Once a man let himself go, there was no companion, male or female, who could compare with the anamorph. She caught his every thought, crested the tides of his every mood. She became the idealization of woman, without flaws, formed and molded into a perfection beyond possible actuality, her beauty and desirability greater than any real woman's could ever be.
When full rapport had been achieved she was able to keep mentally ahead of a man. She could gauge his every reflex, and match her speech and actions to every subtle anticipation.
I felt almost happy then. The tragedy of being stranded here was something apart, and the reality was the delightful woman-creature warm against me ... until at last my passions grew sated with the luxuriance of her charms and I slept.
In the morning the anamorph was gone.
Eight other men had fears that must be eased. She might have spent parts of the night with any one or all of them. The thought would have been distasteful, except that absence made the sense of her less all-pervading. I even experienced a kind of grateful relief. I was able to regard her now, not as the real Lois I wanted, but as merely a source of solace I had badly needed.
The anamorph's presence during the night had drained all my pent-up frustrations. I was not happy, but I no longer felt the desperate loneliness and need that had goaded me before. I dressed leisurely and went out into the main compartment of the bubble.
Except in the sleeping rooms the plastic walls were transparent. I looked outside at the surface of Europa, covered with a white material I had been told was solid carbon dioxide.
A mild storm was brewing. The hydrogen, helium and methane in the atmosphere were colorless, and the argon and krypton too minute to be detected without instruments. But I could see and hear small particles of liquid ammonia as they pattered against the plastic wall. The bubble sagged in several places. But there was no danger of it collapsing.
In the space ship galley (to which the bubble had been attached) I found the captain, Mark Burgess, and the anamorph having coffee.