“Perhaps you are right,” I said after a moment of reflection. I took a syringe, drew up several drops of the stuff and squirted it into my carapace, where it would do the most good. I felt much better.
“Yes,” I continued, “certainly you are quite correct, now that I think of it. You newer models would never bear it. You weren’t built to stand such things. Nor, for that matter, could you comprehend the exquisite joys that are derived from Moon Glow. Not only would you derive no pleasure from it, but it would corrode your parts, I imagine, until you could scarcely crawl back to your master for repairs.” I helped myself to another liberal portion.
“That is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said.
“What?”
“I said, it’s silly. We are constructed to withstand a hundred times greater stress, and twice as many chemical actions as you were. Nothing could hurt us. Besides, it looks harmless enough. I doubt that it is hardly anything at all.”
“For me it is not,” I admitted. “But you—”
“Give me the syringe, fool!”
“I dare not.”
“Give it here!”
I allowed him to wrest it from my grasp. In any case I could not have prevented him. He shoved me backwards against the rusty bulkhead with a clang. He pushed the nozzle of the syringe down into the retort and withdrew it filled with Moon Glow. He opened an inspection plate in his ventral region and squirted himself generously.