She shook her head, the sullen glamorous smile transfixing her face. "I wish I did," she said.
He was struck by the intensity. "Why?" he asked. He wanted to know too but it wasn't an emotional thing.
"Don't you know? I'm one of them."
One of what, he was about to ask before he realized she meant she was a deficient whose salvaged body lacked certain physiological elements. More, she was one whose preparation couldn't be identified. "Don't worry. It'll take us a little while to trace everything but we'll have it straightened out in a matter of days."
"You'd better," she said, and it was not exactly a threat. There were overtones he couldn't account for.
Before he could stop her she began loosening her dress and for the first time he saw that she wasn't breathing, that she never did. Her dress fluttered as the air went in and out, sleeping or waking, without volition, responding mechanically to the needs of her bloodstream. The breathing mechanism was hidden in her body, replacing her lungs. Moreover it was probably connected to her speech centers in such a way to release a certain amount to her throat when the nervous system demanded. Perhaps it accounted for the peculiar vibrant quality of her voice.
She pointed to the tube that was showing. "It's not just lungs I lack," she said. "Everyone, man or woman, manufactures both male and female hormones, in different proportions of course. Except me. I don't produce a single male hormone." She stared at him intently.
"Do you know what that means?" Her voice was rising, terror mingled with something else. "Without injections in a few months I'll be completely female. One hundred per cent woman and nothing else."
He thought he saw her grow more feminine before his eyes; reluctantly he turned away. Theoretically the completely female person should be repulsive, yet she wasn't. If anything, pathetic features dominated.
Pure feminity could destroy her, but how long would it take? He could discount her own estimate as arbitrary. She had decided on it in an attempt at self dramatization.