"Of course!" Splinter grinned.
Kerry Blane exploded, words spewing volcanically forth. Splinter relaxed, his booted foot beating out a dull rhythm to the colorful language learned through almost fifty years of spacing. And at last, when Kerry Blane had quieted until he but smoldered, he leaned over and touched the old spacer on the sleeve.
"Seventy-eight!" he remarked pleasantly.
"Seventy-eight what?" Kerry Blane asked sullenly, the old twinkle beginning to light again deep in his eyes.
"Seventy-eight new words—and you swore them beautifully!" Splinter beamed. "Some day you can teach them to me."
They laughed then, Old Kerry Blane and young Splinter Wood, and the warmth of their friendship was a tangible thing in the small control-room of the cruiser.
And in the midst of their laughter, Old Kerry Blane choked in agony, surged desperately against his bunk straps.
He screamed unknowingly, feeling only the horrible excruciating agony of his body, tasting the blood that gushed from his mouth and nostrils. His muscles were knotted cords that he could not loosen, and his blood was a surging stream that pounded at his throbbing temples. The air he breathed seemed to be molten flame.
His body arced again and again against the restraining straps, and his mouth was open in a soundless scream. He sensed dimly that his partner had wrenched open a wall door, removed metal medicine kits, and was fumbling through their contents. He felt the bite of the hypodermic, felt a deadly numbness replace the raging torment that had been his for seconds. He swallowed three capsules automatically, passed into a coma-like sleep, woke hours later to stare clear-eyed into Splinter's concerned face.
"Close, wasn't it?" he said weakly, conversationally.