"It's just water, Joy." He looked up at Fraser, wide-eyed, grinning.
"It's high-test Royal Seal," retorted the freighter captain. "It cost me plenty and you know it."
"Yes, but—to me—me, the biggest sot on Mars—it's just water! No taste, no smell, no nothing." He lifted the glass to his lips. There was a short pause. Slowly he lowered his hand, a glare of madness in his eyes. Fraser drew back, but, fascinated, made no effect to interfere.
"It's still ... water, Joy. Water. Tastes like water, smells like water. The stuff doesn't affect me at all." He flung up his hand, gulping down the terrible t'ang like mad, spilling it down his stubby chin and staining his rags a dirtier color than before. Only when the last drop had vanished did he lower the glass, and Fraser, watching in amazement, saw that no tinge of exhilaration swayed his patient. A thimblefull of the stuff would set off a jag in an ordinary man that made a whiskey-drunk look like an ice-cream festival. Thorne, saturated with the wicked juice, sat in quiet, deliberate possession of his every sense and faculty.
"I've had my drink, Joy. I didn't want it, except as I would want any drink when thirsty. I didn't taste a thing. I feel nothing." He stumbled erect, holding onto the upright of the bunk. "I'm tired, dead-tired. I could sleep a week. But I'm not drunk, Joy. I'm not drunk. I can't get drunk. Never again. I can't be poisoned. I'm saturated with poison. You'll have to shoot me to get rid of me, Joy."
"We don't want to get rid of you, Jeff." There were unaccustomed lines in the freighter captain's face and a softness which had not been there since he bade goodby to his children back on Earth five months ago. "We've hated to lose you. And now you're back again, you want us to shoot you!"
Their hands met and wrung hard together. "Welcome back!" It was a pleasant thing for the derelict Thorne to hear once more. But he knew.
"I can't come back, Joy, though I thank you. I'm a t'ang drinker and, as such, I lose all rights."
"You're cured, man! You've proved that. You're alive! The berries and leaves you ate destroyed your craving. We can prove it in any court of law, any space commission. Drink a barrel of the stuff in their faces."
"Perhaps I'm cured. I think so now, but there may be a relapse. Anyhow, cured or not, there's a strict law on the books and it isn't going to be lifted to allow me to return to Earth or any of the Lines. Too many aren't cured."