"Later."
"That's what you're always saying," she complained. "Then all you do is
talk a lot of guff with that female over there."
"Okay. I forgot." He turned to Brenner. "Next question: how do we
navigate that ka-dodie of yours?"
Brenner laughed harshly. "You know so much, why don't you go ahead and
try it?"
"Now, Farradyne?" pleaded Norma.
"Not yet. I'm going to try his suggestion." Farradyne inspected the
tapings and satisfied himself. Then he turned toward the stairway.
"Wait," said Brenner testily. "Take her with you, dammit. I don't want
my face lettered with words found in washrooms."
"Somehow it seems appropriate."
"All right. The toggle fades the generator on and off. The red button
stops the equipment. The green button is for start. Wait until the
meter reads in the upper block before using the toggle. The speed for
this particular equipment is approximately two light years per hour in
Solarian measurement. We're about six hours from Sol now. Go ahead and
run us close to Sol so we can finish this gambit."
* * * * *
Farradyne took Norma by the hand and led her up the stairs. She
protested and hung back--but once in the control room, she crossed
briskly and turned the intercom so that sound from the salon would come
through clear and strong, but sound from the control room would not
go out. Then she turned from the panel and faced Farradyne with the
beginning of a soft smile on her face.
"That was the hardest job I've ever had," she breathed.
Visibly, she relaxed. An aliveness came around her eyes and her mouth
spread into a brief smile. She snapped her bottle of acid into one of
the many spring-holds in the control room. Then she walked over to the
co-pilot's seat and dropped into it. She rested, with her head tilted
back.
Farradyne watched with puzzlement. "Norma," he asked, "how long after a
sniff of love lotus does the effect last?"
"Seldom more than an hour. I have been free of it for quite some time."
"But you had a hell of a dose."
She took a deep breath. "I could feel it leaving," she said. "The
effects faded after you took the flower out of my hair, but instead of
fading away with a dulling of the senses, the urges I felt diminished
without leaving me emotionless. I think I'm cured of it."
Farradyne recoiled a bit.
"No, Charles, this is no trick. This is not an attempt to lead you on.
I'm cured, I think, honestly."
"But how?"
"One thing no one has tried is to place the addict in a veritable bath
of the things. Perhaps that did it--an overdose--Anyway, it's wonderful
to feel normal again." She sat up in the chair and leaned toward him.
She reached for his hand and drew him forward and kissed him on the
lips. For a moment they clung together, then she moved away from him
slowly. "It's all back again," she said quietly. "The quickened pulse
and the pleasant tingle. I'm a woman again, Charles. Let's go home so I
can enjoy it."
It was almost too good to be true--but it had to be.
Farradyne gave her hand a squeeze. "Done!" he said. His other hand
lifted the cross-bar toggle, and the pressure of the springed seats
threw them up against their hold-down straps.
Two light years an hour. Farradyne ran the Lancaster for exactly six
hours and then cut the superdrive. Together, they inspected the heavens
and found a brilliant yellow star on their quarter. Farradyne turned
the Lancaster to face it and raised the toggle slowly; Sol changed
color, racing toward the blue and the violet first, then turning a dull
red and raising through the spectrum again until it became violet once
more. It went through another spectrum-change and grew in size like
a toy balloon hitched to a high-pressure air line, until its flare
frightened the pilot. He shoved the toggle down and Sol winked back
into the familiar disc of blinding white, about the size as seen from
Mars.
Farradyne oriented himself, consulted the spaceman's ephemeris and
pointed at a large unwinking point. "Home," he said.
Two light years an hour. Farradyne went to the computer and made
some calculations. He returned, pointed the Lancaster at Terra and
flicked the toggle up and down, counting off a few seconds for drive.
Sol whiffled past, changing in color as its position changed in the
astrodome; and when Farradyne drove the toggle down, Terra was a
distinct disc in the sky above them.