Don went through the routine. He sprinkled some of the salt on the back of his hand, licked it, picked up the shot glass and tossed its contents back over his tonsils, then hurriedly grabbed up one of the quarters of lime and bit into it.

He said, “I’ll be damned if I know why anybody punishes themselves by drinking this stuff.”

Harry leaned on the bar before him and said, sympathetically, “You know, Lieutenant, I don’t either. I’m a beer-drinking man myself. But, you know, the kind of beer they’re turning out these days, they could stick it back in the horse. No body, no strength, no nothing.” He sighed. “I guess it’s all necessary on account of the war effort. But we still had real beer, back when I was a kid.”

“I doubt it. I remember my grandfather, back when I was a boy. He used to tell us, and over and over again, that the beer in those days wasn’t worth drinking. No hops, no strength. Now when he was a young fellow they really had beer. I bet the complaint has gone back to the Babylonians, or whoever it was that first brewed beer.”

Harry never argued with a real spaceman. He said, “I guess you’re right, Lieutenant. Like another one?”

“Yeah, hit me again,” Don said. In actuality, in his humor, he wished he could think of something really cutting to say to the fawning bartender, but it was too damned much effort.

Harry poured more tequila.

He said, “You hear the news this morning?”

Don said, “No. I just got in. I’ve been in deep space.”

He knocked back the second drink, going through the same procedure as before. He still didn’t know why he drank this stuff, save that it was the quickest manner of getting an edge on.

“Colin Casey died.” Harry shook his heavy head. “The only man in the system that held the Galactic Medal of Honor. Presidential proclamation. Everybody in the solar system is to hold five minutes of silence for him at two o’clock, Sol time.”