lready realized that I am not what you would call
human. However, I suggest that you do not worry too much about that. I
shall have no difficulty in reconstructing you properly according to
your own standards."

* * * * *

Then the voice ceased, and she was left alone. It was just as well, she
thought. He had said too much. And she couldn't answer, nor ask
questions of her own ... and she had so many.

He wasn't human? Then what was he? And how did he come to speak a human
language? And what did he mean to do with her after he had reconstructed
her? And what would she look like after she was reconstructed?

There were races, she knew, that had no sense of beauty. Or if they had
one, it wasn't like a human sense of beauty. Would he consider her
properly reconstructed if he gave her the right number of arms and legs,
and artificial organs of sight that acted like eyes--and made her look
like some creature out of Hell? Would he be proud of his handiwork, as
human doctors had been known to be, when their patients ended up alive
and helpless, their bodies scarred, their organs functioning feebly and
imperfectly? Would he turn her into something that Fred would look at
with abhorrence and disgust?

Fred had always been a little too sensitive to beauty in women. He had
been able to pick and choose at his will, and until he had met her he
had always chosen on the basis of looks alone. She had never understood
why he had married her. Perhaps the fact that she was the one woman he
knew who _wasn't_ beautiful had made her stand out. Perhaps, too, she
told herself, there was a touch of cruelty in his choice. He might have
wanted someone who wasn't too sure of herself, someone he could count on
under all circumstances. She remembered how people had used to stare at
them--the handsome man and the plain woman--and then whisper among
themselves, wondering openly how he had ever come to marry her. Fred had
liked that; she was sure he had liked that.

He had obviously _wanted_ a plain wife. Now he would have an ugly one.
Would he want _that_?

She slept on her questions, and waked and slept repeatedly. And then,
one day, she heard the voice again. And to her surprise, she found that
she could answer back--slowly, uncertainly, at times painfully. But she
could speak once more.

"We have been working on you," said the voice. "You are coming along
nicely."

"Am I--am I--" she found difficulty asking