f off, she
stopped to stare at her hands. They were strong hands, well-shaped and
supple, with a healthily tanned skin. She flexed them and unflexed them
several times. Beautiful hands. The Doctor had done well by her.

She finished undoing the straps, and got to her feet. There was none of
the dizziness she had expected, none of the weakness that would have
been normal after so long a stay in bed. She felt fine.

She examined herself, staring at her legs, body--staring as she might
have done at a stranger's legs and body. She took a few steps forward
and then back. Yes, he had done well by her. It was a graceful body, and
it felt fine. Better than new.

But her face!

She whirled around to locate a mirror, and heard a voice: "Margaret!"

Fred was getting out of another bunk. Their eyes sought each other's
faces, and for a long moment they stared in silence.

Fred said in a choked voice, "There must be a mirror in the captain's
cabin. I've got to see myself."

[Illustration]

At the mirror, their eyes shifted from one face to the other and back
again. And the silence this time was longer, more painful.

A wonderful artist, the Doctor. For a creature--a person--who was
insensitive to the differences in human faces, he could follow a pattern
perfectly. Feature by feature, they were as before. Size and shape of
forehead, dip of hairline, width of cheeks and height of cheekbones,
shape and color of eyes, contour of nose and lips and chin--nothing in
the two faces had been changed. Nothing at all.

Nothing, that is, but the overall effect. Nothing but the fact that
where before she had been plain, now she was beautiful.

_I should have realized the possibility_, she thought. _Sometimes you
see two sisters, or mother and daughter, with the same features, the
faces as alike as if they had been cast from the same mold--and yet one
is ugly and the other beautiful. Many artists can copy features, but few
can copy with perfect exactness either beauty or ugliness. The Doctor
slipped up a little. Despite my warning, he's done too well by me._

_And not well enough by Fred. Fred isn't handsome any more. Not ugly
really--his face is stronger and more interesting than it was. But now
I'm the good-looking one of the family. And he won't be able to take it.
This is the end for us._

* * * * *

Fred was grinning at her. He said, "Wow, what a wife I've got! Just look
at you! Do you mind if I