He squirmed in remembrance. "I understand some of the earlier men dug out divots of flesh to get rid of the intolerable itch and to keep from going crazy. It's that bad. Good thing, though, that the spores can't live inside the body. Can you imagine having an itch like that in your lungs?"
nother sip and then he continued. "You'll forgive me if I seem to wander from La Prunella, but you have to understand the powder puffs to know why she left our bed and board so suddenly.
"Of course, it's true all of the old-timers on Xenon had been puffed at one time or another, but just to prevent a repeat performance, we all, including Prunella, wore that protective goo you people sent out to us a few years ago. Works pretty well. You build up a considerable immunity after the first attack of puffs and more after each succeeding one, but that's the hard way. The goo is easier." His voice trailed off as, with a surprised look, he noticed his glass, was again empty. This time he brought the bottle back with him. "But to get back to Pruny. Well, the men were getting pretty fed up with Prunella's arbitrary ways and her morning inspections, but the last straw was when she shot Johnny, the station's pet Me-too bird that we had raised from almost an egg. Same as humans, Johnny had his little faults and foibles, but we loved him in spite of them.
"One of those faults was the reason Johnny lived outside the dome instead of inside with the rest of us, as he would have liked. We never let him stay inside for any length of time because he was never able to understand why floors should be clean and kept that way. So Johnny's nest was on top of the ultra-wave tower and that's where he spent most of his time when he wasn't lazily riding around on the shoulders of one of us or pan-handling Joe, the cook, for something extra to eat.
"He was in his nest when Prunella got him with that delicate-looking, deadly little needle-gun of hers. I'll bet he had a hundred of those tiny slivers of steel in him. One would have been enough, but she must have set the gun on full automatic and then let it spew itself empty."
I made sympathetic noises.
"She said afterward that Johnny had been a possible disease carrier and, besides, he was dirty. There was absolutely no doubt about it—Johnny was dirty and in more ways than one, but as for diseases, Xenon seemed to have none that the human race hadn't already overcome on some other planet far more dangerous than this one."