"Been at it ever since," he explained. "Almost got them now. Ain't many of them left. Used to think that I'd find the right bottle before it was too late and then everything would be all right. Wouldn't do me no good to find it now, because I'm going to die. Enough left to last me, though. Aim to die plastered. Happy way to die."
"But what about those people on Pluto?" demanded West.
The whiskers snickered. "I fooled them. They gave me my choice. Take anything you want, they said. Big-hearted, you understand. Pals to the very last. So I took the whisky. Cases of it. They didn't know, you see. I tricked them."
"I'm sure you did," said West. Tiny, icy feet ran up and down his spine. For there was madness here, he knew, but madness with a pattern. Somewhere, somehow, this twisted talk would fall into a pattern that would make sense.
"But something went wrong," the man declared. "Something went wrong."
Silence whistled in the room.
"You see, Mr. Best," the man declared. "I—"
"West," said West. "Not Best. West."
The man did not seem to notice. "I'm going to die, you understand. Any minute, maybe. Got a liver and heart and either one could kill me. Drinking does that to you. Never used to drink. Got into the habit when I was sampling all these bottles. Got a taste for it. Then there wasn't anything to do—"
He hunched forward.