"What've you got there, Quack?" I demanded. "Come on, give—what are you hiding out?"
"Antibiotics and stuff," he answered, and pulled a little flat plastic case out of a pocket.
It was his portable medicine chest, which he carried the way superstitious people used to carry rabbits' feet, and it was largely responsible for our calling him the Quack. It was full of patent capsule remedies that he had gleaned out of his home medical book—a cut thumb, a surprise headache, or a siege of gas on the stomach would never catch the Quack unprepared!
"Jerk," I said, and went back to Gibbons and Corelli, who were arguing a new approach to our problem.
"It's worth a try," Gibbons said. He turned on the two Haslops, who were bristling like a pair of strange dogs. "This question is for the real Haslop: Have you ever been put through a Rorschach, thematic apperception or free association test?"
The real Haslop hadn't. Either of them.
"Then we'll try free association," Gibbons said, and explained what he wanted of them.
"Water," Gibbons said, popping it out quick and sharp.
"Spigot," the Haslops said together. Which is exactly what any spaceman would say, since the only water important to him comes out of a ship's tank. "Lake" and "river" and "spring," to him, are only words in books.
Gibbons chewed his lip and tried again, but the result was the same every time. When he said "payday" they both came back "binge," and when he said "man" they answered "woman!" with the same gleam in their eyes.