was not complete, but
the open part faced the fields behind the house so that good privacy was
ensured for all practical purposes.

On the steps of the verandah stood Marian.

Sight of her was enough to make me forget my self-accusation of a few
moments ago. She stood tall and lissome, the picture of slender, robust
health.

"Come in, Steve," she said, holding out her hand. I took it. Her grip
was firm and hard, but it was gentle. I knew that she could have pulped
my hand if she squeezed hard.

"I'm very happy to see that rumor is wrong and that you're
not--suffering--from Mekstrom's Disease," I told her.

"So now you know, Steve. Too bad."

"Why?"

"Because it adds a load to all of us. Even you." She looked at me
thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "Well, come on in and relax,
Steve. We'll talk it out."

We all went inside.

On a divan in the living room, covered by a light blanket, resting in a
very light snooze, was a woman. Her face was turned away from me, but
the hair and the line of the figure and the--

#Catherine!#

She turned and sat up at once, alive and shocked awake. She rubbed the
sleep from her eyes with swift knuckles and then looked over her hands
at me.

"Steve!" she cried, and all the world and the soul of her was in the
throb of her voice.

XII

Catherine took one unsteady step towards me and then came forward with a
rush. She hurled herself into my arms, pressed herself against me, held
me tight.

It was like being attacked by a bulldozer.

Phillip stayed my back against her headlong rush or I would have been
thrown back out through the door, across the verandah, and into the
middle of the yard. The strength of her crushed my chest and wrenched my
spine. Her lips crushed mine. I began to black out from the physical
hunger of a woman who did not know the extent of her new-found body. All
that Catherine remembered was that once she held me to the end of her
strength and yearned for more. To hold me that way now meant--death.

Her body was the same slenderness, but the warm softness was gone. It
was a flesh-warm waist of flexible steel. I was being held by a statue
of bronze, animated by some monster servo-mechanism. This was no woman.

Phillip and Marian pried her away from me before she broke my back.
Phillip led her away, whispering softly in her ear. Marian carried me to
the divan and let me down on my face gently. Her hands were gentle as
she pressed the air ba