s lump of flesh. Die
and end your torture, die, die, die...._

But she didn't. And after a while, a new thought came to her: She and
Fred had been the only ones on their ship; there had been no other ship
near them. Who had kept her from dying? Who had taken her crushed body
and stopped the flow of blood and tended her wounds and kept her alive?
And for what purpose?

The silence gave no answer. Nor did her own mind.

After an age, she slept again.

When she awoke, a voice said, "Do you feel better?"

* * * * *

I _can hear_! she shouted to herself. _It's a strange voice, a most
unusual accent. I couldn't possibly have imagined it. I'm not deaf!
Maybe I'm not blind either! Maybe I just had a nightmare_--

"I know that you cannot answer. But do not fear. You will soon be able
to speak again."

Who was it? Not a man's voice, nor a woman's. It was curiously hoarse,
and yet clear enough. Uninflected, and yet pleasant. A doctor? Where
could a doctor have come from?

"Your husband is also alive. Fortunately, we reached both of you at
about the time death had just begun."

Fortunately? She felt a flash of rage. _You should have let us die. It
would be bad enough to be alive by myself, a helpless cripple dependent
upon others. But to know that Fred is alive too is worse. To know that
he has a picture of me like this, ugly and horrifying, is more than I
can stand. With any other man it would be bad enough, but with Fred it's
unendurable. Give me back the ability to talk, and the first thing I'll
ask of you is to kill me. I don't want to live._

"It may reassure you to know that there will be no difficulty about
recovering the use of the limbs proper to you, and the organs of
sensation. It will take time, but there is no doubt about the final
outcome."

What nonsense, she asked herself, was this? Doctors had done wonders in
the creation and fitting of artificial arms and legs, but he seemed to
be promising her the use of _real_ limbs. And he had said, "organs of
sensation." That didn't sound as if he meant that she'd see and hear
electronically. It meant--

Nonsense. He was making a promise he couldn't keep. He was just saying
that to make her feel better, the way doctors did. He was saying it to
give her courage, keep her morale up, make her feel that it was worth
fighting. But it _wasn't_ worth fighting. She had no courage to keep up.
She wanted only to die.

"Perhaps you have a