"She was restless, she told us, because there was no more work for her to do, at the office or at home.
And she was afraid of your return, she said, because she was losing her beauty and her youth."
"But she isn't!"
Forester swayed to a numbness of bewilderment. "Ruth's not old."
"By comparison with our own steel-and-plastic units, all human bodies are very fragile and ephemeral. Your wife had been afraid of age for many years, she told us.
But now we have removed that fear, to make her happy again."
"Take me to her!"
Breathlessly, Forester followed the mechanical across the red pavement.
Huge doors slid open soundlessly, beyond tall amber pillars, to let them into the dwelling, which had a faint, bitter odor of new synthetics.
The walls were of some satin-surfaced stuff that could be made luminous, his guide cooed, in any pattern of colors he might desire.
Broad niches along the lofty hall held color views of the scenic wonders of other worlds the humanoids had won, but Forester was becoming impatient of wonders.
At the door of the toy room, a wave of heavy scent staggered him.
It was Ruth's perfume, Sweet Delirium.
Her usual hint of it was cleanly pleasant, but this thick reek overwhelmed him.
The room was huge and splendid, hung with softly glowing tapestries which the mechanicals must have copied from some nursery book, luminous with simple figures of animals and children at play.
He found her seated flat on the floor with her legs sprawled out, in the awkward posture a baby might have taken, and she must have drenched herself with that perfume, for its heavy sweetness seemed suffocating.
A mechanical stood watching her with a tireless blind attention.
At first she didn't see him.
"Ruth!" Shock had dried up his voice, and his knees shook.
"Ruth - darling!"
She was building a little tower out of soft, bright-hued plastic blocks, gravely careful and yet strangely clumsy.
Hearing his husky voice, she turned to face him as she sat, laughing in that cloud of choking sweetness, and he saw that age and ugliness had ceased to trouble her.
"Ruth - my poor dear!"
She looked as young as she had been when the hard blue light of the supernova struck them.
Her fine skin was pink from lotions and massage, and her dark hair had been washed blond.
Her brows were arched too thinly, her lips too crimson, and she wore a sheer blue negligee that she would before have thought too daring.
And all awareness of fear and pain was gone from her vacant, staring eyes.
"Hello." She spoke to him at last, with a child's soft and solemn voice, still holding one of the spongy blocks with a child's clutching awkwardness in both her red-nailed hands.
"Who are you?"
Terror struck Forester too dumb to answer, but she recognized him.
The soft block rolled slowly out of her hands, to bound across the plastic floor.
The humanoid moved instantly to bring it back, but her lax fingers didn't take it.
Her dark eyes big with effort, she whispered faintly:
"Your name's Clay.
Isn't it - Clay?"
"My dear!" The pathos of her uncertain voice had blinded him with tears, but he started quickly toward her.
"What have they done to you?"
Her searching eyes had slowly lit with a dim and wistful gladness, and her white arms reached out toward him in impulsive eagerness.
She didn't seem to sense his fear, but her movement overturned the tower of blocks.
Her round baby-eyes saw the damage, and her scarlet lips thrust out in a petulant baby-pout.
"Service, Ruth Forester."
The brisk little humanoid helped her gather the fallen blocks, and she began building them up again.
The groping uncertainty was gone from her eyes.
Absorbed again, she smiled with pleasure.
Forester heard a happy baby-chuckle.
She had forgotten him.
Chapter TWELVE
FORESTER'S KNEES were weak, and he could scarcely see.
Turning away from Ruth, he stumbled back into that splendid hall which was a gallery of windows into many other worlds that free men had lost, and he waited there for the humanoid to close the sliding door.
Catching a deep breath of unscented air, he whispered bitterly: