g he discovered during the working morning at the office.
There had been nothing wrong with the mirror in his hotel room. The
washroom mirror was worse!

He stood for a while, frozen in midstep, while he looked at a lean
tanned and freckled face which looked like a color movie of his, every
feature in its proper place as he remembered it, but yet not his. It
didn't belong to him. He made faces at it, and it made faces back as
if it were his, while he tried to believe that he was looking out of
the gray eyes which looked back at him, then he heard someone coming
in and left suddenly and sheepishly.

That afternoon, after Pierce got into the swing of the work, he began
to be useful, fitting himself into the work routine as though he had
always been part of it, making the right calls and contacts and
appointments on the barest hints, handing him the phone intuitively as
he needed it, always at the right time with almost telepathic
instinct. While checking over the decisions and plans of Kesby and the
staff that needed his okay, and signing typed letters Bryce talked the
thoughts and plans which came half formed to mind, almost thinking
aloud. And when his remarks struck something that sounded like it
would be good to do soon, he saw Pierce jotting them down, later
detailing the preliminary steps for Bryce's use.

And too, all the small tasks were being taken from him with easy
naturalness, saving him much time. His assistant was being what he had
claimed he would be, a genuinely useful left hand. Bryce found himself
proud of the kid's manifest efficiency, for he was a product of the
same school that Bryce himself had climbed from.

On the way back to the hotel, after work, he caught Pierce glancing at
him with a thoughtful expression, and realized that he had been
faltering and giving a second glance to every public mirror that he
had passed. He was momentarily embarrassed, wondering if any strain
had showed on his expression.

There was a party he had to go to that night so he changed to formal
clothes and stepped off again for the home of the FN Administrative
Governor of the Moon.

He did not want to attend. It would be another of those stiff,
lonesome dinners he had suffered through before, but he had to learn
to make friends on his own social level, and be easy and convivial
with the kind of people he would be associating with the rest of his
life.

After the first hour had given him a good test, Bryce decide