The Lovers   ::   Фармер Филип Хосе

He started to bury his face against her shoulder, but she put both hands on his chest and with surprising strength, half-raised him.

'No. I must see your face. Especially at the time I must, for I want to see you lose yourself in me.'

And she kept her eyes wide open throughout as if she were trying to impress forever upon every cell of her body her lover's face.

Hal was not disconcerted, for he would not have paid attention to the Archurielite himself knocking on the door. But he noticed, though he did not think of it, that the pupils of her eyes had contracted to a pencil point.

16



The Alcoholics in the Haijac Union were sent to H. Therefore, no psychological or narcotic therapies had been worked out for addicts. Hal, frustrated by this fact in his desire to wipe out Jeannette's weakness, went for medicine to the very people who had given her the disease. But he pretended that the cure was for himself.

Fobo said, 'There is widespread drinking on Ozagen, but it is light. Our few alcoholics are empathized into normality with the help of medicine, of course. Why don't you let me empathize you?'

'Sorry. My government forbids that.'

He had given Fobo the same excuse for not inviting the wog into his apartment.

'You have the most forbidding government,' said Fobo and went into one of his long, howling laughs.

When he recovered, he said, 'You're forbidden to touch liquor, too, but that doesn't hold you back. Well, there's no accounting for inconsistency. Seriously, though, I have just the thing for you. It's called Easyglow. We put it into the daily ration of liquor, slowly increasing the Easyglow and diminishing the alcohol. In two or three weeks, the patient is drinking from a fluid ninety-six percent Easyglow. The taste is much the same; the drinker seldom suspects. Continued treatment eases the patient from his dependence on the alcohol. There is only one drawback.'

He paused and said, 'The drinker is now addicted to Easyglow!'

He whooped and slapped his thigh and shook his head until his long cartilaginous nose vibrated, and laughed until the tears came.

When he managed to quit laughing and had dried his tears with a starfish-shaped handkerchief, he said, 'Really, the perculiar effect of Easyglow is that it opens the patient for discharge of the strains that have driven him to drink. He may then be empathized and at the same time weaned from the stimulant.