Adventures in Time and Space by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

We met Mike at the Sunspot as arranged. He was drinking a Three Planets. “This is good,” he announced. “This has spacedrive and zoom to it. You get it other places and—”

“I know,” I said. “Find a site?”

“A honey. Wait’ll I—”

“Hold it. We’ve got to know have we got anything to go on it. Guzub! One Three Planets.”

We watched entranced as he mixed the potion. “Get exactly what he does,” Quinby had said. “Then construct a usuform bartender who’ll be infallible. It’ll satisfy the Martian envoy and at the same time remind the Head of why we’re helping him out.”

But all we saw was a glittering swirl of tentacles. First a flash as each tentacle picked up its burden—one the shaker, one the lid, one the glass, and three others the bottles of rum, margil, and vuzd. Then a sort of spasm that shook all Guzub’s round body as the exact amount of each liquid went in, and finally a gorgeous pin-wheel effect of shaking and pouring.

Guzub handed me my drink, and I knew as much as I had before. By the time I’d finished it, I had courage. “Guzub,” I said, “this is wonderful.”

“Zure,” Guzub glurked. “Always I maig id wondervul.”

“Nobody else can make ‘em like you, Guz. But tell me. How much vuzd do you put in?”

Guzub made his kind of a shrug. “I dell you, boys, I dunno. Zome dime maybe I wadge myzely and zee. I juzd go zo! I dunno how mudj.”

“Give me another one. Let’s see you watch yourself.”

“Businezz is good by you, you dring zo many Blanedz? O Gay, ere goes.”

But the whirl stopped in the middle. There was Guzub, all his eyes focused sadly on the characteristic green corkscrew-shaped bottle of vuzd. Twice he started to move that tentacle, then drew it back. At last he made a dash with it.

“Exactly two drops,” Quinby whispered.

Guzub handed over the drink unhappily. “Dry id,” he said.

I did. It was terrible. Too little vuzd, so that you could taste both the heavy sweetness of the rum and the acrid harshness of the margil. I said so.

“I know, boys. Wen I zdob do wadge, id bothers me. No gan do.” I gulped the drink. “Mix up another without watching. Maybe we can tell.”

This one was perfect. And we could see nothing.

The next time he “wadged.” He used precisely four and half drops of vuzd. You tasted nothing but the tart decay of the vuzd itself.

The next time—

But my memory gets a little vague after that. Like I said, I’m a whiskey drinker. And four Three Planetses in quick succession—I’m told the party went on till closing hour at twenty-three, after which Guzub accepted Quinby’s invitation to come on and mix for us at my apartment. I wouldn’t know. All I remember is one point where I found a foot in my face. I bit it, decided it wasn’t mine, and stopped worrying about it. Or about anything.

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