Strangely enough, none of the others had seen him yet, nor had any of them moved from the sitting posture. Swiftly he unhooked four of his six bottles and set them in a row on the rock floor. Circe returned, having bounced like a bit of india-rubber a dozen yards before checking herself. "You big bully," she said over the radio, and, her tuning being for distance, Daley in another cave said "What? Who?" in a startled tone. Pink dragged her, five pounds of resistance on the tiny planet, and plunked her down behind a rock. "Sit tight," he said urgently. "Keep the gun handy. And check that you haven't spilled any alky--we'll need all the bottles we can get." Then he turned and shone his beam full on the traps he had set out. One of the aliens was bound to spot them soon. When one did, it came at them with a rush, snarling soundlessly as it sought the source of the illumination. Towering over the insignificant bottles, it halted, shuddered, stared down--Pink held his breath--and the incredible disintegration and flow of the body happened. The giant entered the bottle, leaving not a trace of its thousand-foot carcass outside. Restraining a desire to leap out and cork up that bottle, Pink waited. The movement of this alien had caught the red eyes of others; they advanced, some hurrying and some cautious, till two more had scented or sensed the alcohol and poured into bottles. Pink kept his eyes on the little containers. Beside him, Circe gazed with horrified fascination at the coming gargantuas.... * * * * * A trio of them were misting now; this was the test. One empty bottle remained. What would happen, Pink wondered; was one giant per bottle the maximum content? The three streaked down, like smoke sucked into a vacuum cleaner. They jetted into the bottles, and again nothing was left outside. Pink said "Good," in a mutter, and forced himself to wait longer. The more the merrier. How long would it take them to soak up the alcohol? His captive had said the process was slow. How slow? How long did he dare wait? He caught eight more, then the next hesitated, looking around for the source of light. Either he was capable of more resistance to the seductive element, or the bottles were now full of churning, lapping aliens. There were more of them approaching, but he didn't dare wait any longer. He jumped forward, potting at the foremost. It went down thrashing, and he shot over it into the yellow of them. Emptying the Colt, he reloaded hastily and plugged or nicked another half dozen. By then he was standing over the bottles. Nothing had emerged yet. He stooped to slam on the caps.