[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Orbit volume 1 number
2, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY--BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER.
AND FOR IT--SHE'D DO ANYTHING!]
[Illustration ]
Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike
in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her
couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight.
There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements.
It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness
in them, but only _she_ knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her
polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth
they once had, only _she_ knew that, too. _But they would again_, she
told herself fiercely.
She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a
frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns--just one
frown--could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle.
One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and
there--the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing
them.
Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial
surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the
stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a
figure where they were beginning to blur and--sag.
No one else could see it--yet. But Ninon could!
Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the
back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and
destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as
circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved.
Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old
philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt.
Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to
feel that sureness of power in her grasp--the certain knowledge that
she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She
would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like
a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of
the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew
how.
Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment
through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the
lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of
endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them
contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave
them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years.
There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A
book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic
record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his
postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her
was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For
Ninon!
The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch--Robert
was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was
behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her
figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and
opened it.
A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with
the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step
forward to clasp her in his strong young arms.
"Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily.
Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed
her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the
years, it had deepened.
"Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm
resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening
flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such
experiences with men had given her.
Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been
waiting for you."
She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready
for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed
the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside
the young spaceman on the silken couch.
His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced
each other.
"Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long
time--to carry your image with me through all of time and space."
Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny
pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...."
Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there
were only room. But this is an experimental flight--no more than two can
go."
Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer.
"Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back.
"Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running
out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn--three hours from now."