[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: Broken, helpless, she had to trust an alien doctor to give
her back her body and mind--a doctor who had never seen a human before!]
She awoke, and didn't even wonder where she was.
First there were feelings--a feeling of existence, a sense of still
being alive when she should be dead, an awareness of pain that made her
body its playground.
After that, there came a thought. It was a simple thought, and her mind
blurted it out before she could stop it: _Oh, God, now I won't even be
plain any more. I'll be ugly._
The thought sent a wave of panic coursing through her, but she was too
tired to experience any emotion for long, and she soon drowsed off.
Later, the second time she awoke, she wondered where she was.
There was no way of telling. Around her all was black and quiet. The
blackness was solid, the quiet absolute. She was aware of pain
again--not sharp pain this time, but dull, spread throughout her body.
Her legs ached; so did her arms. She tried to lift them, and found to
her surprise that they did not respond. She tried to flex her fingers,
and failed.
She was paralyzed. She could not move a muscle of her body.
The silence was so complete that it was frightening. Not a whisper of
sound reached her. She had been on a spaceship, but none of a ship's
noises came to her now. Not the creak of an expanding joint, nor the
occasional slap of metal on metal. Not the sound of Fred's voice, nor
even the slow rhythm of her own breathing.
It took her a full minute to figure out why, and when she had done so
she did not believe it. But the thought persisted, and soon she knew
that it was true.
The silence was complete because she was deaf.
Another thought: The blackness was so deep because she was blind.
And still another, this time a questioning one: Why, if she could feel
pain in her arms and legs, could she not move them? What strange form of
paralysis was this?
She fought against the answer, but slowly, inescapably, it formed in her
mind. She was not paralyzed at all. She could not move her arms and legs
because she had none. The pains she felt were phantom pains, conveyed by
the nerve endings without an external stimulus.
When this thought penetrated, she fainted. Her mind sought in
unconsciousness to get as close to death as it could.
* * * * *
When she awoke, it was against her will. She sought desperately to close
her mind against thought and feeling, just as her eyes and ears were
already closed.
[Illustration]
But thoughts crept in despite her. Why was she alive? Why hadn't she
died in the crash?
Fred must certainly have been killed. The asteroid had come into view
suddenly; there had been no chance of avoiding it. It had been a miracle
that she herself had escaped, if escape it could be called--a mere
sightless, armless and legless torso, with no means of communication
with the outside world, she was more dead than alive. And she could not
believe that the miracle had been repeated with Fred.
It was better that way. Fred wouldn't have to look at her and
shudder--and he wouldn't have to worry about himself, either. He had
always been a handsome man, and it would have killed him a second time
to find himself maimed and horrible.
She must find a way to join him, to kill herself. It would be difficult,
no doubt, without arms or legs, without any way of knowing her
surroundings; but sooner or later she would think of a way. She had
heard somewhere of people strangling themselves by swallowing their own
tongues, and the thought cheered her. She could at least try that right
now. She could--
No, she couldn't. She hadn't realized it before, but she had no tongue.
She didn't black out at this sudden awareness of a new horror, although
she desperately wanted to. She thought: _I can make an effort of will, I
can force myself to die. Die, you fool, you helpless 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.