"Somehow it's frightening—" Gillian Murray shivered—"the idea that Nature can work back to front, reverse the aging process."
"It's not an idea," he said. "It's a fact."
"Yes, I know," she replied, "but it's still uncanny. I've so many doubts. I mean will I really look the same? And my mind? Oh, they've told me there's no change—but there must be!" She buried her head in her hands.
Delman looked at her with compassion. "You needn't worry," he said. "Nothing can go wrong. The memory remains unimpaired; it's only the ability to make use of it that suffers—the knowledge is at your disposal. You'll be just like other young people, heedless and disinclined to profit from experience. You see, the mind is like a machine; you press the right buttons and it draws the right conclusion. The buttons are the facts to be considered and their selection is a matter of judgment. When we're young, our judgment is often at fault. When we're very young, we can't reason at all. There's nothing to fear—only youthful exuberance."
Before she could answer, the loudspeaker buzzed twice. There was a moment of silence, broken by the voice of Captain Ross.
"Attention, please! Attention, please! Will all passengers kindly retire to their cabins. The forward jets will be fired in exactly five minutes. I repeat, will all passengers—"
It was cool on the veranda, though outside, an alien sun beat down on the smooth expanse of runway, a narrow platform, less than a mile in length—the only flat stretch of land on the planet. Along the far edge, mountains, bathed in sunlight, rose in barren splendor, their sharp peaks reaching for the sky, while, on each remaining side, the ground dropped sheer away, to reform itself in twisting valleys thousands of feet below.
The house, two stories of prefabricated metal, stood perched on one of the outer corners. Opposite, packed tightly against the rock face, the emergency hangar rose in a gentle curve—a sheen of aluminum in contrast with the purple background of rejuvenite. Between them, the launching ramp stretched lengthwise down the runway, inclining steeply for the first fifty feet, then leveling out so that the cruel blast of the takeoff would be dispersed harmlessly over the edge of the precipice.
A few small store sheds were the only other signs of habitation.