Rheya joined me, squatting on the floor in her accustomed manner with her legs folded under her, and tossing back her hair. I was no longer under any illusion: this was not Rheya — and yet I recognized her every habitual gesture. Horror gripped me by the throat; and what was most horrible was that I must go on tricking her, pretending to take her for Rheya, while she herself sincerely believed that she was Rheya — of that I was certain, if one could be certain of anything any longer.

She was leaning against my knees, her hair brushing my hand. We remained thus for some while. From time to time, I glanced at my watch. Half-an-hour went by; the sleeping tablets should have started to work. Rheya murmured something:

“What did you say?”

There was no reply.

Although I attributed her silence to the onset of sleep, secretly I doubted the effectiveness of the pills. Once again, I did not ask myself why. Perhaps it was because my subterfuge seemed too simple.

Slowly her head slid across my knees, her dark hair falling over her face. Her breathing grew deeper and more regular; she was asleep. I stooped in order to lift her on to the bed. As I did so, her eyes opened; she put her arms round my neck and burst into shrill laughter.

I was dumbfounded. Rheya could hardly contain her mirth. With an expression that was at once ingenuous and sly, she observed me through half-closed eyelids. I sat down again, tense, stupefied, at a loss. With a final burst of laughter, she snuggled against my legs.

In an expressionless voice, I asked:

“Why are your laughing?”

Once again, a look of anxiety and surprise came over her face. It was clear that she wanted to give me an honest explanation. She sighed, and rubbed her nose like a child.

“I don’t know,” she said at last, with genuine puzzlement. “I’m behaving like an idiot, aren’t I? But so are you… you look idiotic, all stiff and pompous like… like Pelvis.”

I could hardly believe my ears.

“Like who?”

“Like Pelvis. You know who I mean, that fat man….”

Rheya could not possibly have known Pelvis, or even heard me mention him, for the simple reason that he had returned from an expedition three years after her death. I had not known him previously and was therefore unaware of his inveterate habit, when presiding over meetings at the Institute, of letting sessions drag on indefinitely. Moreover, his name was Pelle Villis and until his return I did not know that he had been nicknamed Pelvis.

Rheya leaned her elbows on my knees and looked me in the eyes. I put out my hand and stroked her arms, her shoulders and the base of her bare neck, which pulsed beneath my fingers. While it looked as though I was caressing her (and indeed, judging by her expression, that was how she interpreted the touch of my hands) in reality I was verifying once again that her body was warm to the touch, an ordinary human body, with muscles, bones, joints. Gazing calmly into her eyes, I felt a hideous desire to tighten my grip.

Suddenly I remembered Snow’s bloodstained hands, and let go.

“How you stare at me,” Rheya said, placidly.

My heart was beating so furiously that I was incapable of speech. I closed my eyes. In that very instant, complete in every detail, a plan of action sprang to my mind. There was not a second to lose. I stood up.

“I must go out, Rheya. If you absolutely insist on coming with me, I’ll take you.”

“Good.”

She jumped to her feet.

I opened the locker and selected a suit for each of us. Then I asked:

“Why are you bare-foot?”

She answered hesitantly:

“I don’t know… I must have left my shoes somewhere.”

I did not pursue the matter.

“You’ll have to take your dress off to put this on.”

“Flying-overalls? What for?”

As she tried to take off her dress, an extraordinary fact became apparent: there were no zips, or fastenings of any sort; the red buttons down the front were merely decorative. Rheya smiled, embarrassed.

As though it were the most normal way of going about it, I picked up some kind of scalpel from the floor and slit the dress down the back from neck to waist, so that she could pull it over her head.

When she had put on the flying-overalls (which were slightly too large for her) and we were about to leave, she asked:

“Are we going on a flight?”

I merely nodded. I was afraid of running into Snow. But the dome was empty and the door leading to the radio-cabin was shut.

A deathly silence still hung over the hangar-deck. Rheya followed my movements attentively. I opened a stall and examined the shuttle vehicle inside. I checked, one after another, the micro-reactor, the controls, and the diffusers. Then, having removed the empty capsule from its stand, I aimed the electric trolley towards the sloping runway.

I had chosen a small shuttle used for ferrying stores between the Station and the satellite, one that did not normally carry personnel since it did not open from the inside. The choice was carefully calculated in accordance with my plan. Of course, I had no intention of launching it, but I simulated the preparations for an actual departure. Rheya, who had so often accompanied me on my space-flights, was familiar with the preliminary routine. Inside the cockpit, I checked that the climatization and oxygen-supply systems were functioning. I switched in the main circuit and the indicators on the instrument panel lit up. I climbed out and said to Rheya, who was waiting at the foot of the ladder:

“Get in.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll follow you. I have to close the hatch behind us.”

She gave no sign that she suspected any trickery. When she had disappeared inside, I stuck my head into the opening and asked:

“Are you comfortable?”

I heard a muffled “yes” from inside the confined cockpit. I withdrew my head and slammed the hatch to with all my strength. I slid home the two bolts and tightened the five safety screws with the special spanner I had brought with me. The slender metal cigar stood there, pointing upwards, as though it were really about to take off into space.

Its captive was in no danger: the oxygen-tanks were full and there were food supplies in the cockpit. In any case, I did not intend to keep her prisoner indefinitely. I desperately needed two hours of freedom in order to concentrate on the decisions which had to be taken and to work out a joint plan of action with Snow.

As I was tightening the last screw but one, I felt a vibration in the three-pronged clamp which held the base of the shuttle. I thought I must have loosened the support in my over-eager handling of the heavy spanner, but when I stepped back to take a look, I was greeted by a spectacle which I hope I shall never have to see again.

The whole vehicle trembled, shaken from the inside as though by some superhuman force. Not even a steel robot could have imparted such a convulsive tremor to an 8-ton mass, and yet the cabin contained only a frail, dark-haired girl.

The reflections from the lights quivered on the shuttle’s gleaming sides. I could not hear the blows; there was no sound whatever from inside the vehicle. But the outspread struts vibrated like taut wires. The violence of the shock-waves was such that I was afraid the entire scaffolding would collapse.

I tightened the final screw with a trembling hand, threw down the spanner and jumped off the ladder. As I slowly retreated, I noticed that the shock-absorbers, designed to resist a continuous pressure, were vibrating furiously. It looked to me as though the shuttle’s outer skin was wrinkling.

Frenziedly, I rushed to the control panel and with both hands lifted the starting lever. As I did so the intercom connected to the shuttle’s interior gave out a piercing sound — not a cry, but a sound which bore not the slightest resemblance to the human voice, in which I could nevertheless just make out my name, repeated over and over again: “Kris! Kris! Kris!”