Thin Edge of the Wedge)

 

He was met with a blank wall of suspicious, mulish faces. It seems that his offer of a drink had done nothing to win their good will. Koppa turned back to Poppy, but the old man had disappeared into the back kitchen. Kren grinned at the poor fellow’s dilemma. He had not come to the right place to make friends. The young man cast his eyes around the room, trying to find a crack, a way into that wall.

Perhaps it was the gleam of his fangs in the shadows that drew Koppa’s searching eyes. He turned to where the Morg sat at his lonely table and with a sudden cry of surprise and delight advanced on the astonished Kren.

“Well, here’s a friendly face!” Koppa exclaimed. “You know, I haven’t seen a Morgish mug in two hundred miles! Fancy finding one all the way out here.”

Before anyone knew what was going on he grabbed a nearby chair and swung it over to Kren’s lonely table. Kren stared at him round-eyed, then his toothy grin got even wider. The stranger certainly wasn’t taking the best way to ingratiate himself in town. But he was ready to play the game and see how far it would go.

“Well, howdy there, stranger!” Kren replied enthusiastically, pouring it on thick. “And what brings you out to Far Reach so late in the year?” He glanced over at the tables. Nobody had moved, but they were obviously all ears. He might as well ask the questions they were all dying to know but were too stubborn or cautious to breach. Besides, he was curious too.