 Why did the odd beings from the seventh plant only want interstellar credits?
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was almost ordinary-looking. As for the extraterrestrials—it was a free bar—they were merely amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably hideous. There was a short man standing next to the pair—young, as most men and women were in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though not death—but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century. "You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look at them. And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance, was too much. There he inserted a coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions, reserving only a sum of money. Each time it happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a thrill-mill." Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to remember her existence. Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and beginning to slide downhill.... Only he isn't a retail milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks ago, and now he isn't ... anything." "I have plenty of money, thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... He then requested a taxi driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course—so much so that there were many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of "crimes against nature." Actually the phrase was more appropriate to zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly applied. And this was one crime—for it was crime in law as well as nature—in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator; otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.
 So that they could return to Vinau and buy slaves.
 So that they could buy slaves.  So that they could return to Vinau and buy slaves.  To buy booze any time they desired.  So that they could return to Vinau.