“What do you take for that?”
“Oh, different things. Sometimes a soda pill, sometimes milk of magnesia, different things.”
Smathers looked disappointed, but before he could say anything, Dr. Petrelli’s awed but excited voice came from behind him. “Do you take Epsom salts?”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder—” said Petrelli softly.
And then he left for the lab at a dead run.
Colonel Fennister and Major Grodski sat at the table in the lab, munching on banana-pears, blissfully enjoying the sweet flavor and the feeling of fullness they were imparting to their stomachs.
“MacNeil can’t stay in the service, of course,” said Fennister. “That is, not in any space-going outfit. We’ll find an Earthside job for him, though. Maybe even give him a medal. You sure these things won’t hurt us?”
Dr. Pilar started to speak, but Petrelli cut him off.