Then I saw. The Skipper and Runt Hake were sitting in the same chair, murmuring soft words of tenderness at each other, stroking each other's hair fondly. Just as I looked, the Old Man leaned forward and gave the pirate a big, juicy kiss on the forehead!
And just then there came a welcome interruption. The audio throbbed to electric life; a brusque voice rasped, "Calling the Saturn! Saturn, ahoy! S.S.C.B. Cruiser Iris calling. Stand by! We'll come alongside you in twenty minutes...."
Afterward, when Runt Hake and his pirates, still babbling incoherent protestations of endearment, had been removed to the patrol ship and taken back toward the Venusian prison that had long awaited them, we held a confab in my radio room. Todd was there, and Chief Garrity, and Lancelot Biggs and myself. Also a very foggy-eyed, befuddled Captain Hanson who seemed to be having a hard time keeping from saying we were all "dear, sweet boys"—as he had told us quite a few times in the past hour or so.
I couldn't make head or tail of it. So I asked Biggs bluntly, "But what was it, Mr. Biggs? We all know it was something you put in the food. Something from which the pepsin saved us. But what? Surely no drug would make a man act like that."
Biggs grinned, his Adam's-apple jerking amiably.
"No, not a drug. But a chemical. Prolactin, to be exact. If you'll remember, I started to tell you we were carrying a load of it to earth."
"Prolactin?" said Todd. "What's that?"
"An extract of the pituitary gland; the hormone that governs human affections. Prolactin is the hormone that is responsible for all acts of parental love. It causes roosters to brood and set on eggs, tomcats to give milk and milk-deficient females to become normal. It is commonly known as the 'mother-love' crystal."
"And we," I said, "were carrying a load of it. I still don't understand, though, why we had to chew the pepsin. And why it failed to turn all of us into bunny-huggers like—"