"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.
XXV