"You must have worked miracles, Joy," acknowledged Thorne, wonderingly. "What did you do? I know I was dying." The rocket captain looked down, flushing miserably. He picked at a fleck on his purple tunic. "Well, lad, you know ... we hear things in the trade. I knew ... you drank t'ang. So I remembered I had a bottle. Stuff in the armory for trading, ye remember. You had half a glass." Thorne smiled wryly. "Yes? Thanks, Fraser. You took a risk, dispensing the stuff without a permit, but the patient--" His eyes widened and he came suddenly to his elbow, disregarding Fraser's attempt to thrust him down in the bunk again. "Half a glass, you said?" "Sure, lad. That's all." He looked anxiously at the bearded derelict. "Ye don't mean it was too much?" "No, no, nothing like that," Thorne waved aside the other's troubled protest, his brows knitting. He had had more than that before, but even to stronger men than himself such a dose meant stunned, broken stupor that might well last from two to four days. Yet he felt nothing. "Fraser, when you found me, where was I?" "Out cold on a sand-hill, lad. O'Leary spotted you from the engine room as we sailed by. Ye had a Martian spear ... and something else I want to talk to you about later." Thorne did not catch the other's meaning, but pressed on. "There was no city near?" "City!" Fraser stared. "Ye mean ... oh, ye mean a deserted city, eh? No, there was no city. No cities in those parts to my knowledge. Mirage country, ye know, lad. One o' them?" "Could you remember--were there plants near me--Martian desert plants like cactus--maybe t'ang bushes?" "Can't say, Thorne. None right near ye, anyhow. Just clear sand. Why?" "Could you find the spot again?" "Sure. Right in the log. Aimin' to go back?" "Perhaps ... some day. But you don't understand, Joy. Those plants ... I had been eating them." Fraser started back in horror, coming to his feet as his stool clattered across the smooth steel floor. "But my Lord, man ... them things is fatal! One nibble and ye're a cooked goose!" "I know. I've seen men who died that way, and I wanted to go out as quickly. I couldn't take it any more. But I ate everything--all colors and all the tastes you could find in your foulest nightmares. I even ate the t'ang berries. Am _I_ dead?" "Lord knows why you ain't, lad!" "I know I ate the things, Joy. But that's not what I meant. Perhaps the things counteracted themselves in me, I ate so many. I meant the t'ang." "You--it didn't affect you!" Fraser eyed his patient in growing astonishment. There were no indications Thorne had sopped up a heavy dose of the lethal drug. "No. I feel nothing. Just like I'd had a good sleep, though I'm still worn out and weak. Dead tired and hungry, but I have no thirst. And my craving for the stuff is classic, Joy." "I've heard that, lad." Fraser shook his head, remembering the wild tales. "I don't _want_ a drink, Joy!" * * * * *