Part 2

Lyf smiled, reached under his cloak and produced a long sheet of paper covered with writing. "You're a hard bargainer, Miss Twilley," he said. "You extracted every condition you could possibly get on a deal of this kind. My congratulations. This is a personal contract I had drawn up. It's in English so you can understand it. All you do is sign both copies. In transactions like this no witnesses are necessary."

"You don't mind if I read it first?" Miss Twilley said. "Not that I don't trust you--but this is business."

"Not at all," Lyf said "and please note the escape clause which allows you a peremptory withdraw if you are not satisfied with the basic services."

* * * * *

Miss Twilley eyed the paper, skipping over the legal jargon, but carefully reading the specific provisions. It was deceptively simple and completely binding. But it didn't vary from Lyf's proposals. She would have ten years of health, wealth and beauty, in return for which she would surrender her body to Lyf, mardak of Gnoth, to employ as he saw fit--within certain limits provided by the exceptions. She sighed. It was fair enough, she supposed. There were a few exceptions like the suicide clause that allowed Lyf to take immediate possession if she tried to kill herself, and the war clause which permitted him to remove her to a safe place for the duration of the conflict. She shrugged. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it except the tone. Somehow it managed to convey the impression of a property rather than a personal transaction.

"It's always best to keep these things impersonal," the Devi said. "You sign on the bottom line underneath my cartouche."

Miss Twilley signed.

"And now," Lyf said briskly "there are a few formalities. Not that I don't trust you, of course, but business is business. Will you please disrobe?"

"Must I?"

Lyf nodded. "You must. I realize that this is embarrassing for you, but it would be infinitely more embarrassing if I placed my mark upon you while you were clothed."

Miss Twilley shivered a little as she reached for the zipper of her skirt. But she had expected something like this.

Lyf looked at her critically. "You're worse than I thought," he said. "However, your skeleton seems structurally sound and well proportioned. Now please turn around."

Miss Twilley had hardly turned her back when a lance of numbing cold struck her in the base of the spine. She jumped involuntarily as Lyf's voice came to her ears.

"There--that does it." He walked past her and turned off the T.V. The black hole winked out, leaving a shattered picture tube where it had been. "Now that you're a sixth order focal point we can dispense with this monstrosity," he said. "The automatics on Hel will generate a new gateway shortly."

"Now what?" Miss Twilley asked. She wasn't sure that she liked the idea of being a sixth order focus.

"The mark leaves a small red lesion," Lyf said, "but it won't bother you. However, I should warn you not to attempt to have it removed. That could be quite painful and perhaps fatal." He moved in front of her. "I expect that we'd better start therapy right away. That tumor isn't going to be easy to remove." His eyes were level with her own, twin pools of clear bottomless green with the darker spots of his pupils sharply demarcated from the surrounding iris. With mild surprise she realized that they were oval rather than round, and that their ellipses were growing--and encompassing her in their inner darkness.

* * * * *

Lyf eyed her solicitously from a chair next to her bed. There was a faint proprietory glint in his eyes but his voice was as soft as ever. "It's all done Enid," he said. "How do you like it?"

Miss Twilley didn't like the use of her first name. It sounded entirely too familiar, but she supposed that there was little she could do about it. After all he did have certain rights, even though their full exercise was some years hence. She stirred sleepily. She was in her own bedroom and the bed that she had slept in these past eighteen years was familiar and comforting. Except for the Devi sitting beside her everything was normal down to the last fold of the flannel nightgown that covered her.

She felt oddly alive, and somehow different. There was a fullness to her body and a heaviness to her chest. She looked down and gasped with surprise and pleasure at the jutting rise of the nightgown. She _had_ changed!

"That was the biggest part of the specifications," Lyf said with the faintest hint of amusement in his voice. "Your mental patterns were extraordinarily precise about some things. About others I had to use my own judgment. I hope the overall effect meets with your approval."

Miss Twilley felt as excited as an adolescent on her first date. She slipped out of bed and padded on bare feet over to the vanity in the corner. Eagerly she eyed herself in the big mirror. Even in the nightgown she looked good. Her face was still her own but it had been subtly changed, the features smoothed and rearranged. Her pale blue eyes were now a smoky gray, and her plain mouse-brown hair had reddish glints in it and was much thicker than before. It was a very satisfactory face, smooth and beautiful, and years younger. Why--she looked barely twenty five!

With a quick movement she bent, grasped the hem of her gown, and pulled it over her head.

And gasped!

She had never dreamed of looking like this, even in her wildest flights of fancy!

"Like it?" Lyf asked from his seat in the corner.

"_Like_ it!" she chortled. "I _adore_ it! How on Earth did you do it? You've not only made me beautiful, you've made me young!"

"I didn't do it on Earth," Lyf admitted. "I took you to Hel where there's some decent equipment. It wasn't much," he added vaguely, "merely the application of some rather simple cellular biology--mostly a rearrangement of DNA molecules and a bit of sarcoplasty. Actually it wasn't too difficult. The removal of your tumor was much harder. You'll find that two weeks have gone from your life, but they've been well spent."

"I should say they have!" Miss Twilley said as she pirouetted slowly before the glass. Her brows knit in a tiny frown as she saw her only blemish, a bright red spot at the base of her spine.

"The mark can't be helped," Lyf said, "but it doesn't detract at all. And it won't show even in a bikini."

"Forty, twenty-four, thirty-six." Miss Twilley breathed. "Lyf--I could kiss you!"

"I'd rather you wouldn't," Lyf said. "There is, after all, a certain species incompatibility between yours and mine. Incidentally, you have perfect health. You'll never know a sick day for the rest of your life which should be quite long. And I gave you a fine singing voice, and a mental attitude that will let you use it."

"Thank you," Miss Twilley murmured as she stared at her reflection.

"I've left instructions for your financial operations on your dresser. Follow them and you'll be financially independent. I think that does it. Everything is satisfactory, I trust."

"Completely," Miss Twilley breathed, never removing her eyes from the mirror.

"Then I shall be leaving."

* * * * *

Miss Twilley drew in a deep breath and observed the results with utter fascination. "Don't you think I'm beautiful?" she asked.

Lyf smiled. "Different worlds, different standards," he said. "Beautiful isn't quite the word I would use."

"What word _would_ you use?"

"Useful," Lyf said.

"Useful? Hmm. What do you mean?"

"It should be obvious," Lyf said. "But I suppose it isn't. You humans are a strange lot. You assume. You don't reason. And it always shocks you to find that your assumptions are wrong."

Miss Twilley looked at him with wide eyes. A cold chill ran down her spine and poked tingling rootlets of ice into her viscera. "What have I assumed?"

"Do I have to answer that?"

Miss Twilley blushed. The effect was far more startling this time.

Lyf smiled with an air that would have been infuriating in a human but was somehow appropriate for a Devi. Miss Twilley sighed. At least _that_ worry was removed.

"Perhaps I should give you a short synopsis of Devian society," Lyf said. "It's not like yours. Millennia ago our culture and technology evolved to the point where individual needs could be satisfied effortlessly. As a result we were compelled to consider group desires. Modern society on Hel is composed of enclaves with a community of interest plus certain ancillary groups that support them. The task of satisfying the desires of an enclave is infinitely more complex than satisfying an individual, which gives our civilization the necessary stimulus to progress.

"One of the reasons we deal with your world is to provide us with things impractical to produce upon our own. Another reason is amusement. If only you humans were not so savage we could perhaps arrange tours of Earth to observe you in your native haunts."

"Is that why--" Miss Twilley began.

He shook his head. "No--the importation of humans for ethnological studies has long since become a matter of interest only to highly specialized enclaves. _That_ subject has been exhausted for popular satisfaction. We have tried to import other species, but they do not thrive on Hel, and it takes a great deal of trouble merely to keep them alive. However, your race adapts so readily that even your cultural variations disappear in a few decades.

"It was this early importation and your ability to survive that has placed your race in such demand. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that your species cannot reproduce on our world, but the inhibitors we use to regulate our numbers also affect yours. Naturally, we can't risk a population explosion merely to reproduce your race. So we obtain more of you when necessary."

"Why?"

"Consider for a moment what might be valuable in a civilization that has no basic needs."

"Luxuries?"

"Precisely. As an ancillary system operator, I supply a luxury item to my fellow citizens. One that cannot be readily produced by our techniques. I said I was a mardak, but you never asked what it meant. You assumed it was a title. It is, but it's professional, not social. There are no classes on Hel, merely occupations."

"All right," Miss Twilley said reluctantly, "What is a mardak?"

"The closest analogy in your society," Lyf said, "is a dairyman."

THE END