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mur-dered them, carefully and efficiently. I'm sure you can guess why as easily as I. He was working for
another outfit, a rival concern. It would have to be a big one, big enough to want Prism's resources all to
itself. Just like our company does.
"Once he'd taken care of the staff, Humula would have the station to himself. First he'd pirate the
information we'd gathered and ship it off to his employers: then wait for `rescue.' That would be you,
Evan. He'd have a couple of options then. He could kill you and hope that would be enough to convince
the company to abandon its inter-ests here, or he could have dressed up a nice story about the
invulnerable inimical lifeforms that would render any kind of colony here untenable, and how he'd barely
man-aged to survive the attacks which had killed everyone else."
"And I probably would have believed him," Evan mur-mured softly.
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"Why not? I would've believed him myself without anyone or anything to contradict him. That's why he
had to come after me. I was the last witness, the last threat to his carefully thought out plan. But Prism got
to him first." She shook her head. "If I'd known that I could've gone straight back and called in. I
might-still be all me." She swallowed, sniffed once. "Hell with it. Half of me is history."
"This other Associative repaired you after the con-darite fell on you?"
"Shock alone almost killed me. When I finally regained consciousness I was a long way from where the
tree caught me. They'd carried me inside their wall and had gone to work. Gradually I got used to it-as
used as anyone can to having half a new body, I guess. Just being alive makes all sorts of changes
palatable.
"They'd saved the beacon, too. Naturally the falling condarite hadn't hurt it. That led to discussions of
bat-teries and..."
"I did the same favor for my friends." Evan indicated the attentive circle of silicate faces surrounding
them.
"So. There's nothing to stop us from going back to the station. That's not going to be easy for me."
"I'll help as much as I can. Getting a message out isn't going to be easy either, you know. I made a
thorough tour of the station before I started following your beacon. The local scavengers have been
pretty busy while you've been away."
"I can imagine. The native lifeforms treat rare earths, metals, and chemical compounds like candy." She
sat down on the frozen skeleton of a yellow-pink tree. Evan marveled at her fluid movements. The master
physicians who had repaired and replaced her crushed right side had done a remarkable job of
duplicating human muscle and bone with entirely different materials.
"I don't know how to ask this," he said finally, "so I'll just ask it. Are you-comfortable, like that?"
"Like what? Oh." She laughed easily. "I've progressed beyond comfortable. Actually, I don't give it
much thought. I'm not in pain, if that's what you mean. What matters is that I'm alive. In fact, I'm probably
subject to less pain than before, since my doctors didn't try to duplicate the density of neural endings
except where it really matters, like at the tips of my fingers. Talking is something else that's been hard for
me to get used to. My half-new vocal cords don't mesh quite perfectly with what's left of the old ones, so
I tend to whistle sometimes when I make s's. They were concentrating on saving the right side of my
brain. Peripherals didn't receive as much attention.
"On the other hand, they made some improvements. My new right eye sees things the left never dreamed
existed. I have a food storage system that lets me go without eating for quite a while. And then there's this
little toy, courtesy of some intensive barrean study." She raised her right hand and brought her fingers
halfway together, drew them over her left leg. The blue silicate skin picked up the light and dispersed it
harmlessly.
She looked into his eyes."So I guess you could say I'm comfortable with the way I turned out. Now, are
you comfortable with the way I am?"
Evan licked his lips. "Blue becomes you."
She laughed harder than ever. Now that it had been mentioned, Evan noticed the faint whistling
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overtones. It didn't detract from the beauty of her laugh at all.
"A diplomat. I like you, Evan Orgell."
"Just Evan."
"Then, just Martine. Even if you aren't entirely human anymore."
He glanced down at his transparent torso. "Just miss-ing some meat, and who's to say its replacement
isn't more durable? The problem now is, do we wash or pol-ish?" They laughed together.
"Prism has refashioned us in its own image. Partly, anyway." She turned serious. "You know, this world
is going to make some wondrous things possible if the people who come here to learn approach what it
has to offer with open minds. These changes have been forced on you and me by necessity, but there's
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