ing up for what you've done ... and what you will do, too!
But about hanging and prisons--was it ever proved those were the right
thing for murderers? As for religion now--some of us who've quit killing
are religious and a lot of us (me included) aren't; and some of the ones
that are religious figure (maybe because there's no way for them to get
hanged) that they're damned eternally--but that doesn't stop them doing
good work. I ask you now, is any little thing like being damned
eternally a satisfactory excuse for behaving like a complete rat?"

That did it, somehow. That last statement of Pop's appealed so much to
me and was completely crazy at the same time, that I couldn't help
warming up to him. Don't get me wrong, I didn't really fall for his line
of chatter at all, but I found it fun to go along with it--so long as
the plane was in this shuttle situation and we had nothing better to do.

Alice seemed to feel the same way. I guess any bugger that could kid
religion the way Pop could got a little silver star in her books.
Bronze, anyway.

* * * * *

Right away the atmosphere got easier. To start with we asked Pop to tell
us about this "us" he kept mentioning and he said it was some dozens (or
hundreds--nobody had accurate figures) of killers who'd quit and went
nomading around the Deathlands trying to recruit others and help those
who wanted to be helped. They had semi-permanent meeting places where
they tried to get together at pre-arranged dates, but mostly they kept
on the go, by twos and threes or--more rarely--alone. They were all men
so far, at least Pop hadn't heard of any women members, but--he assured
Alice earnestly--he would personally guarantee that there would be no
objections to a girl joining up. They had recently taken to calling
themselves Murderers Anonymous, after some pre-war organization Pop
didn't know the original purpose of. Quite a few of them had slipped and
gone back to murdering again, but some of these had come back after a
while, more determined than ever to make a go of it.

"We welcomed 'em, of course," Pop said. "We welcome everybody.
Everybody that's a genuine murderer, that is, and says he wants to quit.
Guys that aren't blooded yet we draw the line at, no matter how fine
they are."

Also, "We have a lot of fun at our meetings," Pop assured us. "You never
saw such high times. Nobody's got a right to go glooming around or pull
a long face just be