"I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?"
He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?"
He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are."
"It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?"
He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement, she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again....
Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger....
She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance."
He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said.
"I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...."