"How much of it do you have to take to—to get the habit?"
Byng's thin lips curled in a cynical scowl. "One sniff. And the drug takes all your worries away. You're nine feet tall and the world's your plaything, when you're up on dream dust. Everything you look at has six different colors." Bitterly Byng said, "Just one catch—after about a year you stop feeling the effect. But not the craving. That stays with you forever. Every night, one good sniff—at a hundred credits a sniff. And there's no cure."
Alan shuddered. He had seen dreamdust addicts in the advanced state—withered palsied old men of forty, unable to eat, crippled, drying up and nearing death. All that for a year's pleasure!
"Johnny used to be a starman," Hawkes said suddenly. "That's why I picked him for our little stunt tonight. I thought it was about time I introduced you two."
Alan's eyes widened. "What ship?"
"Galactic Queen. A dreamdust peddler came wandering through the Enclave one night and let me have a free sniff. Generous of him."
"And you—became an addict?"
"Five minutes later. So my ship left without me. That was eleven years ago, Earthtime. Figure it out—a hundred credits a night for eleven years."
Alan felt cold inside. It could have happened to him, he thought—that free sniff. Byng's thin shoulders were quivering. The advanced stage of addiction was starting to set in.
Byng was only the first of Hawkes' many friends that Alan met in the next two weeks. Hawkes was the center of a large group of men in Free Status, not all of whom knew each other but who all knew Hawkes. Alan felt a sort of pride in being the protege of such an important and widely-known man as Max Hawkes, until he started discovering what sort of people Hawkes' friends were.