One Man's Poison Part 4

"Stop that," h.e.l.lman ordered sternly. "We've no time for hysteria."

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

"I guess we'll have to a.s.sume that their meat is our poison," h.e.l.lman 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," h.e.l.lman said, half an hour later.

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

"What does it say?" he asked.

h.e.l.lman 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 CIRc.u.mSTANCES. 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?" h.e.l.lman 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.

h.e.l.lman 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.

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

h.e.l.lman 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 an empty stomach."

"I'm not holding _you_ back," h.e.l.lman said.

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

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

"Well," h.e.l.lman 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 h.e.l.lman, and he jumped back.

"Watch out!"

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

"Run for it!" h.e.l.lman 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. h.e.l.lman 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.

h.e.l.lman 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.

h.e.l.lman 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, h.e.l.lman 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!

h.e.l.lman 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, h.e.l.lman 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.

The Plugger couldn't expand _completely_ into Casker's room!

Or could it?

The wedge-shaped rooms, each a segment of a circle, seemed to stretch before him forever, a jumbled montage of locked doors, alien goods, more doors, more goods. h.e.l.lman fell over a crate, got to his feet and fell again. He had reached the limit of his strength, and pa.s.sed it.

But Casker was his friend.