ns looked curiously at their bodies, examined
with sharp interest their hands and feet. They stared at each other, and
saw their formlessness mirrored in each other's eyes. They were not yet
men; but they were not children either. Certain abstractions remained,
and the ghosts of memories. Maturation came quickly, born of old habit
patterns and personality traits, retained in the broken threads of their
former lives on Earth.

The new men clung to the vague recollections of concepts, ideas, rules.
Within a few hours, their phlegmatic blandness had begun to pass. They
were becoming men now. Individuals. Out of a dazed and superficial
conformity, sharp differences began to emerge. Character reasserted
itself, and the five hundred began to discover what they were.

Will Barrent stood in line for a look at himself in the barracks mirror.
When his turn came, he saw the reflection of a thin-faced, narrow-nosed,
pleasant-looking young man with straight brown hair. The young man had a
resolute, honest, unexceptional face, unmarked by any strong passion.
Barrent turned away disappointed; it was the face of a stranger.

Later, examining himself more closely, he could find no scars or
anything else to distinguish his body from a thousand other bodies. His
hands were uncallused. He was wiry rather than muscular. He wondered
what sort of work he had done on Earth.

Murder?

He frowned. He wasn't ready to accept that.

A man tapped him on the shoulder. "How you feeling?"

Barrent turned and saw a large, thick-shouldered red-haired man standing
beside him.

"Pretty good," Barrent said. "You were in line behind me, weren't you?"

"That's right. Number 401. Name's Danis Foeren."

Barrent introduced himself.

"Your crime?" Foeren asked.

"Murder."

Foeren nodded, looking impressed. "Me, I'm a forger. Wouldn't think it
to look at my hands." He held out two massive paws covered with sparse
red hair. "But the skill's there. My hands remembered before any other
part of me. On the ship I sat in my cell and looked at my hands. They
itched. They wanted to be off and doing things. But the rest of me
couldn't remember what."

"What did you do?" Barrent asked.

"I closed my eyes and let my hands take over," Foeren said. "First thing
I knew, they were up and picking the lock of the cell." He held up his
huge hands and looked at them admiringly. "Clever little devils!"

"Picking the lock?" Barrent asked. "But I thought you were a