_Use only as directed by physician. Not to be taken by persons
suffering heart condition, digestive upset or circulatory disease.
Not to be used in conjunction with alcoholic beverages._
I took three of them. I don't like to start them before midnight, but
anyway I stopped shaking.
I closed my eyes, and then I was on the ship again. The noise in the bar
became the noise of the rockets and the air washers and the sludge
sluicers. I began to sweat, although this place was air-conditioned,
too.
I could hear Wally whistling to himself the way he did, the sound
muffled by his oxygen mask and drowned in the rocket noise, but still
perfectly audible. The tune was _Sophisticated Lady_. Sometimes it was
_Easy to Love_ and sometimes _Chasing Shadows_, but mostly
_Sophisticated Lady_. He was from Juilliard.
Somebody sneezed, and it sounded just like Chowderhead sneezing. You
know how everybody sneezes according to his own individual style?
Chowderhead had a ladylike little sneeze; it went _hutta_, real quick,
all through the mouth, no nose involved. The captain went _Hrasssh_;
Wally was Ashoo, ashoo, _ashoo_. Gilvey was _Hutch_-uh. Sam didn't
sneeze much, but he sort of coughed and sprayed, and that was worse.
Sometimes I used to think about killing Sam by tying him down and having
Wally and the captain sneeze him to death. But that was a kind of a
joke, naturally, when I was feeling good. Or pretty good. Usually I
thought about a knife for Sam. For Chowderhead it was a gun, right in
the belly, one shot. For Wally it was a tommy gun--just stitching him up
and down, you know, back and forth. The captain I would put in a cage
with hungry lions, and Gilvey I'd strangle with my bare hands. That was
probably because of the cough, I guess.
* * * * *