Charlie Mead, trapper, and Flip Miller, ex-prospector, started a forty-day drunk. Charlie just liked the idea. Flip had reasons. "In a few hours it'll be wetter'n a swamp duck's gullet," said Charlie, grinning behind his whiskers. "And darker'n West Pluto!" Charlie had been trapping otters here for five years and accepted the long nights as resignedly as the mud, the eternal fog and the heat. He poured another glass of loku , squinted at its blue sparkle in the tube-light. The gray mists swirled