In dressing room B, a technician discovered a crewman who was sitting against a wall rubbing his skull. "Somebody bopped me," said the man glumly. "I'm supposed to go out there and blast giants, dammit. Who could have swiped me so hard?"
Pink took an experimental hop. It should have carried him, at Terra gravity, about two feet. He soared over a hillock and came down gently on a plain of rock that looked like lava; his hop had carried him some scores of yards. He felt for an instant like a kid let loose on a wonderful playground. Then he snapped into it and began to scan the terrain for signs of life.
To the right was the mountain they had seen from the descending ship, with its irregular rows of gaping holes which suggested caves and therefore possible habitations. It wouldn't take more than five minutes to reach them at an easy amble, or a minute at a brisk walk; about a mile away, they seemed.
Then with a horrified start he remembered the giant who had been atop his ship. Washington Daley had been delegated to deal with it—and Pink had forgotten, had not even glanced back to see how his lieutenant was making out! He whirled neglecting caution, and fell on his face. Luckily he came down like a big bulky feather, and caught himself and bounced up again, a rubber ball of a man on this alien world Oasis.
He was just in time to see the giant, bending forward over the front of the ship, begin to blur and stream downward toward the tiny figure of the human who stood below him. In a moment he resembled a cloud of tobacco-smoke, drawn into the gray container in Daley's hand. He vanished entirely, Daley clapped on the sealing lid, and gave a triumphant wave to his captain. Pink blew out a breath of gratitude and remorse; he'd have to be on his toes from now on, really vibrant with watchfulness. Laxity in one thing could lose this weird battle.
Strung out in a straggling line of erratically progressing units, the men of Earth headed for the caves. In a time so short as to be faintly ridiculous, they were moving up the mountainside. The gaping holes were caves, and obviously deep ones. Pink stood at the entrance of one for a moment, checking on the number of his men; then he waved a hand over his head, and entered the great den. Behind him came another figure, one whose slimness told him it was probably Jerry.
Their chest lamps lit up the interior, which was as gray, knobby, and featureless as the outside world. Pink held his Colt .44 in his right hand, one of the bottles in his left. The technicians of the Elephant's Child had worked like drudges over those bottles....
Every bottle of liquor aboard had been requisitioned. The liquid had been poured into plastic containers; only a few spoonfuls had been left in each bottle.
Then lead, melted down and beaten into sheets, was wrapped around each bottle, forming a thin and chinkless layer over all the glass but the lip; and the lead was painted with tough plastikoid paint, which covered it with a film one-twentieth of an inch thick. Caps of lead were made for the bottles. At the end of a couple of hours, they had sixty-six bottles, glass inside, lead covered, and topped off with plastikoid which would conceal the presence of lead from any known test short of X-ray.