* * * * * Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered him to my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on my bunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metal bulkhead. "You'll have that drink now," I said. "No, dammit!" he shouted. "Orders," I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. "This is therapy, Bailey," I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throat like water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. "Sorry, Doc," he said. "You've taken more pressure than most men would," I said. "Nothing to be ashamed of." "He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzel and sauerkraut and _Backhahndl nach suddeutscher Art_ out of an algae tank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-out molecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. And he expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquet of the Friends of Escoffier!" "Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey," I said. "You've worked your fingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're not appreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A year from now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start that restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman." "I hate him," Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. He reached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can be an apt confederate of _vis medicatrix naturae_, the healing power of nature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep it off. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable in horribleness, a pottage or boiled _Chlorella vulgaris_ that looked and tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey, red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann as though daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of the disgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, "Belly-Robber, you're improving a little at last." Bailey nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Sir," he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses were now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of irony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that was a price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmann theory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captain had pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, I thought.