life and then working on the darkened lights in his brain until, with a cry, he sat up and looked at her. For a painful moment his shield was down and she screamed in horror. He closed. «You healed me.» He rose. He looked at his hand. He held his arms out and looked at them in bemused wonder. «I was dying.» Yes. She watched him fearfully. Had she been wrong? Had she, by saving him, unleashed a monster? «You saved me for hell,» he said bitterly. She made a disgusted movement with her lips. Fool. And he remembered. She had told him, speaking in his mind. Save yourself! You could have. «How?» I've done enough. «How?» He stepped close to her. «Tell me.» No. «If you don't I'll"—he searched for words—"come in.» But she knew before he voiced it. He saw the fear on her face. He opened. He searched and she screamed silently and tried to block but he was too powerful. And it was there. So simple. «Of course,» he said. He closed. He looked into himself and, somewhere in that never-before-used portion of his brain was a pattern of all the complex things which made him, all the cells and glands and veins and organs and tissues, all outlined for him and he could look into any minute recess of his being and all he saw was weakness and sickness and, experimentally, he altered, changed, stimulated, and things changed and moved. He did not notice the woman leaving, so bemused was he. He examined his newly repaired heart, made adjustments, opened clogged arteries and veins, set healthy cells working to reproduce and replace diseased tissue, repaired glands, felt a huge sweep of pure elation. Heal? God, he could heal! Even the near-cancerous waste of his seared lungs. And the waste was too much. He couldn't void it all at once. He halted, thought it out, retired to the room where the cold machines had first examined him. There was a voice trying to reach him, the voice of the
machine. He closed it out. He cleansed his body of sickness, disease, waste, malfunction. He voided wastes, vomited wastes, sweated wastes but, rather than losing weight, he gained as muscles were made healthy, as fatty tissue was solidified. Knowing his needs, he called for them, foods, liquids. He ingested them without tasting, hurrying to perfect a body which had known only pain, sickness, ill health since shortly after his birth. And the wondrous feeling of vitality swept over him as the task was completed and he, taller, heavier, perfectly formed, smooth-skinned, radiant with health, ventured out to look for the woman. He found her in the aft portion of the ship. She was behind a locked door, but he could sense her. He sent. His mind, more alert, benefited by the cleansing of his polluted, sick body, knew now that it was not necessary to voice the words. «I must know. I must know all of it.» She resisted. He placed his palm on the door, read the pattern of the lock, opened it. She was huddled on her bed. «I won't hurt you.» She looked at him, wide-eyed. He read the thought. At first he felt the old reaction. But he knew, now, that she was no angel. Nor was she an instrument of the devil. She was merely a human being from a far place, a human being with fantastic abilities, abilities which were no longer a mystery to him. He read her thought. Handsome. With sexual overtones. He was, at first, repelled. But that was unimportant. His brain, freed of the burden of his wasted body, worked rapidly. «I must know,» he repeated. «Open.» He pushed. Her shield gave. She sighed. He saw her. Blaze. Beautiful. Desirable. Not evil. Mistaken, perhaps. For looking in he saw clearly the sweep of the civilization from which she came. He saw the Trang people, beautiful, perfect. He saw her wistful need for the euphoria of the drug and he saw her need for—other things and everything came clear to him. Back on Earth there was a lowered birth rate because of the fantastic overcrowding and the eternal misery of existence. The population of the Earth stayed static because of the lowered birth rate, because of child mortality, because of the early mortality of the average man. In her world there was no birth. Having discovered the secret of eternal life, the race had no need for birth, had expanded, after the advent of the mutation which opened up their healing centers, to give every member of the race adequate room, had ceased expanding, then, and for countless eons, now, there had been no birth, no death. Static. As static, in its way, as Earth. And neither was right. Now he had the power to change it all. Somehow, he, sub-being, worse than retarded, more than moronic, had developed the power and, somehow, his brain, having never been used to full capacity, was more powerful than that of a member of the race. He could change. «Can I make this change in people on Earth?» I don't know. He searched deeper. He saw, behind the Trangized race, the vast network of machines. Thinking machines. Idle machines. Wasted resources. The possibilities opened to him. He left her, smiling, not angry