"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?"