Thyrkna looked a trifle dazed. “I never seen anybody what talks like you Earthlings. Don’t you ever run out of breath?”

O’Reilly felt himself reproved. Among the Great Galactics, a silence must be as meaningful as a hundred words, and there were a million years of dignity behind them. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Oh, it’s all right. I suppose a lot of our ways must look just as funny to you.” Thyrkna picked up the bottle and poured himself another glassful.

“What I asked you here for…there are many wonderful things you can tell me, but I would like to put you some religious questions.”

“Sure, go ahead,” said Thyrkna amiably.

“My Church has long speculated about this eventuality. The fact that you, too, are human, albeit more advanced than we, is a miraculous revelation of God’s will. But I would like to know something about the precise form of your belief in Him.”

“What do you mean?” Thyrkna sounded confused. ‘‘I’m a, uh, quartermaster. It’s part of my job to kill the rabbits—we can’t afford the space for cattle on board a ship. I feed the gods, that’s all.”

“The gods!” The Cardinal’s glass crashed on the floor.

“By the way, what’s the names of your top gods?” inquired Thyrkna. “Be a good idea to kill them a cow or two, as long as we’re here on their planet. Don’t wanna take chances on bad luck.”

“But…you…heathen—”

Thyrkna looked at the clock. “Say, do you have TV?” he asked. “It’s almost time for John’s Other Life. You got some real good TV on this planet.”

* * *

By the dawn’s early light, Joe Husting opened a bleary eye and wished he hadn’t. The apartment was a mess. What happened, anyway?’

Oh, yeah…those girls they picked up…but had they really emptied all those bottles lying on the floor?

He groaned and hung onto his head lest it split open. Why had he mixed scotch and stout?

Thunder lanced through his eardrums. He turned on the sofa and saw Gil emerging from the bedroom. The spaceman was thumping his chest and booming out a song learned last night. “Oh, roly poly—”

“Cut it out, will you?” groaned Husting.

“Huh? Man, you’ve had it, ain’t you?” Gil clicked his tongue sympathetically. “Here, just a minute.” He took a vial from his belt. “Take a few drops of this. It’ll fix you up.”

Somehow Husting got it down. There was a moment of fire and pinwheels, then—

–he was whole again. It was as if he had just slept ten hours without touching alcohol for the past week.

Gil returned to the bedroom and started pummeling his companions awake. Husting sat by the window, thinking hard. That hangover cure was worth a hundred million if he could only get the exclusive rights. But no, the technical envoys would show Earth how to make it, along with star ships and invisibility screens and so on. Maybe, though, he could hit the Galactics for what they had with them, and peddle it for a hundred dollars a drop before the full-dress mission arrived.