act of pulling her
torso upright!

"What have you done to me?" she cried, focussing her still-dim vision
on the two men.

"Nothing, comrade. Relax."

Sophia turned slowly on the table, got one long shapely leg draped
over its edge.

"Careful, comrade."

What were they warning her about? She merely wanted to get up and
stretch; perhaps then she would feel better. Her toe touched the
floor, she swung her other leg over, aware of but ignoring her
nakedness.

"A good specimen."

"Oh, yes, comrade. So this time they send a woman among the others.
Well, we shall do our work. Look--see the way she is formed, so lithe,
loose-limbed, agile. See the toning of the muscles? Her beauty will
remain, comrade, but Jupiter shall make an amazon of her."

* * * * *

Sophia had both feet on the floor now. She was breathing hard, felt
suddenly sick to her stomach. Placing both her hands on the table
edge, she pushed off and staggered for two or three paces. She
crumpled, buckling first at the knees then the waist, and fell in a
writhing heap.

"Pick her up."

Hands under her arms, tugging. She came off the floor easily, dimly
aware that someone carried her hundred and thirty pounds effortlessly.
"Put me down!" she cried. "I want to try again. I am crippled,
crippled! You have crippled me...."

"Nothing of the sort, comrade. You are tired, weak, and Jupiter's
gravity field is still too strong for you. Little by little, though,
your muscles will strengthen to Jupiter's demands. Gravity will keep
them from bulging, expanding; but every muscle fibre in you will have
twice, three times its original strength. Are you excited?"

"I am tired and sick. I want to sleep. What is Jupiter?"

"Jupiter is a planet circling the sun at--never mind, comrade. You
have much to learn, but you can assimilate it with much less trouble
in your sleep. Go ahead, sleep."

Sophia retched, was sick. It had been years since she cried. But
naked, afraid, bewildered, she cried herself to sleep.

Things happened while she slept, many things. Certain endocrine
extracts accelerated her metabolism astonishingly. Within half an hour
her heart was pumping blood through her body two hundred beats per
minute. An hour later it reached its full rate, almost one thousand
contractions every sixty seconds. All her other metabolic functions
increased accordingly, and Sophia slept deeply for a week of
subjective time--in hours. The