Norton, Andre - Anthology (29 page)

 
          
 
Casker stood still, trying to decide whether
he had enough strength left to strangle Hellman.

           
 
"For example," Hellman said,
"what kind of vehicle would be used in a place like this? Not one with
wheels, since everything is up and down.
Anti-gravity?
Perhaps, but what kind of anti-gravity?
And why did
the inhabitants devise a boxlike form instead—"

 
          
 
Casker decided sadly that he didn't have
enough strength to strangle Hellman, no matter how pleasant it might be. Very
quietly, he said, "Kindly stop making like a scientist. Let's see if there
isn't something we can gulp down."

 
          
 
"All right," Hellman said sulkily.

 
          
 
Casker watched his partner wander off among
the cans, bottles and cases. He wondered vaguely where Hellman got the energy,
and decided that he was just too cerebral to know when he was starving.

 
          
 
"Here's something," Hellman called
out, standing in front of a large yellow vat.

 
          
 
"What does it say?" Casker asked.

 
          
 
"Little bit hard to translate. But
rendered freely, it reads: morishille's voozy, with lacto-ecto added for a new
taste sensation.
everyone
drinks voozy.
good
before and after meals, no unpleasant after-effects,
good for children!
the
drink of the universe!"

 
          
 
"That sounds good," Casker admitted,
thinking that Hellman might not be so stupid after all.

 
          
 
"This should tell us once and for all if
their meat is our meat," Hellman said. "This Voozy seems to be the
closest thing to a universal drink I've found yet."

 
          
 
"Maybe," Casker said hopefully,
"maybe it's just plain water!"

 
          
 
"We'll see." Hellman pried open the
lid with the edge of the burner.

 
          
 
Within the vat was a crystal-clear liquid.

 
          
 
"No odor," Casker said, bending over
the vat.

 
          
 
The crystal liquid lifted to meet him.

           
 
Casker retreated so rapidly that he fell over
a box. Hell-man helped him to his feet, and they approached the vat again. As
they came near, the liquid lifted itself three feet into the air and moved
toward them.

 
          
 
"What've you done now?" Casker
asked, moving back carefully. The liquid flowed slowly over the side of the
vat. It began to fl ^w toward him.

 
          
 
"Hellman!" Casker shrieked.

 
          
 
Hellman was standing to one side, perspiration
pouring down his face, reading his dictionary with a preoccupied frown.

 
          
 
"Guess I bumbled the translation,"
he said.

 
          
 
"Do something!" Casker shouted. The
liquid was trying to back him into a corner.

 
          
 
"Nothing I can do," Hellman said,
reading on. "Ah, here's the error. It doesn't say 'Everyone drinks Voozy.'
Wrong subject.
'Voozy drinks everyone'
That
tells us something! The Helgans must have soaked liquid
in through their pores. Naturally, they would prefer to be drunk, instead of to
drink."

 
          
 
Casker tried to dodge around the liquid, but
it cut him off with a merry gurgle. Desperately he picked up a small bale and
threw it at the Voozy. The Voozy caught the bale and drank it. Then it
discarded that and turned back to Casker.

 
          
 
Hellman tossed another box. The Voozy drank
this one and a third and fourth that Casker threw in. Then, apparently
exhausted, it flowed back into its vat.

 
          
 
Casker clapped down the lid and sat on it,
trembling violently.

 
          
 
"Not so good," Hellman said.
"We've been taking it for granted that the Helgans had eating habits like
us. But, of course, it doesn't necessarily—"

 
          
 
"No, it doesn't. No, sir, it certainly
doesn't. I guess we can see that it doesn't. Anyone can see that it doesn't—"

 
          
 
"Stop that," Hellman ordered
sternly. "We've no time for hysteria."

 
          
 
"Sorry." Casker slowly moved away
from the Voozy vat.

 
          
 
"I guess we'll have to assume that their
meat is our poison," Hellman said thoughtfully. "So now we'll see if
their poison is our meat."

 
          
 
Casker didn't say anything. He was wondering
what would have happened if the Voozy had drunk him.

 
          
 
In the corner, the rubbery block was still
giggling to itself.

 
          
 
"Now here's a likely-looking
poison," Hellman said, half an hour later.

 
          
 
Casker had recovered completely, except for an
occasional twitch of the lips.

 
          
 
"What does it say?" he asked.

 
          
 
Hellman rolled a tiny tube in the palm of his
hand. "It's called Pvastkin's Plugger. The label reads: warning!

 
          
 
HIGHLY DANGEROUS! PVASTKIN'S PLUGGER IS
DESIGNED TO FILL HOLES OR CRACKS OF NOT MORE THAN TWO CUBIC

 
          
 
VIMS.
HOWEVER THE
PLUGGER IS NOT TO BE EATEN UNDER

 
          
 
ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT, RAMOTOL, WHICH MAKES PVASTKIN'S SO EXCELLENT A PLUGGER
RENDERS IT HIGHLY DANGEROUS WHEN TAKEN INTERNALLY."

 
          
 
"Sounds great," Casker said.
"It'll probably blow us sky-

 
          
 
high
."

 
          
 
"Do you have any other suggestions?"
Hellman asked.

 
          
 
Casker thought for a moment. The food of Helg
was obviously unpalatable for humans. So perhaps was their poison . . . but
wasn't starvation better than this sort of thing?

 
          
 
After a moment's communion with his stomach,
he decided that starvation was not better.

 
          
 
"Go ahead," he said.

           
 
Hellman slipped the burner under his arm and
unscrewed the top of the little bottle. He shook it.

 
          
 
Nothing happened.

 
          
 
"It's got a seal," Casker pointed
out.

 
          
 
Hellman punctured the seal with his fingernail
and set the bottle on the floor. An evil-smelling green froth began to bubble
out.

 
          
 
Hellman looked dubiously at the froth. It was
congealing into a glob and spreading over the floor.

 
          
 
"Yeast, perhaps," he said, gripping
the burner tightly.

 
          
 
"Come, come. Faint heart never filled
empty stomach."

 
          
 
"I'm not holding you back," Hellman
said.

 
          
 
The glob swelled to the size of a man's head.

 
          
 
"How long is that supposed to go
on?" Casker asked.

 
          
 
"Well," Hellman said, "it's
advertised as a Plugger. I suppose that's what it does—expands to plug up
holes."

 
          
 
"Sure.
But how
much?"

 
          
 
"Unfortunately, I don't know how much two
cubic vims are. But it can't go on much—"

 
          
 
Belatedly, they noticed that the Plugger had
filled almost a quarter of the room and was showing no signs of stopping.

 
          
 
"We should have believed the label!"
Casker yelled to him, across the spreading glob. "It is dangerous!"

 
          
 
As the Plugger produced more
surface
, it began to accelerate in its growth. A sticky edge
touched Hellman and he jumped back.

 
          
 
"Watch out!"

 
          
 
He couldn't reach Casker, on the other side of
the gigantic sphere of blob. Hellman tried to run around, but the Plugger had
spread, cutting the room in half. It began to swell toward the walls.

 
          
 
"Run for it!" Hellman yelled, and
rushed to the door behind him.

           
 
He flung it open just as the expanding glob
reached him. On the other side of the room, he heard a door slam shut. Hellman
didn't wait any longer. He sprinted through and slammed the door behind him.

 
          
 
He stood for a moment, panting,
the
burner in his hand. He hadn't realized how weak he was.
That sprint had cut his reserves of energy dangerously close to the collapsing
point. At least Casker had made it, too, though.

 
          
 
But he was still in trouble.

 
          
 
The Plugger poured merrily through the blasted
lock, into the room. Hellman tried a practice shot on it, but the Plugger was
evidently impervious ... as, he realized, a good plugger should be.

 
          
 
It was showing no signs of fatigue.

 
          
 
Hellman hurried to the far wall. The door was
locked, as the others had been, so he burned out the lock and went through.

 
          
 
How far could the glob expand? How much was
two cubic vims?
Two cubic miles, perhaps?
For all he
knew, the Plugger was used to repair faults in the crusts of planets.

 
          
 
In the next room, Hellman stopped to catch his
breath. He remembered that the building was circular. He would burn his way
through the remaining doors and join Casker. They would burn their way outside
and . . .

 
          
 
Casker didn't have a burner!

 
          
 
Hellman turned white with shock. Casker had
made it into the room on the right, because they had burned it open earlier.
The Plugger was undoubtedly oozing into that room, through the shattered lock .
. . and Casker couldn't get out! The Plugger was on his left, a locked door on
his right!

 
          
 
Rallying his remaining strength, Hellman began
to run. Boxes seemed to get in his way purposefully, tripping him, slowing him
down. He blasted the next door and hurried on to the next.
And
the next.
And the next.