dollars for nothing," she would storm. "We have all
your hospital bills to pay. I need new clothes. Your stock in the stands
is too small."

What she left unspoken was the fact that she must secretly have hated
his engineering career in the deep levels under Appalachia, and that she
was dedicated to preventing his possible return....

After three years of blindness, under his wife's firm dominance, Duggan
felt only hate for her. With this sudden fortune he could be
independent. He could divorce her. He could rent a super mech--even
return to work in the ever-deepening levels of Appalachia City!

First of all he must see again.

He closed up the news-and-cigar stand. With his cane's sensitive radar
button pulsating beneath his fingers he hurried along the walkway toward
the nearest super mech showroom. It was less than three blocks....

* * * * *

"Be sure that all the contacts are against the skull and neck," the
salesman was saying, his voice muffled by the mentrol hood covering
Duggan's head and shoulders.

"Of course." Duggan's impatience made his voice shrill. "I've used
mentrols before when inspecting cave-ins and such."

"Very well, sir." The man's voice was relieved. Probably he hated his
job as much as Duggan hated his cigars and news.

Duggan tripped the switches and heard the building hum of power. An odd
sort of vibration that his mind told him was purely emotional, seemed to
be permeating his whole body.

Abruptly the transition was complete. He was no longer lying on the
padded bench beneath the mentrol hood. He was standing erect, conscious
of the retaining clamps that held him upright.

He gulped a deep draught of air into the artificial lungs that did not
need oxygen and his mechanical pulse quickened.

His eyes slitted open, drinking in by degrees the mirrored mentrol booth
and the pallid, fat, little man sitting beside his hooded body. He
stepped out of the clamps, his sharpened senses aware of softness, and
hardness, and scent, and color that human weakness so often blurs.

This super mech that was linked directly with his brain by twin mentrols
was tall, chunky and gray of eye and hair. In a general way it was a
duplicate of his own body, but there was no facial resemblance.

"How do you like it, sir?" The fat smile was empty, almost apologetic.
"We have younger, more handsome models...."

"Well enough." Duggan started donning the clothing that he had r