That seemed to settle that. He stared gloomily at the bottle, then picked it up and drank. When he lowered the bottle again, pushing the cap shut with his thumb, the little green man was there. No, it was a different one this time. Rigid with shock, he could still see that this one was fatter around the middle and had shorter whiskers. But the expression was the same. Like a fiend on his way to a dismemberment party. He found his voice. "Where did you come from?" The little man smiled unpleasantly. "Mud and moss," he said. Shoemaker wanted to yell. Holding a conversation with a hunk of mist, a non-existent goblin! He hardly recognized his own voice when he said, "What do you want?" The green man walked toward him. "Heaved out my Scotch," he said, and leered. Shoemaker did yell. Leaping to his feet, flinging his arms wide, he bellowed like a wounded carabao. The bottle slipped out of his fingers and looped gracefully into the sea. The goblin turned his head to follow it. Then, astonishingly, he looked at Shoemaker, said, "It'll come back," and dived in after the bottle. Neither of them came up, though Shoemaker hung onto the frame of the sallyport and watched for half an hour. * * * * * Shoemaker heard their voices through the hull when they came back that night. "Where's the old soak?" That was Burford. "Now, Charley, that isn't nice. He didn't say anything, but you could tell he wasn't feeling so good when he found out you'd located his cache. I dunno's we should of done that. He's sure to get real uncooperative on us, and we need him." "All right!" said Burford. "But have you noticed how shaky he's been the last couple of days? What if he cracks up, then where'll we be? I say it isn't enough to just throw out his liquor--he'll make more as soon as we get into space again. We ought to make him take the cure. Force it down his throat if we have to." "Sure," said Hale. "Just tell him we're through kidding around. He's got to take it and like it." "Now, boys, take it easy," Davies said. "We've been all over this before...." Shoemaker grinned sourly. So that was what they were cooking up. Well, forewarned was forearmed; as a matter of fact, he'd given this possibility some thought a long time ago, and acted accordingly. So he had one hole card, anyway. But getting them to agree to an immediate takeoff was another horse. Wait a minute.... There was an idea. If he played it right--it was tricky, but it might work. They were coming in the sallyport now. Shoemaker ducked down to the chem storeroom, found the bottle he was looking for and filled a small capsule from it. His hands were shaking, he noticed. That was what the fear of hellfire did to you.