"Perhaps you don't see how it could be done," Price said. "I'll explain."
Reggie's heavy hand sat a straight bourbon down before Price and another before Infield. Price stared at the drink almost without comprehension of how it came to be. He started to sweat.
"George, drink it."
The voice belonged to a young woman, a blonde girl with pink skin and suave, draped clothes. In this den of the Cured, Infield thought half-humorously, it was surprising to see a Normal—an "Incomplete." But then he noticed something about the baby she carried. The Cure had been very simple. It wasn't even a mechanized half-human robot, just a rag doll. She sat down at the table.
"George," she said, "drink it. One drink won't raise your alcohol index to the danger point. You've got to get over this fear of even the sight or smell of liquor."
The girl turned to Infield. "You're one of us, but you're new, so you don't know about George. Maybe you can help if you do. It's all silly. He's not an alcoholic. He didn't need to put that Cure on his head. It's just an excuse for not drinking. All of this is just because a while back something happened to the baby here—" she adjusted the doll's blanket—"when he was drinking. Just drinking, not drunk.
"I don't remember what happened to the baby—it wasn't important. But George has been brooding about it ever since. I guess he thinks something else bad will happen because of liquor. That's silly. Why don't you tell him it's silly?"
"Maybe it is," Infield said softly. "You could take the shock if he downed that drink and the shock might do you good."
Price laughed shortly. "I feel like doing something very melodramatic, like throwing my drink—and yours—across the room, but I haven't got the guts to touch those glasses. Do it for me, will you? Cauterizing the bite might do me good if I'd been bitten by a rabid dog, but I don't have the nerve to do it."