The girl licked her lips before she spoke. They were very nice lips. They were delicious lips. Horner had tasted them. He was suddenly reminded of a magician who makes diverting passes with one hand while performing his magic with the other. "Money," the girl said laconically.
"Money? But I'm only paying three thousand dollars. Surely a man wouldn't surrender his youth for such a sum!"
"Our regulations call for a man's total savings. In your case, three thousand dollars. But most of our clients are extremely wealthy, Mr. Horner. Now, since half of the fee goes to the youth who will become Hugh Horner while we keep the other half...."
"But fifteen hundred dollars only!"
"I should have said it goes into a pool. A yearly pool, you see. The average last year was four-hundred sixty-five thousand dollars, Mr. Horner. Don't you think some young men would be willing to surrender twenty years of their lives for half a million dollars?"
"I wouldn't if I were young," Horner said at once.
"Between you and me, that's because you aren't. But it's their choice to make, and it's a free choice. Now, have you made a selection?"
Horner looked at the eight men again, and shrugged.
"I see," the girl said. "And I agree. They're all choice specimens, is that what you're thinking? All strong, all healthy, and all will probably be in better shape than you are, twenty years from now."
"Do I get some kind of a guarantee on their health? I mean, what if ... if I should pick one of them with an incurable disease or something?" Although he asked this very practical question, Horner still hardly expected to go through with anything as incredible as switching bodies with one of the young men on the other side of the glass partition. After all, he told himself for the tenth time, such things just weren't possible. This was either an elaborate joke or an elaborate dream. He decided—hopefully—that it was the latter. He recalled that the doctor had given him reserprine to calm his nerves recently, and the doctor had told him that one of the side effects of reserprine was an abundance of nightmare.