And what if modern science could illuminate and transform that world without altering its strangeness and its dangerous beauty, making it in every respect real? What if modern science, with the technical knowledge of intellectual giants and the lightning at its fingertips could create a Lilith? A woman of more than human beauty but still in every way a woman. A woman not fashioned of fire and dust but of living, breathing flesh, laboratory-created, perfect, flawless, in every aspect of her being.
Only a fool would think it impossible. Had not modern science achieved as great a miracle when it had released the wild stallions at the Atom's core? Why not ... why not? Modern science or—a technology alien to Earth?
Both were possible. There could be intelligent life on Mars, on Venus. What was it H.G. Wells had said? Great cool minds watching us, plotting our destruction....
The woman in Loring's arms spoke then, for the first time. She was no longer clinging to him, no longer moving her limbs in amorous abandonment and tugging at his hands in an effort to draw them to the warm cavern between her taut young breasts.
"Yes," she said.
Loring's temples began to pound. He stared at her wordlessly, looking deep into her eyes, unable to believe what he saw there. A calmness, a quiet depth of understanding—even a measure of pity. "Those were not all your thoughts," she said. "Some of them were mine."
"Who are you?" Loring breathed.
"Lilith," she said. "As you have thought of what such a woman could be to you if you believed in her as a scientific reality. Lilith, in that sense. Your dark enchantress—if my hair were not silvery blonde and my eyes were not blue. Laboratory created. Yes, that's true. And the disk gives me life and warmth and fire. I am a telepath. I can read your thoughts. But you were not supposed to know that. And you were not supposed to discover the disk. You stirred me beyond reason and I became careless. Your too eager hands...."
She sighed and the pity in her eyes seemed to deepen, widening her pupils in an unfathomable way.
"The harm is done now. There is nothing I can do. If I hadn't told you you would have tugged at the disk and I would have gone limp in your arms. Then your curiosity would have become insatiable. Fear alone would have made it insatiable. I know exactly what you would have done."